Southwest Notes: JJJ, Iisalo, Fears, Murray, Durant

Jaren Jackson Jr. shares his memories of nearly eight seasons with the Grizzlies and expresses his love to Memphis fans in a first-person piece for The Players’ Tribune. Jackson also relays the experience of finding out he had been traded to the Jazz, saying he knew right away that’s why he was called into general manager Zach Kleiman‘s office.

“It’s funny, though, when the conversation ended I was just awkwardly looking around all confused like John Travolta in Pulp Fiction,” Jackson wrote. “Like, Well, what now? I literally asked him, “Can I go back upstairs and say bye?” Like he was gonna press a button, and the trap door was gonna open up.”

Jackson stated that those final goodbyes were lighthearted, but they represented the end of a significant part of his NBA career. While the relationships may remain, he realized he was seeing his friends as teammates for the final time.

“But one thing I’ll never forget was a moment in the locker room before I left, when everyone was joking around again,” Jackson added. “And it was just so weird because in my head it was like, Wow, this is the last time I’m gonna see this. They were about to leave to get on a plane. It was a wrap. But I was joking around as if I was gonna see them later. I was just laughing, deep down thinking like, ‘Wow, I’m definitely gonna miss y’all boys.’ I didn’t say it in the moment. But I’m saying it now.”

There’s more from the Southwest Division:

• Prior to Saturday’s game, Grizzlies coach Tuomas Iisalo told reporters that his approach to the season hasn’t been affected by the Jackson trade or other personnel moves, per Ira Winderman of The Sun Sentinel (Twitter link). “Well, we’re trying to accomplish a lot,” Iisalo said. “The expectations have not changed. It doesn’t have anything to do with the roster we play. We still expect everybody to give max effort, max focus.”
• It’s been a season filled with growing pains for Jeremiah Fears and the Pelicans, but the rookie guard expresses confidence that better times are ahead in an interview with Sam Yip of HoopsHype. “Being able to lose to understand how to win, I think that’s huge,” Fears said. “We’ve been in a lot of very close games. We just got to learn how to finish. And I think once we learn how to finish, we’ll be really, really good and we’ll end up flipping the switch.”
• The Pelicans are targeting Tuesday against Golden State for Dejounte Murray‘s season debut, according to Rod Walker of NOLA (Twitter link).“I expect him to be there in the next couple games,” interim coach James Borrego said before tonight’s contest. “Hopefully it’s Tuesday night. We’d all be excited for that.”
• Rockets coach Ime Udoka would like to cut back on Kevin Durant‘s minutes, relays Varun Shankar of The Houston Chronicle (Twitter link). Durant is logging 36.7 minutes per game in his first season with the team, and Udoka would prefer to trim that number to 33 or 34.