Author: Andrew Ford

Larry Kuzniewski

Dillon Brooks

Editor’s Note: I’m out on paternity leave, so I was more worried about getting a newborn to sleep than watching the end of the Grizzlies’ 2017-18 season. Fortunately, Andrew Ford was watching so I didn’t have to. —KL

The last game of the season proved a fitting end to a regular season during which the Grizzlies were mostly an afterthought to the league.

Russell Westbrook solidifying his position in history as the first player to ever post a triple-double average over a two season period overshadowed what was arguably Dillon Brooks’ best game – certainly his most gunpowder-filled – of his promising rookie campaign.

The Grizzlies did just enough to play their part by providing a little bit of resistance in the second half to add a bit of suspense, but ultimately everyone who has watched this iteration of the Grizzlies knew how this one was going down.

Brooks was the lone bright spot amongst a sea of should-be, summer-league players doing their best to try to impress enough to get a camp invite from some team — any team — this summer. Ending the season with so many guys who won’t make it on an NBA court even during warm-ups next season is daunting but also a breath of fresh air.

Like a cocoon finally opening up and allowing a butterfly to soar, the Grizzlies are finally free from this season’s shackles. They can start over and become something new. Well, they can at least make significant progress in their tinkering to create an all new identity.

That new identity doesn’t start with veteran, team stars Marc Gasol and Mike Conley, or high-paid players like Chandler Parsons. It’s the guy who entered the season as the runt of the litter who just wants to play every damn game — Brooks.

For bad teams, feel-good stories are always nice. Brooks is more than that, though. He’s a bonafide NBA player who has come a long way from game 1 to game 82.

He’s gone from being a really bad defender to more than passable now that he’s adjusted to modern gap schemes as well as the speed of the game. Offensively, he makes moves that almost always work out in his favor even when they shouldn’t. The kid is smooth, and he’s gritty, and he’s exactly the type of young player the city has been looking for.

Want someone to fight for the city long term? Gasol and Conley’s letters of recommendation might expire when their playing days do, which hopefully isn’t soon, but you never know once players hit the point at which both seem to be approaching given age. Don’t look desperately to a presumably, newly committed Robert Pera, or J.B. Bickerstaff, or anyone else for the support the Bluff City deserves. Rather, look to its youngest, talented chosen son who also happens to be the hardest working.

Larry Kuzniewski

Brooks in one of his first games, against Golden State

Brooks likely won’t serve as the franchise’s savior, but he can be an advocate for the Grizzlies both on and off the court. He represents the best of what the franchise has offered to the city year after year since moving to Memphis from Vancouver in 2001.

That promise hasn’t always delivered winning, but the promise contains traits the city values such as hard work, dedication, reliability, scrappiness, nastiness, and a knack for making something of itself no matter what anyone else thinks.

Calling Brooks the beginning of a more modern version of grit and grind is fitting. He fits within the scope of today’s NBA physically and schematically while maintaining an old-school mentality.

As we are constantly looking back to catch a glimpse of better times that have passed us by, Brooks can serve as the comfort food allowing us to hold onto grit and grind whilst also possibly establishing a new future with a higher ceiling than the first iteration of grit and grind.

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Possible is good enough in Memphis right now, as possibility is all fans have to hold onto after a long season.

[pullquote-1] No matter who the Grizzlies draft this summer, the guy is going to need to be surrounded by leaders or, at the very least, guys who can help light the way forward. Brooks will be the first one holding the torch when the new crew reports for duty.

Elegant but old-fashioned. Crafty but tough. Humble but never willing to accept a beating. Brooks is everything the franchise could want, and he’s a foundational piece of what it needs moving forward.

Last night, Brooks bobbed and weaved under the arena’s bright lights, overachieving for the last time this season. Here’s to the belief – and the promise – that this season’s overachievements will soon turn back into the expected. With Brooks helping lead the charge, I’d bet on it.

