Author: Kevin Lipe

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen this tonight:

That's a real stat, by the way. The Grizzlies have not won their season opener since 2000, and it was in Vancouver over the Sonics 94-88.
— Kevin Lipe (@FlyerGrizBlog) October 31, 2013

The Memphis Grizzlies (playing on the road) also scored 94 points in their season opener, but unfortunately for them, the San Antonio Spurs scored 101, dashing whatever hopes the Grizzlies had for an undefeated season. It was a rematch of last year’s Western Conference Finals that played out exactly like last year’s Western Conference Finals, with the Grizzlies coming out strong, playing with a lot of heart, but ultimately cut off at the knees by their own inability to make a basket.

• Larry Kuzniewski
• The Joerger Era of the Grizzlies got off to a gritty, if less-than-optimal start in San Antonio.

The Grizzlies scored seven points in the second quarter, and watching it live, it felt like they didn’t score any. Let us never speak of this again.

It’s hard to know exactly what to take away from the game, given that it was so similar to last year. It’s why I’m not really a fan of these playoff rematch season openers. This game played out exactly like last year’s Spurs series. Last year’s season opener against the Clippers had the same horrible, headache-inducing stressy vibe of the 2012 Clippers playoff series. It’s supposed to be a new season and a new start, but when you begin it by playing the guys you ended it playing, it’s hard for the game to not take on some of the same psychological and emotional overtones, the same feel, the same energy. That’s as hippie as I’ll get about it, but suffice it to say the Grizzlies had not figured out a way to get past the Spurs, and the Spurs followed pretty much the same game plan they used in the Conference Finals to get past the Grizzlies.

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Here’s one thing that I don’t feel great about:

Before tonight, Zach Randolph had never started a game and played at least 20 minutes while scoring fewer than 3 points.
— Peter Edmiston (@peteredmiston) October 31, 2013

The fit of Z-Bo in Dave Joerger’s offense, along with the question of whether Randolph, as he ages, will be able to maintain the insanely high level of play that’s gotten him on the map as the irresistable force to Marc Gasol’s immovable object, are issues for this team. In 25:44 against the Spurs, Randolph scored 2 points on 1-6 shooting, grabbed 2 offensive and 5 defensive rebounds, and attempted zero (0) free throws. If you’re a big believer in the +/- stat—I’m not—Randolph’s was -21.

I’m certainly not going to start digging a grave for Randolph’s career. The Spurs are a team that has 100% had his number since he wiped them from the face of the earth in 2011. They were old and banged up and he made them look ancient and broken, like the Big Three era was in need of a good arson. Since then, the Grizzlies haven’t beaten the Spurs in San Antonio, and Randolph hasn’t looked good against them once.

So matchup has a lot to do with it…

…But. There’s always a but. This was a phenominally bad performace against a team the Grizzlies needed Z-Bo to be present for. Too many of those, and all these lingering, nagging questions are going to turn into persistent howls of “do something” and the Z-Bo era of Grizzlies hoops is going to be over, before we’ve even had time to stop and think about how much he—and this whole Grizzlies core group—has meant to our city. If he’s really declining, this is probably what it’s going to start to look like on a regular basis. We’ll know soon enough.

The other issue at play here is execution. The Grizzlies had 14 turnovers tonight, which was actually one fewer than the Spurs, but it seemed like every one of them came at the worst possible time, when the Griz were poised to take another big bite out of San Antonio’s shrinking lead, killing the momentum of whatever frantic comeback was in progress. The team just doesn’t look good yet. There’s a level of comfort and crispness that’s missing from the way they’re executing sets on offense, no doubt due to the fact that this was the first real game they’ve ever played with Dave Joerger as head coach.

It’s something that’ll take time to get straightened out, but it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on as the season gets underway: is the team able to go out and execute and play smart, or are they constantly going to have to try to recover from 7-point quarters? Are they going to be able to assert their scheme and their offensive will on other teams, or is everything going to be an “effort” play on the second or third attempt of each possession? If it’s the latter, it’s going to be a long year.

