Memphis Grizzlies Clear the Decks as Cameron Boozer Takes Over

The Memphis Grizzlies spent last weekend doing the least glamorous thing a rebuilding team can do: paying a veteran to leave. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope agreed to a buyout on Saturday, July 25, gave back a reported $3.88 million of the $21.62 million player option he had picked up in June, and was waived. He is joining Philadelphia on a minimum deal. That is not the kind of transaction that sells season tickets, but it is the cleanest summary available of where this franchise stands in late July 2026. Every contract that does not serve the next five years is being unwound, one at a time, to make room for the ones that do. The one that matters most belongs to a 19-year-old forward who just spent two weeks proving the lottery got it right.

The week that was in Memphis Grizzlies news

The Caldwell-Pope buyout does two things. It drops his cap charge from roughly $21.6 million to about $17.7 million, and more importantly it opened the standard roster slot Memphis needed to sign Karim Lopez, the No. 21 pick, to his rookie contract. Lopez's deal guarantees $3,746,760 for 2026-27 and $3,934,320 for 2027-28, with team options in years three and four. He is the first player born and raised in Mexico to be selected in the first round of an NBA draft, which he did not treat as a footnote. "It means a lot to me," he said after the pick.

Caldwell-Pope arrived in the Desmond Bane trade and never fit. He played 51 games last season, averaged 8.4 points and shot 31.6 percent from three, his worst mark in a decade. Paying him to leave was always the likeliest ending. It also leaves Memphis under roughly $160 million in salary for next season, beneath the $165 million cap line, while still operating as an over-the-cap team so it can protect the $28.9 million trade exception generated by the Jaren Jackson Jr. deal. That exception is the single most useful asset on the books that is not a player.

Cameron Boozer made Summer League feel like a formality

Boozer, the No. 3 pick out of Duke, opened in Salt Lake City on July 4 against Oklahoma City with 15 points on 7-of-11 shooting in 24 minutes, his father Carlos watching from courtside. He got better from there. On July 11 in Las Vegas he drew the matchup everyone wanted, going against Chicago's Caleb Wilson, the No. 4 pick and a former AAU teammate with whom he won a Nike Peach Jam title. Boozer opened that game by stripping Wilson in the backcourt and dunking it, finished with 23 points on 7-of-12 shooting, six rebounds, four assists, a steal and a block, and Memphis won 97-96.

Across eight games between the two events he averaged 18.5 points, 8.0 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 1.8 steals, and the NBA named him to the All-Summer League First Team. Cedric Coward made the Second Team. Memphis rode that pair to the Las Vegas final and lost 94-90 to Golden State, blowing a double-digit fourth-quarter lead. Boozer had 19 points, eight rebounds and four assists in the loss; Coward also had 19. Yaxel Lendeborg, the Warriors' rookie, took Summer League MVP.

Boozer's public register is boring in the way front offices like. "We're just trying to find our team chemistry and I just want to come in and help any team win a championship and that starts right now with the first few games," he said after the Chicago win. Lopez debuted July 16 against Atlanta, a 96-64 Memphis win, and played only 11 minutes while working back from a hamstring strain. He scored two points and did not look like a finished product, which at 19 and one year removed from the New Zealand Breakers is the correct amount of unfinished.

What the Memphis Grizzlies roster looks like now

Both franchise cornerstones are gone inside of six months. Jackson went to Utah at the February 3 deadline in a package that returned Walter Clayton Jr., Taylor Hendricks, Kyle Anderson, Georges Niang and three first-round picks, including the most favorable 2027 selection among Utah, Minnesota and Cleveland, a top-four-protected 2027 Lakers pick and Phoenix's unprotected 2031. Ja Morant went to Portland in late June for Jerami Grant, Kris Murray and $1 million in cash. Morant played 20 games last season and averaged 19.5 points and 8.1 assists when he was on the floor; the return was modest, and the point was salary relief and a clean break rather than a haul.

The rest of the summer was volume. Memphis acquired Isaiah Stewart from Detroit for three second-round picks it had gotten from Detroit the night before, then folded that into a six-team deal that also brought in AJ Johnson from Dallas, D'Angelo Russell from Washington, a top-20-protected 2030 Warriors first and a stack of seconds, while sending Santi Aldama to Dallas. In free agency, Memphis signed Quinten Post to a three-year, $30 million offer sheet that Golden State declined to match, adding a 7-footer who started 35 games last season and made 93 threes at 33.6 percent. Second-rounder Richie Saunders, the No. 32 pick out of BYU, arrives off a season-ending ACL injury after averaging 12.1 points, 4.1 rebounds and 2.1 assists over his college career.

The cap sheet and a roster that does not fit

The math problem is real. Memphis has carried more than 20 players on standard contracts this summer against a limit of 15, plus three two-ways, by opening night. Caldwell-Pope was the first cut. Russell, owed $5.97 million, has been widely reported as the next candidate to be moved or bought out, and AJ Johnson and Kris Murray have both been flagged as unlikely to see October in a Memphis uniform. Zach Kleiman has until the season opener to sort it, and he has both the flexibility beneath the tax line and the trade exception to do it without giving anything up.

The rotation questions underneath that are more interesting. Coward, the No. 11 pick in 2025, made All-Rookie First Team on 13.6 points, 5.9 rebounds and 2.8 assists in 62 games while shooting 47.1 percent from the field and 84.3 percent from the line. He is the closest thing Memphis has to an established young starter. Jaylen Wells played 69 games and averaged 12.5. Grant, at 32, is the veteran scorer on a team that mostly does not need one, which makes him the likeliest name in trade talk between now and February.

Injury and rehab watch

• Zach Edey: appeared in just 11 games last season after two ankle procedures. He averaged 13.6 points and 11.1 rebounds when available, and his health is the biggest swing factor in the frontcourt now that Post is also on the roster.
• Richie Saunders: recovering from a season-ending ACL tear suffered at BYU, which limited his pre-draft combine work.
• Karim Lopez: a hamstring strain held him to a cameo in his Summer League debut.
• Cameron Boozer: no reported issues after eight Summer League games.

What is next on the Memphis Grizzlies calendar

Training camp opens in late September, with media day immediately preceding it, and the 2026-27 regular season tips off in October. Memphis drew West Group B in the Emirates NBA Cup alongside Oklahoma City, Minnesota, the LA Clippers and New Orleans, which is about as unforgiving a five-team pod as the draw could produce for a rebuilding roster. Cup group play begins October 30. Before any of that, Kleiman has to shed at least five standard contracts.

Memphis went 25-57 last season and finished 13th in the Western Conference, and nothing about this summer suggests the 2026-27 win total is the point. The point is that a team that spent five years contending with Morant and Jackson has swapped that core for the No. 3 pick, a stack of future firsts from Utah, the Lakers, Phoenix and Golden State, a 22-year-old All-Rookie wing and roughly $29 million in absorbable salary. Kleiman has been explicit that he is not planning a half-decade in the wilderness. Boozer's July was the first evidence that he might not need one.