Grizzlies GM Chris Wallace

Editor’s Note: I’ve always been a fan of Andrew Ford‘s work scouting players, even all the way back to my Straight Outta Vancouver SB Nation days. He’s got a great basketball mind—he’s been on college staffs before—and he’s a good writer, and I wanted to give him an opportunity to talk about who the Grizzlies should draft after this horror-show of a season ends. He did not disappoint.

Assuming the Memphis Grizzlies don’t blow a serious tank job with barely more than a handful of games left to play, they will end the season as one of the worst three teams in the league. With any blessing at all from the lottery gods, a poor finish will translate into a top three draft pick in June. That would leave the Grizzlies with their pick of the draft litter.

All the draft options the Grizzlies will be presented with might seem a little overwhelming, but the great thing about the current state of the roster is that it’s extremely moldable. I would posit that the Grizzlies are closer to gaining an all new identity than they are to regaining their long-standing, beloved Grit and Grind identity. That might fire up those who love Grit and Grind a little, but the Grizzlies have clearly been trying to move away from playing in the mud ever since they allowed Zach Randolph, Tony Allen, and Vince Carter to walk in order to develop younger guys for the future. Lack of identity is generally seen as a bad thing in the NBA, but a roster containing very few pieces positioned to play a long-term role places the Grizzlies in an ideal position to be able to choose any number of players in this year’s draft without having to be extremely concerned about how the player fits with current roster pieces.

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Luka Doncic

🇸🇮vs🇸🇮…🏀😜

A post shared by Luka Doncic (@lukadoncic) on Jan 26, 2018 at 8:44am PST

2018 NBA Draft: Who Should the Grizzlies Pick?

This existing roster flexibility makes Luka Doncic the ideal pick. A 6’7” guard out of Slovenia, Doncic is already playing a significant role as a teenager for Real Madrid, one of the best teams in Europe. Doncic is a mature player for his age, and his versatility as a guard with exceptional size makes him ideal to build around. Offensively, he can slot in anywhere from the 1 to the 4. The Grizzlies have been looking for more versatile lineups for several seasons, hence the Chandler Parsons pickup two summers ago. If everything goes right, Doncic could be what Grizzlies fans hoped Parsons would be and then some. He’s capable of playing as a lead guard, but he’s also capable of playing as a secondary ball handler on the wing ready to attack when Mike Conley finds him open.

On the ball, Doncic is adept at running the pick-and-roll, albeit in a more old-fashioned way than the point guards who get most of the attention in today’s game. More finesse than brute force, Doncic doubles back over screens until he finds just enough of a pocket of space to fire off a shot with excellent form. Although he lacks elite athleticism, Doncic’s change of pace allows him to shake off defenders just enough on drives to the rim. His size alone makes his shot difficult to block for guards and smaller forwards, but his shot becomes nearly unblockable when you couple his size with the change of pace and impeccable footwork once he’s picked up his dribble. He leans heavily on his jump stop to get defenders to grasp at air before stepping through into a leaning shot that he often makes with seeming effortlessness.

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While Doncic has proven that he can compensate for his lack of athleticism at a high level already, his lack of an explosive first step is concerning for his prospects as a creator on the ball at the NBA level. NBA teams might be able to find ways to keep him from turning the corner and wreaking havoc in the heart of the defense by giving the assignment to guard him to a player both physically imposing and quick, but his saving grace on the ball might be his phenomenal passing ability. If a team chooses to blitz Doncic or high hedge and recover in the pick-and-roll, he can easily fling a pass over or around a defender to an open wing across the court or a wide-open big on a short roll to the rim. If a team chooses to sink the big into the paint in wait, Doncic will kill them with a pull-up jumper. The most adept wings at fighting over screens might be able to stick with Doncic, but most guys in the NBA are going to be riding his hip playing catch up which is a dangerous place to be against a sharpshooter like him.

Off the ball, Doncic has unlimited range from beyond the arc. He has a quick, fluid stroke, and the shot always looks good leaving his hand. His catch and shoot ability makes him an ideal secondary ball handler since defenders will be closing out so hard to prevent him from launching a three. Doncic is exactly the type of player who is capable of breaking the string of a defense then exploiting the tangled ball of yarn in a number of ways.