Other storylines of the night were probably smaller. Ed Davis played 8 minutes and didn’t do too well, and Jon Leuer played almost 10 and did a little bit better, only making one basket but making all manner of hustle plays that helped the Grizzlies close the gap they’d created for themselves. Unsung hero of the night was probably Kosta Koufos, with 7 points and 3 rebounds in 14 minutes and also a good job holding down the fort for the Grizzlies’ interior game while Marc Gasol was on the bench. Seeing a legitimate starting-caliber center on the floor while Gasol is out is going to take some getting used to, but I think I’m going to like it.

All in all, the night could’ve gone better for the Grizzlies. The second quarter was abysmal, to the point that the more panic-prone sectors of Griz Twitter were starting to wonder if the entirety of the Joerger Era was a bad idea, stumbling out of the blocks never to regain its form, but the Grizzlies came out and fought, and fought hard, and even though they ran out of steam towards the end, the fact that they came out and almost caught back up to the Spurs says a lot about the heart of this year’s Grizzlies—something that was being questioned a bit after the two blowout preseason losses. In the heart department, the Grizzlies are doing just fine.

But seriously, next time score more than 7 points in the second quarter.

• Larry Kuzniewski
• One can rest assured the Spurs haven’t forgotten what Mike Miller did to them in the Finals.

No, not the cheeseburger-and-tequila-fueled funeral dirge Neil Young album—tonight the Grizzlies are in San Antonio to face the Spurs to open the 2013-14 regular season with a rematch of last year’s Western Conference Finals.

You may remember that that series ended in a 4-0 San Antonio sweep, as the Grizzlies ran into a buzzsaw of a team that (1) was determined to get back to the NBA Finals if it killed them and (2) completely prepared to take away every single advantage last year’s model Grizzlies had over their opponents. The Spurs identified which Griz wings weren’t perimeter threats, and simply left them completely open from long range while they crowded the interior and kept the Grizzlies’ interior-oriented game from happening. It was brilliant strategic basketball, and the Grizzlies—whether it was through coaching strategy or simply the player-by-player matchups—were seemingly helpless to stop it from happening to them.

It felt like the Grizzlies were playing with house money at that point, anyway. No one expected them to get to the Conference Finals, and while I won’t say that Russell Westbrook’s injury is the only reason they made it past the Thunder (Scott Brooks’ insistence on playing Zach Randolph’s best friend Kendrick Perkins sure helped), they certainly caught some lucky breaks, as all teams must do to make it that far into the postseason. They went farther into the postseason than any Grizzlies team in franchise history (and, you have to remember, this is the only Grizzlies core lineup that’s ever even won a playoff game to begin with).

The Grizzlies are coming in to tonight’s game against the Spurs with a new head coach (though not someone with whom they’re unfamiliar), with a completely overhauled bench, with at least one guy known around the league—especially known to these San Antonio Spurs—for his three-point abilities, with a new attitude on offense (that is, get into sets quickly and run everything through Mike Conley and Marc Gasol), and with every reason in the world to think that This Is The Year.

It’s the year that they go to the NBA Finals, or they end up retooling for the next couple of years of the future. That’s all. Not like there are any stakes or anything.

But none of those stakes apply to tonight. Tonight is just the first of 82 games, the beginning of a long journey. It’s not make-or-break time tonight, though it feels a bit like a referendum: “Can they get past the Spurs now?” But don’t make that mistake. The Spurs are going to be around at the end of the year, and so are the Grizzlies. They’re going to play each other three more times before the playoffs. Tonight is important, especially as a tone-setter for the Grizzlies’ tough month of November, but a little perspective will fend off the howling fantods of “oh my goodness they’re going to be terrible this year” that will inevitably start popping up in comment sections if things go poorly for the Grizzlies tonight.

That said, it’s a big game. And big games require talking points. So here are some things to watch for tonight.

