Highs and Lows: Memphis Grizzlies
Rudy Gay, Dime #25NBA training camps are underway. While we wait for the games to start, we’re going team-by-team, from 1 to 30, exploring what each team’s ceiling is for the upcoming season and where their basement is. In other words, what are the realistic best-case and worst-case scenarios for each squad?
Additions: SG O.J. Mayo, C Marc Gasol, PF Darrell Arthur, SF Antoine Walker, PG Marko Jaric, SG Greg Buckner, C Hamed Haddadi.
Losses: SF Mike Miller, SG Juan Carlos Navarro, C Kwame Brown, SF Brian Cardinal.
Ceiling: 30 wins
At least you can see a plan taking shape in Memphis, which is more than you could say about this franchise six months ago. The foundation for rebuilding is in place with Rudy Gay, O.J. Mayo, and whoever amongst the Young Point Guards Club (Mike Conley Jr., Kyle Lowry and Javaris Crittenton) separates himself from the pack. And if the Grizzlies get lucky, Project Big Man (Gasol, Haddadi, Darko) will yield at least one competent center. With some consistency regarding the roster — meaning no major trades — and another year of experience for some key guys, the Grizzlies should improve on last season’s 22-win mark. But barring major injuries across the board to a handful of other teams, there’s no way Memphis escapes last place in their own division, let alone plays well enough to even think about the playoffs. Right now it’s all about potential and patience.
Basement: 20 wins
Rudy Gay put up 20.1 points and 6.2 boards last year and finished second in Most Improved Player voting. But as good as he is, his game seems closer to an Andre Iguodala/Scottie Pippen-type, as in he’d be ideal as your second-best player, not your go-to guy. The only way that won’t be the case in Memphis is if O.J. turns into a superstar, which is possible, but likely won’t happen right away. Memphis made moves to get better in the offseason, but so did the rest of the already murderous Southwest: namely Houston, New Orleans, Dallas and San Antonio. And for a young team facing a tough divisional slate, it’s imperative to get off to a solid start, but Memphis has six of its first eight regular season games on the road; and after that they also get the Jazz, Spurs and Mavs on the road before November is out. The biggest area for improvement here is defense. Last year Memphis was 28th in points allowed (behind the Nuggets and Warriors), and tied the Bucks for the League’s worst field goal percentage D — meaning they gave up a lot of layups and transition buckets. Along with finishing 26th in rebounding differential, the numbers don’t lie: Memphis needs a quality big man to step up. And unless Marc Gasol plays like the star he was in Spain, I don’t see that guy on this roster.
‘08-09 NBA preview archives
9/26 — Toronto Raptors
9/25 — New Orleans Hornets
9/24 — Atlanta Hawks
9/23 — Sacramento Kings
9/22 — Miami Heat
9/19 — Portland Trail Blazers
9/18 — New Jersey Nets
9/17 — Minnesota Timberwolves
9/16 — Cleveland Cavaliers
9/15 — Phoenix Suns
9/12 — Milwaukee Bucks
9/11 — L.A. Clippers
9/10 — Orlando Magic
September 30th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Quest??? says:
marc sucks
September 30th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Big V says:
At first glance, I thought 30 wins seemed a little low, but upon further consideration, that sounds about right.
September 30th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Chaos says:
the games will be fun to watch and i think they will play hard each game because they know they have nothing to lose and everything to gain this season. rudy and OJ on the wings with conley and lowry running point (especiually if conley has improved). Arthur and warrick should hold up at pf for a while too….center is up in the air. gasol needs to have better conditioning and i havent seen haddadi play yet.
September 30th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
loganlight says:
I totally agree with Big V… I thought 30 wins was way too low. The team in Memphis is decent at best and in the East, if they gelled well together, could make some noise if not this year, then next for sure. But the daggone West is stupid tough….
Lottery bound again.
LL
September 30th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
aj says:
Grizz are like the Hawks of a few years ago, acquiring youngsters and losing like there’s no tomorrow. But given time to develop (3+ years) they may put together a solid team if they can keep the nucleus they have in place and get lucky in the lottery (already got lucky finding a sucker for K-Love). It won’t be this year or next year though.
September 30th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Big Sia says:
Hamed is the truth
September 30th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Sweet English says:
The only thing i would be pissed about if i was a Grizz fan was the fact that marc didnt get the number 16.
That wudda saved u a few bucks on jerseys.
September 30th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Homeless J says:
I don’t see 30 wins being too low of a ceiling for the Grizz at all. When I was scrolling down and saw the title of this my first thought for the ceiling was “20 wins” and then I saw they wrote 30 and thought, yeah, that’s about right, it’s more diplomatic of an answer.
September 30th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
kobeef says:
I liked the idea of trading Darko and Marko who are both players who are better suited for a team in need of a few solid back-ups (or two) than a rebuilding team like Memphis.
THe OJ Mayo for K-Love trade was robbery. Love has a PF’s game in a slow SF’s body. He is a solid role player at best in the NBA. OJ is a special talent and if one of the point-guard threesome works out the Grizz have their backcourt of the future.
Regardless…I think Austin can rest easy knowing that this team will be moved to Seattle before too long.
September 30th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
frankie says:
AJ and kobeef need to wisen up. The Love-OJ trade WAS robbery - for the Timberwolves. The Wolves got a big man, while the Grizz got yet another guard - who were two picks apart. That’s a wash. Meanwhile, the Wolves got rid of Antoine Walker and gained Mike Miller.
So, to rehash again, the Wolves got a young big for a shoot first tweener (who plays the same position as about 4 of their other talented young players), who were deemed to be about 2 picks apart. And to top it off, the Wolves got rid of a terrible player and gained a quality player.
Some of the people on this site…jeez.
October 1st, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Demonik says:
What’s with the Rush Hour pic of Cris Tucker?