Defense is more of a concern for Doncic, as his lateral quickness and length are both suspect. He probably won’t ever become an elite defender, but his size theoretically allows him to guard at least three positions on any given night.

The beauty of Doncic is that he can slot in and instantly give you something if you believe the Grizzlies can still compete in the playoffs every year, or he can be an excellent, versatile piece to begin building around if you believe the Grizzlies are going to be bad for another several years. Wallace, or whoever is calling the shots, wouldn’t have to go out and find specific players with a narrow skill set to fit around Doncic. The idea is that he can be fully functional around any combo of guards, forwards, and bigs. In the short term, a Conley – Doncic – Parsons – Green – Gasol lineup would be really fun if healthy.

Deandre Ayton

College was just the preview… #BullySeason ➡️ NBA 👀 Coming soon…

A post shared by Deandre Ayton (@deandreayton) on Mar 26, 2018 at 6:07pm PDT

2018 NBA Draft: Who Should the Grizzlies Pick? (2)

If for some reason Doncic is off the board when the Grizzlies pick, it makes sense to turn to possibly the most physically gifted player in the draft in Deandre Ayton. The Bahamas native has Dwight Howard’s shoulders and ability to seal off any man in the post while maintaining the ability to step out and deftly stroke midrange jumpers and threes.

Offensively, there’s no denying Ayton’s skill. When he wanted to at Arizona, he could score as easy as anyone in the country. His face up game is fluid for a big man, and his touch is soft from midrange. He can play with finesse and shoot over the defense if the situation calls for it, or he can bully his way to the rim off the bounce. Ayton’s explosiveness makes him dangerous around the rim. Often before his man knows what’s going on, Ayton has bodied him under the rim and is on his way up to slam it home.

On the other end of the court, Ayton looks like a lost puppy. His pick-and-roll defense is weak as he has not mastered the timing on high hedges, and his defensive counting stats are slightly less exciting than you would think you could get from a guy of Ayton’s physical stature. However, the aforementioned physicality is the reason I would take a chance on Ayton despite his suspect defense. He has all the physical tools to be great on defense as long as he can get everything squared away between his ears that an NBA coach will attempt to instill.

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Ayton’s disappearance in Arizona’s NCAA Tournament game has made it trendy to question his ability to perform under pressure, but his entire body of work speaks for itself. There are rightful concerns about effort though. Whether the lack of effort is related to conditioning or makeup is an important distinction to make before I’d feel comfortable pulling the trigger on Ayton.

While Marc Gasol is the incumbent center with a hefty contract, he can’t be the reason the Grizzlies don’t pull the trigger on Ayton. At 33 years old, Gasol won’t be able to play at an all-star level forever. While I don’t think of Ayton as a generational talent like some who have compared him to Hakeem Olajuwon or Shaquille O’Neal do, I do believe he has the potential to be an annual NBA All-Star. If the Grizzlies believe that, they should grab Ayton and secondarily worry about how to play him next to Gasol.

I have Ayton higher on my board than any other big in the draft because I think he has the least to work on to become elite and the easiest path to becoming a franchise cornerstone among all the highly-rated bigs including Marvin Bagley III, Mohamed Bamba, and Jaren Jackson Jr.

Marvin Bagley III

Gameday😈🔵⚪️…#JREAM

A post shared by Marvin Bagley III (@mb3five) on Feb 26, 2018 at 12:45pm PST

2018 NBA Draft: Who Should the Grizzlies Pick? (3)

After factoring in a drop off in potential after Doncic and Ayton, Marvin Bagley III is the next guy on my list. I have a tremendous amount of belief in Bagley to become a good NBA player, but it seems more likely that he will become a really nice role player than a perennial all-star. He slots into the lineup with Gasol easier than Ayton on paper, but there’s a lot of work to do offensively for Bagley in order for him to come close to matching his college production numbers.