Game Notes

Most obviously, the thing that sunk the Grizzlies against the Spurs last year was the lack of space in the lane—space that can only be created when the defense has to respect the shooters on the perimeter. When Tony Allen and Tayshaun Prince were on the floor together in last year’s WCF, the Grizzlies struggled maintain spacing for Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol to operate. It certainly didn’t help that Prince’s effective field goal percentage (eFG%) was .380 and Allen’s was .375, and it was that crowded lane that contributed to Zach Randolph going 16-53 for the series, meaning basically 30%.

Let me put it this way: the Spurs showed the league how to beat the Grizzlies. If the Grizzlies aren’t able to flip the script this year, and force other teams’ defenses to stretch out a little more and give the inside game room to operate, they’re not going to be able to beat the best defensive teams in the league on a regular basis. Not unless the offense really has been retooled from the ground up. The Marc Gasol/Zach Randolph high-low (broken down excellently here by SB Nation’s Mike Prada) doesn’t work if neither guy can move.

On the other end of the floor, the Spurs’ offensive rating—number of points per 100 possessions—for the Conference Finals was 108.9, meaning they were able to score very efficiently against the Grizzlies’ world-famous (and rightly so) defense. That’s what the Spurs do: they find a weakness and they pick at it until their opponent collapses. Against the Grizzlies, Tony Parker pick-and-rolled Zach Randolph to death, knowing he was probably the weakest link on the floor at guarding Parker. If the first P&R didn’t work, they ran another one. If that one didn’t work, they reset and ran another one. And so on, and so on, ad infinitum until the big fella was too worn out to back down Tiago Splitter on the other end of the floor. The Grizzlies are going to have to contain Parker if they’re going to beat the Spurs.

My hope is that last year’s Conference Finals were a master class for Mike Conley in how he can grow his game and take his career to the next level. Parker’s quickness allows him to do things that Conley could also do. Becoming more Parker-like is a way that Conley can bring these new Conley/Gasol-focused Grizzlies to the Promised Land, and that starts tonight.

All in all, it should be an interesting game—on that serves as a good barometer for where both of these teams stand at the opening of the season, but not a final judgement on what they’ll be able to accomplish over the next 81 games. We’re going to learn a lot about how the Grizzlies have evolved over the offseason by seeing them face off the same team we saw them play last. Tonight’s the night we get to see real basketball for the first time since May.

Basketball season is finally upon us, and I can’t wait—but I feel like there are some things we need to talk about first.

Preseason Blues

I’ve been trying to figure out how best to address the Grizzlies’ final two preseason games in these pages—you know, the two where the Grizzlies looked lethargic, disinterested, and unorganized, and got beaten by the Raptors by 36 and the Rockets by 19—but here’s the thing: I have no idea how much weight to assign a preseason game. The whole preseason for the Grizzlies has felt like an extended training camp, where the Grizzlies have been, whether due to injuries and illnesses or on purpose, running out whatever seems like it might be a good idea at the time.

We’ve seen crazy lineups—Conley, Bayless, Calathes, Leuer, Gasol, anyone?—and we’ve seen Mike Miller playing 30+ minutes, we’ve seen some plays that looked like “real” sets the Griz will be running and others where they revert to “bad old days” form, standing around until the shot clock expires trying to get a 20-foot contested jumper. We’ve also seen this team (most notably against the Milwaukee Bucks) decide to win “for real” and play hard down the stretch.

I’ll just be honest and say I don’t know what to expect. The last two games of the preseason were putrid, horrible excuses for NBA basketball, and the Grizzlies played like a dumpster fire.

But… the games didn’t count, and the players—most obviously Zach Randolph, but all of them to an extent—know it doesn’t count, and why play as hard as you can and risk getting hurt before you even make it to the games that matter for playoff seeding?

Which isn’t to say that there’s no reason to be concerned. If the Grizzlies stumble out of the gate showing the horrible offensive decision-making and absolutely horrific shooting percentages they had in the last two games, there are going to be problems, and we can forget making a run at a title this year. And, honestly, part of me wonders if the transition into the Joerger Era might need a season like that, a year where it doesn’t quite click yet while everyone gets comfortable with each other and tries to figure out how to operate in what appears to be a completely refocused offense, featuring the Mike Conley/Marc Gasol pick and roll as its basic building block instead of the Zach Randolph/Marc Gasol high-low that’s been slaughtering the Western Conference off and on for the last four years.

