Nine days into the 2026-27 NBA season, the standings already look unstable enough to make a sensible person distrust every shiny record on the board. And yet here comes the Grizzlies schedule with a game that actually means something: The Memphis Grizzlies visit the Portland Trail Blazers on Thursday at 10 p.m. ET in a meeting of unbeaten teams.
That matters because the season is still only 68 games old in the broad, weird sense of early sample noise. Records are volatile, margins are tiny, and two teams had even played only three times by this point. Still, the Grizzlies have done the one thing that can’t be faked in October: win. They enter Thursday with a 5-0 record, one of three undefeated teams left standing before tip-off.
An early test, not a coronation
This is exactly the kind of matchup that exposes how flimsy early noise can be. The Rockets beat the Mavs on opening night, then beat the Spurs in Austin two nights later. On Tuesday, the Blazers handed the 4-1 Lakers their only loss. On Wednesday, the Oklahoma City Thunder suffered their first loss. By Thursday morning, the unbeaten club had already been reduced to a small, fragile list. The Grizzlies are still on it, but that does not mean they are immune from a reality check.
That is what makes the Grizzlies schedule worth watching right now: the first nine days have already produced enough chaos to make any clean narrative dangerous. The Grizzlies have four wins in the bank, but they have not earned the luxury of being treated as a finished product. Early-season records tell you who has started well. They do not tell you who is safe, settled or built for April.
What the numbers actually say
The article’s own framing is the important part. NetRtg is point differential per 100 possessions, while OppPCT is cumulative opponent winning percentage. In other words, the early table is being shaped by both how well teams have played and who they have faced. That is why a 5-0 record deserves respect without receiving blind faith.
So, yes, the Grizzlies schedule now brings a clean, easy-to-follow question: can Memphis keep its perfect start intact against the Blazers on Thursday? The honest answer is that nobody should overreact either way. A win would keep the Grizzlies among the league’s few remaining unbeaten teams. A loss would not erase what they have done. But it would remind everyone that early-season perfection is a temporary luxury, not a permanent identity.
For now, though, Memphis has earned the spotlight. The schedule has handed the Grizzlies a tidy early checkpoint, and Thursday night should tell us a little more about how real this start actually is.