At this point in Bagley’s development, he’s excellent around the rim if he’s able to establish solid post position. The problem is that he’s not always able to do so due to his slim frame. Bagley must work on sealing his man deep and keeping the defender on his back in order to be able to dominate the way he did at Duke. If he can learn to consistently establish good low post position, it will be difficult to stop him given his ability to catch anything thrown in his vicinity coupled with his uncanny ability to knock down shots with his left hand over his right shoulder.

While Bagley is dominant in the post with his left, he struggles to create offense for himself off the bounce because he’s so lefty-dependent. His lack of a right leads to defenders taking away his left, rendering him dangerous off the bounce only when he can attack a closeout.

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Bagley projects to be a solid fit next to Gasol given his ability to play both on the perimeter as well as with the paint monsters. The Grizzlies killed teams with a high-low attack between Gasol and Zach Randolph for many years, and Bagley is capable of playing either role. Down low, he’s good at ducking in for a quick bucket, but he’s equally solid at delivering a touch pass to a fellow big from the elbow. Duke leaned on high-low actions between Bagley and Wendell Carter Jr. a great deal this season, so Bagley is well-versed in the timing it takes to execute the action successfully.

In the pick-and-roll, Bagley has the tools to succeed, but he needs to improve on setting screens. He often slips or rolls too early, hanging the ball-handler out to dry. It’ll be interesting to see how he fares in an NBA offense that’s pick-and-roll heavy. His slender frame will take a bruising once he learns to better create contact on screens, which will necessitate him adding some muscle early in his career. Early on, he projects to be a better cutter than a screener or a standstill shooter. To reach his full potential offensively, he will have to round out his offensive game and become less dependent on his left.

Defensively, there are justified concerns about Bagley’s ability to protect the rim. He’s often late on rotations, and he won’t be the first rookie in the league to ball watch in excess. Physicality could hurt him on defense much like it limits him on offense. While the game is almost completely played in a pace and space way at this point, Bagley will still be forced to bang down low if he’s going to be able to stay in games and expedite his development as a rookie.

While Bagley has more weaknesses than either Doncic or Ayton, Bagley is scary because he’s the type of player who notches a double-double in the first half before the other team even realizes he’s killing them. He’s quietly an excellent player whose game needs some enhancements, but he will make the leap just fine if his work ethic on the court at Duke is any indication.

The Rest

If for some reason the Grizzlies draft pick falls out of the top three, first just curl up in the fetal position for twenty-four hours. After mourning for a period of time, there are two options to mull over. Does the team want to go the safe route, or do they still want to swing for the fences with a second-tier guy who has all-star potential but worse odds on becoming such a player?

It makes sense to go the safe route and select someone like Jaren Jackson Jr. or Mikal Bridges rather than swing for the fences with a guy like Michael Porter Jr. who is both a concern because of health and because you have no idea what he might be able to become due to lack of time to scout him while healthy. Jackson Jr. might not be as good on offense as Ayton or Bagley, but he’s far better on defense and much more well-rounded already than both of those guys.

The reason Jackson is not in my top three is because I see a higher floor for him but a lower ceiling than Ayton and Bagley. For a franchise looking for a complete, quick turnaround, the Grizzlies are hoping for more than a stable NBA player. Because Jackson Jr. can do a little bit of everything though, I think that limits the potential of a flame out. Much like Jackson Jr., Bridges provides the same type of stability. He’s fundamentally sound in every area, and we’ve seen plenty of guys in recent years i.e. Draymond Green and Josh Richardson come in and play huge roles on their teams because of their ability to be able to play above-average basketball in almost every area. Of course, Green and Richardson are best-case scenarios.

If everything goes as planned, the Grizzlies will be positioned nicely to take whoever they want. With Gasol and Conley both aging and with various degrees of an injury history, the Grizzlies should look more towards the future than towards next season alone. Rookies don’t often turn the tide for their respective teams, so the Grizzlies should be patient no matter who they draft. No matter who is chosen, the franchise couldn’t ask for a better tandem than Conley and Gasol to usher the pick along into the next era of Memphis basketball.

Larry Kuzniewski

The first time the Grizzlies welcomed former head coach Dave Joerger back to Beale Street manning the sidelines for a different franchise, they were greeted with a swift kick in the butt by an amorphous Kings squad. The second time around, things went much better for the men in blue.