It’s a big transition, and the possibility that we’ve all underestimated how big of a transition can’t be dismissed until we get into this first stretch of four or five games.

The Q and Ed Question

The deadline for contract extensions is fast approaching: it’s the 31^st of October, which, as I’m sure your Halloween-costumed children have reminded you, is Thursday. We heard some chatter last week about the possibility that the Grizzlies may be looking to sign Ed Davis to a long-term extension that would secure his presence in Beale Street Blue after this year for a salary somewhat lower than he stands to make as a restricted free agent this summer.

It doesn’t seem like that’s going to happen, as several sources have reported on Twitter and elsewhere that the two sides don’t appear likely to reach an agreement before the deadline.

Tucked in that same article (this one by Marc Stein) was the idea that an extension for Quincy Pondexter “hasn’t been ruled out.” It’s well known that the Grizzlies are big fans of Pondexter, and his continued elevation of his play season after season means he probably still has some growing room. I’m not sure what an extension for Pondexter would look like; probably something under the Mid-Level Exception, maybe $4 million. For a guy who’s a supposed “3 and D” threat, his “D” still needs some work to catch up with his “3.” Otherwise I’d say the full Mid-Level (which is somewhere around $5 million) wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility.

But either way, if nothing happens by Thursday, both players are headed to restricted free agency this summer—and we’ll just have to cross that bridge when we get to it, because there’s a lot of basketball to be played between this point and that one.

Five last-minute predictions

I’ve held off on making official predictions here, because (1) I’m terrible at them and (2) there’s not really any point—NBA seasons are long, grueling, unpredictable, beautiful chaos, and a million different things are going to happen between now and April that will render any attempt to prognosticate useless.

Of course, completely contradicting what I just said, I’ve got a few anyway:

•   The Grizzlies will finish 2nd in the Southwest Division, behind the Spurs but ahead of the Rockets.
•   Marc Gasol will average 32 minutes a game, down from 35 last year and 36.5 the year before (mostly thanks to Kosta Koufos).
•   Zach Randolph will not make the All Star team but will still average a double-double.
•   The Grizzlies will finish the season somewhere around 20^th in the league in Pace, rather than 30th as they did last season.
•   The Grizzlies will trade one of the following players before the deadline: Tayshaun Prince, Jerryd Bayless, and Zach Randolph. Grizzlies fans will not be happy with how little they receive in return.

Commenters (yes, even the ones who were calling for Jason Levien to step down as Grizzlies CEO after a preseason loss to the Rockets), let’s see your predicitions below. Only ten hours until basketball!

• Larry Kuzniewski
• Is Quincy Pondexter going to be the Grizzlies’ starting small forward before long?

This week’s Flyer is the Hoop City issue, an in-depth look at what to expect from Memphis’ two major hardwood collectives this upcoming season: Frank Murtaugh had ten questions for the Tigers and I had ten for the Grizzlies.

Of course, I’ve been known to run a little long in my first drafts, so there were some questions that didn’t make the final cut that I still think are worth exploring a little bit. Call these the “deleted scenes” from my print Griz preview piece, which maybe someday I’ll re-edit with these and release as Grizpocalypse Now Redux (I admit, that may be the worst joke I’ve tried to make in these pages yet). Here’s what got left out:

11. Is Marc Gasol going to score more this year?

Coming off a strong showing in this summer’s Eurobasket, where he averaged 14 points a game while doing his usual high-post wizardry, Gasol talked a little bit about the faster pace at which the Grizzlies would be operating this season, and said that he felt like he was going to be less reluctant to take a shot this year. Like he was going to be able to take those shots we’ve been yelling at him to take for years now.

