{"id":585502,"date":"2026-04-04T18:30:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T18:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/585502\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T18:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T18:30:11","slug":"two-nba-coaches-respond-to-lebron-james-diss-of-memphis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/585502\/","title":{"rendered":"Two NBA coaches respond to LeBron James’ diss of Memphis"},"content":{"rendered":"

During a recent appearance on “Bob Does Sports,” LeBron James savagely dissed the city of Memphis and said that the Memphis Grizzlies<\/a> should move to Nashville, which happens to be the most populous city in the state of Tennessee. He even suggested that had the Grizzlies won the No. 1 pick in the 2003 NBA Draft, he might have refused to play for them.<\/p>\n

In response, Grizzlies coach Tuomas Iisalo, who has been at the helm of the team since late last season, defended Memphis and said that his experience in the area has been a positive one, per ESPN<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I can say from my own perspective that I have the complete opposite — 180-degree perspective on that,” Iisalo said. “The Memphis where we have arrived less than two years ago has been very warm. Very welcoming.”<\/p>\n

He seems very opposed to the idea of the Grizzlies relocating.<\/p>\n

“All I can say is Memphis is the right place for the Grizzlies,” Iisalo said.<\/p>\n

In addition, Darko Rajakovic, who was an assistant coach with the Grizzlies for three seasons starting with the 2020-21 campaign, said he enjoyed several aspects of his time in Memphis.<\/p>\n

“I don’t care what the rest of the world thinks,” Rajakovic said. “I love the people of Memphis. I love the food. I love every single time I come over here.”<\/p>\n

Just three years ago, when Rajakovic was in his final season as an assistant under Taylor Jenkins, the Grizzlies were starting to look like a budding contender. But that spring, James’ Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> upset them in the first round of the playoffs, and since then, they have dramatically declined. Star guard Ja Morant has been riddled by injuries and off-the-court incidents, and his supporting cast has been underwhelming.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

The team currently has a 25-52 record, which puts it in 11th place in the Western Conference, and it is 11 games behind the Golden State Warriors for the final play-in tournament spot.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on LeBron Wire: Two NBA coaches respond to LeBron James’ diss of Memphis<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During a recent appearance on “Bob Does Sports,” LeBron James savagely dissed the city of Memphis and said…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":585503,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,79986,5552,12988,7896,7232,733,5851,286624,590,85,228806,183059],"class_list":{"0":"post-585502","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-darko-rajakovic","11":"tag-golden-state-warriors","12":"tag-ja-morant","13":"tag-lebron-james","14":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","15":"tag-memphis","16":"tag-memphis-grizzlies","17":"tag-most-populous-city","18":"tag-nba","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-the-grizzlies","21":"tag-tuomas-iisalo"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/585503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}