As is the Grizzlies pattern this season, they began the game at a snail’s pace, falling behind 9-0 before getting on the board. The Grizzlies followed the Kings hot start with a run of their own to put them briefly on top before eventually petering out near the end of an offensively unremarkable first quarter.

In the second quarter, the Grizzlies first tried to energize the offense by inserting Troy Daniels into the mix in the hope that his flame-throwing shooting arm would at the very least help spread the Kings out. His presence did lead to some solid play in the two-man game between Mike Conley and Marc Gasol.

Larry Kuzniewski

Fizdale understands that Daniels’ presence on the weakside prevents teams from bringing more help into the paint to prevent Conley and Gasol from ganging up on their own defenders. However, Joerger had a nice plan in place for Daniels. Every time he touched the ball, the Kings blitzed him and forced a turnover or the ball out of his hands at the least.

More shots went down for the Grizzlies in the second quarter, particularly a notable one-legged fadeaway in the middle of the paint by Vince Carter (what’s up with old men mastering one-legged shots?). When the initial shots weren’t falling, the Grizzlies were able to crash the offensive glass and create easy offense that way that allowed the offense to slowly work its way into rhythm.

Things began to feel more like good theater than a basketball game on the offensive in the third quarter on the back of a frisky Gasol. Big Spain had fifteen points in the quarter, and he nailed three triples including two on back to back possessions. The second one was akin to one you’d take in NBA 2K in MyPlayer mode because nobody has time to pass in a video game. Gasol’s perimeter ability isn’t new at this juncture, but it’s still a breath of fresh air every time he splashes a long bomb through the net.

Defensively, the Grizzlies were locked in all night. They rebounded the ball exceptionally well, limiting the Kings to five offensive rebounds all night. The rotations continue to be sharp on the defensive end, with guys talking on screens, shifting quickly to help on drives, and closing out aggressively. The Kings didn’t get too many easy looks, and that was ultimately something they couldn’t overcome once the Grizzlies’ offense found the hot hand of Gasol.

Not a single Grizzly who played significant minutes had a poor game, and that team effort allowed the Grizzlies to sink the Kings with ease 107-91. Now 2-1 against the ex this season, the Grizzlies have one more meeting with Joerger’s squad in March.

Larry Kuzniewski

Grizzlies head coach David Fizdale

Editor’s Note: I am at a conference this week out of town, so I asked my old friend and brilliant basketball mind Andrew Ford to chip in with a couple of guest posts. You can find Andrew on Twitter, and you can read his work at places like Upside & Motor and probably all kinds of other places I’m not remembering.

What does an NBA franchise typically do when searching to replace its head coach? It often finds a candidate who turns out to be the polar opposite of the previous coach. While this swing of the pendulum is not always entirely rational, a drastic change such as this was just what the Memphis Grizzlies needed when handing over Dave Joerger’s reins to David Fizdale.

While Joerger was in Memphis, he was generally seen as a good coach. He faced a lot of adversity, particularly in terms of roster instability due to injuries, which he managed well. Joerger also took some strides to bring the Grizzlies into the modern era of offensive basketball by implementing more horns sets, high pick-and-rolls, flex action, and off-ball screening. It would be impossible and unfair to look back on Joerger’s tenure in Memphis and say he didn’t accomplish anything positive that could have a lasting impact on the franchise.

However, now that enough games have been played during Fizdale’s first season in charge to decently assess the job he’s doing on Beale Street, the things Joerger did not – or rather chose not to – do stick out even more.

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Larry Kuzniewski

James Ennis has had a breakout year for the Grizzlies after being cut last year.

Joerger’s personnel decisions baffled on a nightly basis while he was in Memphis, but those decisions look even worse now that there’s a new frame of reference in terms of properly handling young players with potential. Fizdale has worked wonders with Joerger-era castaway James Ennis, turning him into a solid, thefty player who fits the aggressive scheme well on the defensive end as well as a guy who is capable of playing off of key players Mike Conley and Marc Gasol while plugging a plethora of holes offensively.