He also did this:

But look, I’ll believe the New Improved Scoring Machine Marc Gasol when I see it. That’s just not the way Gasol plays. He looks to make the perfect pass to set up his teammate for the easy bucket, even when he potentially has an open shot. On offense, he’s a facilitator first. Asking him to start turning into a low-post scoring threat (which he can be when he wants to) or a volume shooter from the elbows (which he can also be when he wants to) is asking him to change the way that he approaches basketball—and I think he’s been playing it long enough that it’s a little late for that.

I’m not saying I don’t think he’ll score more points this year on average—but I think that’s going to have more to do with the fact that Dave Joerger has explicitly said the Grizzlies’ offense will feature Gasol and Mike Conley as the primary players than it does with Gasol suddenly becoming, well, Z-Bo-like on offense. I, for one, like Gasol’s game just the way it is.

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12. How much of a factor will Zach Randolph’s age be this year?

In the original article, the main Randolph-related question was “will he be here at the end of the year.” But I think there’s another thing to talk about with Randolph that’s even less fun to discuss. I’m going to end up branded a doom-and-gloom guy if I keep this up, but these are things that national writers are starting to talk about, most eloquently this piece by Tom Ziller at SB Nation. Zach Randolph isn’t a young guy anymore. Sure, his game is physical in a way that lends itself to an extended career and a slow decline, but that doesn’t mean that he’s going to be able to keep churning out 20-10 averages on the season forever. At some point, he’s going to have to start to adapt the way he plays basketball to what he’s able to do physically, and it remains to be seen how well that transition is going to go.

The dirty little secret of Zach Randolph’s rebounding numbers is that he gets so many offensive rebounds because he gets them on his own misses. The Z-Bound is legendary, and for good reason: Randolph has a unique ability to clean up whatever mess is going on under the basket and turn it into a putback. But as he ages, and loses what little lift he had to begin with, the Z-Bounds sometimes stretch into two or three self-OREBs before the bucket, and more and more often the jab-step jumpers from twelve feet out are getting stuffed into the courtside seats. That’s not to say that Randolph is ineffective—he’s clearly still the best post scoring option the Grizzlies have, and he’s still the stuff of nightmares for opposing teams (especially Blake Griffin), and the Grizzlies need his cleanup abilities desperately. But the signs of decline are starting to creep in, barely perceptible. It’ll be interesting to watch Z-Bo battle time the same way he battles opponents (though time is harder to put in a chokehold).

13. Who’s going to start at small forward?

This one started generating chatter at the end of the Grizzlies’ playoff run last year as Quincy Pondexter ramped up his play and his scoring output during the Western Conference Finals—seemingly the only Grizzly able to do so—while Tayshaun Prince struggled playing hurt. It’s clear that Pondexter has continued to improve his game, and he’s got his sights set on making a mark this year. (And why wouldn’t he? He’s a restricted free agent after this season. Between that and the Grizzlies’ playoff chances, he’s got every reason in the world to play harder than ever.)

I’ve used this phrase before, but it’s clear that Tayshaun Prince is entering the “Elder Statesman” phase of his career. He was looking to get completely healthy headed into this preseason before a stomach illness wiped him out—rendered him incapable of practicing and playing and even made him lose a scary amount of weight. At this point, who knows when he’s going to be in game shape, let alone healthy enough to go out and play well. But I don’t think he’s ready to retire. Prince played very well in the regular season for the Grizzlies last year (even if he did step in on a maddening number of wide-open threes and shoot 20-footers). It wasn’t until he started to get banged up in the deep playoff run that he really started to struggle, and he was also still playing with a new group of guys in a new city, after years and years of being a Piston. Prince had a lot of factors stacked against him last season, and I, for one, having always been a fan of Prince’s game from afar, was looking forward to seeing what he would do with a full preseason as a Grizzly under his belt.

