Emerging from my week-long hoops hiatus for some belated notes on the Gilbert Arenas signing, one I endorse with tempered expectations and minor reservations.
I’ll wade into other issues surrounding the team — the rusty return of Zach Randolph, the disappointing reduction in Tony Allen’s playing time, the threat of Marc Gasol fatigue, other curious rotation changes — over the next few games, as they remain relevant.
Sam Young/Gilbert Arenas as Unintentional Fallout: The two roster moves that I missed last week are related, and not just in that gifting Sam Young to the Philadelphia 76ers presumably freed up the money under the luxury tax to sign Gilbert Arenas to a rest-of-season contract. Both moves were also made necessary by the eve-of-the-season trade that sent Greivis Vasquez to the New Orleans Hornets for Quincy Pondexter.
The Grizzlies did great work early to fill their dire frontcourt needs with the low-cost acquisitions of Marreese Speights and Dante Cunningham, but the Vasquez-Pondexter trade was an unnecessary gamble that essentially became a two-for-one. Vasquez has averaged more than 23 minutes a game with a very high assist rate, viable shooting, and a PER (14.8) right at the league average, solidifying himself as a high-level reserve in the league. And this is a leap that the team should have seen coming. Thankfully, for the Grizzlies, Pondexter has made a noticeable — if less dramatic — leap as well, his energy and improving shooting making him a valuable bench player as the season’s progressed — at least until a somewhat mysterious decline in minutes and production the past three games. Pondexter’s not as meaningful a player, at least yet, as Vasquez, but he is a legit contributor.
The problem with the deal has been its impact beyond that simple player-to-player contrast. Adding Pondexter and getting back Rudy Gay had, understandably, pushed Sam Young out of the rotation, devaluing a cost-effective contributor to the point that the Grizzlies dealt him for no return in an accounting-maneuver-style trade. Meanwhile, the Grizzlies had made the deal to begin with out of a misplaced faith in unproven rookie Jeremy Pargo, who has — unsurprisingly — not been ready for consistent rotation minutes.
The deal created a need at point guard that wasn’t already there without appreciably upgrading the team’s wing rotation. It made no sense, and the ultimate fallout happened last week. If Arenas pans out and Pondexter gets back on track, it’s a mistake that will be easily forgotten, at least in the short term. But that’s how we got to where we are.
Arenas the Player: Zach Lowe at CNNSI did a nice long piece this week on what we might be able to expect from Arenas and how he could address a need for the Grizzlies. I had previously written about how unacceptable Pargo and Selby, with their killer turnover rates, have been in the back-up role.