Last season, Joerger cut Ennis to sign his pet project Ryan Hollins for the umpteenth time. This is a prime example of Joerger’s short-sighted nature. He’s an old school coach who doesn’t yet believe in the dependability of young, developing players, so he blatantly chooses experience over player development even if that will definitely come back to bite him in the future. Ennis almost certainly did not improve drastically last offseason, so all of the tools he possesses could have been at Joerger’s disposal had he let Ennis fly.

Whereas young players seemingly must show Joerger exactly what they can do before he figures out how to properly utilize them, Fizdale comes off as a visionary of sorts who can spot potential and envision how to make a young player fit within his scheme even when he hasn’t seen all of the pieces a player might or might not bring to the puzzle.

Joerger’s brashness and sense of superiority he randomly chose to lord over his players in press conferences wasn’t greatly appreciated in the Memphis locker room, so Fizdale’s softer, more empathetic approach to his players is a welcome change and one that’s getting results from a couple guys like Ennis who were mostly seen as fringe contributors prior to this season.

The stark contrast in terms of talent maximization strategies between Fizdale and Joerger doesn’t stop with young guys. Marc Gasol is having arguably the best season of his career, and he owes a great deal of that to Fizdale’s willingness to trust Gasol to morph into a highly-functional perimeter player. He restructured the Grizzlies offense from Joerger’s tenure to provide more floor spacing by leaning on many four out sets with Gasol being one of the four guys on the perimeter.

While Gasol had never served in that capacity prior to this season, Fizdale saw potential to make the offense flow more smoothly if Gasol proved capable of knocking down threes and threatening teams outside of the low post. Fizdale’s gamble has obviously paid off, as Gasol is now a pump-faking, three-drilling, wheeling-and-dealing machine with the ball in his hands on the perimeter. While it’s hard to fault Joerger as much for this specific lack of adjustment as it is to fault him for his handling of young players, he still could have made minor tweaks to the offense to create more productive touches for Gasol outside of the post.

On paper, Joerger was tailor-made for the Grizzlies grit-n-grind approach, but his unwillingness to operate outside of the box became his undoing. His teams appeared unprepared, unmotivated, or both for games against quality teams, all the while eking out wins against inferior competition in his final season. Many of the Grizzlies losses against good competition under Joerger’s watch can be attributed to predictability. The Grizzlies were going to do the same thing night in, night out, and if it wasn’t working then they were to bang their heads against the wall until it did or until they eventually passed out and were forced to miserably concede defeat upon regaining consciousness.

Fizdale’s more easygoing nature has invigorated the Grizzlies and brought about grit-n-grind 2.0 so to speak. Under Fizdale, the Grizzlies are once again giving maximum effort against the best teams in the league, except they are now grittin’ and grindin’ smarter than ever before. The Grizzlies work rate on both ends of the ball is still high, but the number of useless actions that don’t add value or lead to quality results has been minimized.

Larry Kuzniewski

The offensive movement off the ball is orchestrated, and the defensive rotations are sharper under Fizdale. Nary is a guy sprinting around aimlessly unclear of the right move to make to benefit his team. Calm direction from a coach goes a long way, even in a league full of grown men.

Players often take on the personality of their coach, and that’s exactly what’s happened under Fizdale’s direction. It never seems like the Grizzlies are out of a game, and it’s obvious that the players never feel like they’re out of a game because they believe in their coach’s ability to adapt his strategy on the fly. Under Joerger, he sported his disdain during games squarely on his chin, and his teams often folded because they knew adjustments weren’t coming.

Hiring a coach who is the philosophical opposite of the previous guy doesn’t always work out as it has so well in this case, but the stark contrast will always help reveal more about the old coach for better or worse in retrospect. The sudden change from Joerger to Fizdale has simply revealed that the NBA is a league that’s constantly evolving, and it’s one that’s in great need of more coaches like Fizdale who are willing to adapt whenever necessary to survive rather than maintaining the long-standing status quo and willfully leading their team down the old, beaten path toward irrelevance.

