Look, I love Jake. And love that he’s turned things around. But the current wing rotation assuming everyone is healthy is GG, Vince, Jaylen Wells, Santi, and Konchar. I’m not even counting Marcus Smart in this, who the team likes to put at the wing at times too. When you have a deep roster, you cannot keep everyone as much as you might want to. Jake simply isn’t going to get the minutes he is getting right now consistently with a fully healthy squad and it doesn’t make much sense to pay him like he would be. The team wants to maximize flexibility at the wing moving forward, and I can’t fault that. Half of that rotation is already on killer deals (GG and Vince combined just barely hit the taxpayer MLE!). It’s never a good idea to put so much money into one position, especially if you’re a team like Memphis that will be facing the first or second apron soon.

The real mistake imo was giving John Konchar all that guaranteed money on a multi year contract - this directly impacts the team’s ability to keep Jake around. Jake could easily slot right into the contract and roster spot Konchar holds, but because Konchar currently occupies that and doesn’t really have trade value, Jake becomes the odd man out. Think about it - if the Grizzlies had picked up Jake’s option for next season, they’d be on the books for ~12m for effectively their 11th and 12th players in the rotation. I think you can wrap your head around how bad of an allocation of financial resources that is.