{"id":473189,"date":"2026-02-13T21:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T21:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/473189\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T21:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T21:58:08","slug":"memphis-grizzlies-will-have-one-less-representative-in-nba-rising-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/473189\/","title":{"rendered":"Memphis Grizzlies will have one less representative in NBA Rising Stars"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"67\">Memphis Grizzlies wing Cedric Coward, one of the team\u2019s top bright spots and a strong candidate for the NBA\u2019s All-Rookie First Team, will miss the Rising Stars Challenge due to right knee soreness.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6a\">Set to participate on Team Vince, led by honorary coach Vince Carter, Coward becomes the fourth first or second-year player who has had to bow out of the event.\u00a0 He sat out Wednesday&#8217;s final game before the All-Star break against the Denver Nuggets.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6d\">Rookie of the Year favorite Cooper Flagg of the Mavericks, Wizards second-year center Alex Sarr, and Thunder second-year guard Ajay Mitchell already had to bow out.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6g\">Team Austin, the fourth participating team composed of G Leaguers, has seen David Jones Garcia (Spurs) and Mac McClung (Bulls) forced out of competing.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">\u2b50\ufe0f The 2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CastrolUSA?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@CastrolUSA<\/a> Rising Stars rosters \u2b50\ufe0f<\/p>\n<p>Watch the next generation of young stars in action TONIGHT at 9:00pm\/et on Peacock! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/yo2jMIjH4B\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/yo2jMIjH4B<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NBA (@NBA) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NBA\/status\/2022324889026494657?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">February 13, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6m\">Spurs rookie Carter Bryant will step in for Coward, who will be re-evaluated next week before the regular season resumes with the Grizzlies hosting the Utah Jazz.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6p\">Coward, a 22-year-old from Fresno who was expected to transfer to Duke from Washington State before excelling in pre-draft workouts, originally started his college career at Division II Willamette before landing at Eastern Washington. He ended up being selected 11th by the Portland Trail Blazers, who moved him on draft night for the rights of Chinese 7-footer Yang Hansen and future considerations.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6s\">Coward has played in 48 games this season, starting 35 times and averaging 13.3 points, 6.2 rebounds, 2.9 assists. He\u2019s shooting 34 percent from 3-point range, nearly 47 percent from the field and has drawn comparisons to Kawhi Leonard for his fluid style even though he\u2019s not as big.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-9\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6z\">It remains to be seen whether Coward can get back in the early groove he enjoyed, but it\u2019s clear he\u2019s physically hit a rookie wall. The 15.5 points he averaged in October remains his highest in a month, edging the 15.4 he managed in January.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-10\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"72\">Over his last five games entering the All-Star break, Coward has averaged just 8.0 points, shooting 2-for-14 from 3-point range. His rebounding numbers are down and he played just 12 minutes against Golden State on Monday, so not playing on Friday night gives Coward an opportunity to get his body right and hopefully feel refreshed entering the stretch run.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-11\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"75\">Coward was set to play alongside fellow starter Jaylen Wells, who may now be in line for more minutes. Grizzlies guard Cam Spencer will play for Tracy McGrady\u2019s squad, Team T-Mac.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-12\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"78\">2024 No. 1 pick Zaccharie Risacher (Hawks), Jazz wing Ace Bailey, Wizards guard Bub Carrington and Bryant have been announced as Rising Stars fill-ins, while Jahmir Young (Heat), was added, representing the Sioux Falls Skyforce.<\/p>\n<p>More Memphis Grizzlies Stories<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Memphis Grizzlies wing Cedric Coward, one of the team\u2019s top bright spots and a strong candidate for the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473190,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-473189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}