Larry Kuzniewski

Note: I’m out of town at a conference this week, so I asked my good friend Andrew Ford if he wanted to guest post. Andrew was on my staff at Grizzly Bear Blues and you can find his stuff at Grizzly Bear Blues, Upside & Motor, Today’s Fastbreak, and InRecruit these days. (He stays busy, obviously.) He’s got a great basketball mind, and I’ve learned a lot about hoops just by bouncing things off him. —KL

Passivity is a dirty word uttered in many situations — often about Marc Gasol — over the course of Grizzlies games. When used, the word is certainly not meant to compliment Gasol’s play on the court. Rather, it implies that he is not doing what he should be doing, or more accurately what he is capable of doing.

There still might not be a better two-way center in the NBA than Gasol despite his struggles this season, but balanced performance on both ends is not always sexy nor is it what people believe to be the limit of his capabilities.

It’s not as if Gasol doesn’t have ample opportunity to impose his will on games. Nobody in the league averages more elbow touches per game (13.4) and only two players average more post touches per game (8.2) per NBA.com’s player tracking database. With those touches comes great responsibility though, and Gasol knows it. The offense flows through him more now than it ever has given the slow, steady decline of his frontcourt partner Zach Randolph and a backcourt constantly hamstrung by lack of creativity.

Serving as the fulcrum of an NBA offense is no small task, but Gasol fills the role as well as anybody in the league. He directs traffic with ease, guides teammates into good positions, and essentially hands the ball to them on a silver platter to get buckets.

However, playing that pivotal role might have unintended consequences. This is strictly speculation, but it could be putting Gasol in the wrong state of mind to dominate. An inherently unselfish player, Gasol has proven countless times that he is going to look to pass first when given the opportunity.

He knows the team needs his court vision and passing ability, which makes it difficult for him not to think of passing as his first option when the ball is in his hands. It’s not always a bad thing for Gasol to play the role of a pass-first focal point, but it can frequently be a problem because shooting often seems like a very distant second choice for Gasol even as he has reached the height of his offensive powers. A mental shift is long overdue.

To be completely fair to Gasol, he has posted more dominant stat lines over the past two seasons than the rest of his career combined. Eight of his nine thirty-point outbursts over the course of his career came in the 2014-15 season and the current 2015-16 campaign. These recent displays of scoring prowess are why more is desired — almost expected — from Gasol at the offensive end.

Larry Kuzniewski

True to His Word

Recently against the New York Knicks, Gasol scored 37 points on 29 attempts. This performance came after he told Peter Edmiston of Sports 56 WHBQ / 87.7 FM and the Commercial Appeal that he will take 25 shots during a game if the team needs him to do that to win.

So what if Gasol kept his word, played consistently in attack mode, and used more of those advantageous touches he so often gets for himself? How much different would the offense look if he chose to be aggressive and attempted to dominate on a nightly basis rather than choosing to flash his offensive brilliance a handful of times per season?

It might be helpful to start with some historical data. After seven-and-change seasons with the Grizzlies, there is a decent amount of data that demonstrates how well the Grizzlies have performed in the past when Gasol has scored above his average.

Over the course of his tenure with the Grizzlies, the team is 69-32 when he scores at least 20 points, 18-8 when he scores 25 or more, and a convincing 8-1 when he scores 30 or more per basketball reference. Small sample size warning, but just this season the Grizzlies are 8-3 when Gasol has scored at least 20 points.

One might think that Gasol looking for his own shot more would be detrimental to the flow of the offense and hurt his passing, but the stats show just the opposite. Gasol is averaging 3.8 assists per game this season, and he has averaged 3.9 assists in the 10 contests in which he scored more than 20 points this season. There’s no notable drop off in Gasol’s passing because his aggressiveness actually creates better spacing which results in cleaner passing lanes.

During games in which Gasol is on autopilot, slinging the ball around the court while not looking to score a ton, defenses can afford to sit back and stay home on assignments because they have played the game long enough to pick up on tendencies like Gasol wanting to pass above all else.

