Ty Jerome’s scoring surge is carrying Memphis’s early climb

Ty Jerome’s breakout has changed the shape of Memphis’s start. The Grizzlies are 6-2, and their early success has come with Jerome functioning as the team’s primary scoring option rather than a complementary piece.

That shift matters because Memphis did not get to 6-2 on balance alone. The Grizzlies opened with six straight wins, then dropped back-to-back games, including a 107-103 loss to Indiana on Wednesday. Even in defeat, Jerome stayed at the center of the offense: he scored 23 points against the Pacers, his fifth 20-point game of the season. A day later, an NBA.com feature framed him as the league’s latest scoring surprise.

The raw production is the first thing that stands out. Jerome has three 30-point games in seven appearances and is averaging 27.4 points per game. He also posted his second 40-point game of the season on Monday against New Orleans, a night when he scored 17 of Memphis’s final 19 points. That kind of late-game concentration is not just volume; it is a sign that the Grizzlies trust him to carry possession after possession when the offense tightens.

The bigger development is how he is getting those points. Jerome is not surviving on one hot shot type. The feature notes that he has kept his 3-point shooting steady at 37.5 percent while averaging 2.6 made threes per game. More importantly, he has expanded into the paint, where he is averaging 11.4 points per game — nearly 70 percent above his previous career high in that area. For a player who had averaged 9.3 points per game for his career before this season, that is a meaningful jump in where and how he can score.

Memphis has also built the offense around his decisions. Jerome owns a team-high 31.2 percent usage rate and has become the Grizzlies’ primary pick-and-roll ball-handler. That matters because it turns him from a spot-up threat into the initiator of the action. The feature says he is averaging an NBA-best 15 points per game as the pick-and-roll handler and another NBA-best 14 points per game off drives. Those numbers do not explain everything about Memphis’s offense, but they do show why opponents cannot simply load up on one area and hope to contain him.

There is a clear team consequence here: Memphis ranks fourth in offensive rating entering its next matchup against Oklahoma City. That ranking does not guarantee the same result every night, but it does confirm that Jerome’s scoring is part of an offense producing at a high level early. The Grizzlies’ 6-2 record is not built on his points alone, yet his emergence has given them the kind of lead scorer they did not have to this degree a year ago.

The next test arrives immediately against Oklahoma City in the Emirates NBA Cup. Memphis gets that game after consecutive losses, which means Jerome’s expanded role will stay under the same pressure it has already passed through in the first two weeks. The Grizzlies have a record that still reflects their fast start, and now they have a clear focal point to try to extend it.