This is a key reason why defenses have not had to work very hard against the Grizzlies this season. Per SportVU, Memphis’ offense forces the least defensive movement in terms of feet per 24 seconds of any team in the league. As it turns out, it’s very easy to watch the ball be delivered to Gasol and sit back while he methodically tries to pick out a pass when there is hardly anything happening in the way of quality actions on the wing which could result in freeing a shooter.

A shift in how defenses play the Grizzlies when Gasol is aggressive is notable. When he’s looking to fire a midrange jumper from the elbow or to make a move to the rim as soon as he receives the ball in the post, defenses are forced to react quicker which often leads to scrambling. Perimeter defenders have to dig down another foot into the paint or stunt another foot towards the elbow while bigs have to worry more about executing a hard double in the post to force the ball out of Gasol’s hands. The extra few feet an aggressive Gasol creates is a boost the Grizzlies’ mediocre offense regularly needs.

Larry Kuzniewski

Lineups Matter

Another way an attack-first version of Gasol would make the offense more efficient is by creating more easy points in the way of free throws. Gasol is averaging 4.8 free throw attempts per contest this season, but he has averaged 8.2 attempts from the line in games in which he has scored more than 20 points this season. Gasol is great at drawing contact on graceful up-and-under moves and on his patented sweeping hook shot, so it makes sense that he gets to the line a lot more when he’s more aggressive and takes more shots.

An 84% free throw shooter, Gasol could feast off of an extra 3-4 attempts per game. It could be the difference in winning a couple more games throughout the course of the grueling regular season, which is huge when home court advantage matters so much in a brutal Western Conference.

Of course, all of this is context dependent. You can’t simply throw Gasol out on the court with any unit and hope that him having a score-first mentality will have the same result across all lineups. He would be best-served to play most of his minutes with lineups with quality shooters — something the Grizzlies unfortunately have a dearth of — and no traditional big men aside from himself to maximize spacing and unlock his full potential.

Gasol playing in lineups like the ones aforementioned don’t just give him more space to operate from the high and low post. When the Grizzlies can play a four out-one in offense with Gasol as the one guy playing inside, there is infinitely more room for Mike Conley and Gasol to team up and run the high pick-and-roll. This is important not just because it’s a really tough play to defend, but also because Gasol is naturally more inclined to shoot in the pick-and-roll because he’s not meant to be a primary distributor in those situations.

A more low-key benefit to the Grizzlies offense that could come by way of a regularly aggressive Gasol is additional offensive rebounding. The Grizzlies offensive rebound rate of 23.8 puts them 17th in the league in that category. Gasol attacking on more of his post touches could easily lead to more points on putbacks by himself or teammates like Tony Allen or Randolph who typically crash the glass hard.

Larry Kuzniewski

What About Defense?

One concern that often gets thrown out during the early stages of any conversation about Gasol trying to do more offensively is that his defense might suffer. Given his ongoing struggle with conditioning this season, putting more pressure on him offensively could realistically tank his defensive impact, but I don’t think history necessarily bears that out.

For one, Gasol has averaged 2.2 blocks in games this season in which he has scored at least 20 points. That’s almost one more than he has averaged in all games this season (1.3). Blocks alone don’t make a great rim protector, but assuming Gasol is in shape (maybe a big if) then he should have no problem leading the defense from the baseline while also stepping his game up some offensively.

It’s difficult to envision Gasol fully embodying an attack-first mentality for the rest of this season despite the fact that it would provide the team with a significant boost, but that’s something we could see a lot more of as the Grizzlies enter a potential rebuilding phase over the next couple of seasons.

Finesse, grace, elegance, poise, and power all equally mark Gasol’s beautiful offensive game, and the Grizzlies undoubtedly wish Gasol would start to fully utilize all five qualities every night as a new, unknown phase of the franchise is ushered in.

We’ve seen Gasol dominate on the offensive end with an arsenal of moves — both of the face up and post up variety — that few other big men possess. It might be a pipe dream, but when you know he is capable of dominating, it will always be tough not to think about what this team could be if he chose to dazzle with his knack for attacking more often.