Now, a good deal of that appears to have been lost. I don’t think Prince will be the starting small forward on opening night at this point, but I do expect him to be in the mix at that spot once he’s recuperated and ready to go. He’s still Tayshaun Prince, after all, and even if his prowess has been diminished by age somewhat, he’s still a good basketball player. But it leaves the starting small forward spot a wide open question. It could be Pondexter. It could be Mike Miller. It could be Tony Allen some nights, with Jerryd Bayless starting at shooting guard. This is another area where the Grizzlies’ depth helps them: lots of rotation options to choose from.

The small forward battle will be worth keeping an eye on, though, especially as Prince gets healthy.

• Larry Kuzniewski
• Ed Davis and his contract extension will tell us a lot about what direction the Grizzlies are going in this year.

I always feel like these games between the NBA’s two Canadian expansion franchises (sorry, Vancouver) should have some sort of rivalry atmosphere, or a name like the Red River Shootout or the Egg Bowl. Yes, the Grizzlies are in Toronto tonight to face off against the Raptors in a preseason reunion of sorts, with Rudy Gay hosting his old team and Ed Davis visiting his. Of course, it comes at an interesting time for Davis: ESPN’s Marc Stein reported on Monday that Davis’ camp and the Grizzlies “have been discussing a deal” this month that would sign Davis to an extension of his current contract rather than let him become a restricted free agent at the end of this season.

It’s easy to see how such a deal could make sense financially for the Grizzlies if they genuinely believe that Davis is going to be their guy long-term at the power forward spot: by extending him now while his stock is relatively low, it’s possible to lock him up for three or four years in a deal that is practically guaranteed to be cheaper than the one he’s going to sign as an RFA this summer. At the same time, it requires a commitment of money to the young big man—in essence, paying him for potential than paying him for performance. The Grizzlies have done this sort of thing before under the old ownership regime—remember the Mike Conley deal, famously referred to by CBS Sports’ Matt Moore as “franchise suicide”?—but are we sure Ed Davis is as good as Mike Conley? And if he isn’t—despite all of the faith and trust that Dave Joerger says he has in Davis, it’s faith that he will improve and grow, not faith that he is ready to take the reins—what happens then?

Davis’ qualifying offer is $4.36 million. At a minimum, that’s what it’ll take to keep him here next year. But… what’s the market going to be like for Ed Davis next summer if he becomes a restricted free agent?

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We’ve seen Davis’ numbers while starting before. Sure, it wasn’t for the Grizzlies, but Davis started 24 of the 45 games he played for the Raptors last season before being traded to Memphis, averaging 24.2 minutes¹. His per-36 numbers as a starter in Toronto were great: 13.8 points, 10.2 rebounds (3.4 offensive and 6.8 defensive), 1.9 blocks. The problem with judging those numbers at face value is mainly just a problem of how bad the Raptors were, though. Davis was excelling (statistically) on a team that was going nowhere in a hurry, so it’s hard to use that as a basis to judge how he’s going to be able to carry the workload of Zach Randolph.

And let’s be honest with ourselves for a minute, okay? That’s what we’re really talking about. There are ways (discussed in this piece on the blog already) for the Grizzlies to keep Randolph around long-term without having him choose the nuclear option and pick up his $16.5 million player option for next season, but those ways of keeping him around make less sense if the Grizzlies can (1) be confident that Ed Davis can step into that role and keep the Grizzlies’ interior attack operating at a high level and (2) sign him to a deal that’s only going to be, say, $6 million a year instead of $16.5 million. Once you think you can live without Zach Randolph, and you’re sure Ed Davis is ready to step up, it doesn’t make any sense to keep Randolph around on a team where he’s not going to be The Guy anymore. Can you see Z-Bo being excited about playing behind Ed Davis?

The Grizzlies have until October 31^st to sign Davis to a contract extension, or else they’ll have to wait until the summer to hash something out. I haven’t heard any specific numbers thrown out as an example of the kind of deal being discussed, but I’d have to imagine it’s probably something similar to the Conley “Franchise Suicide contract: four years, maybe $25 million or so, maybe $30 million probably backloaded and chock full of performance-based incentives. If you think those numbers sound high, know this: someone will overpay for Davis. Frontcourt talent is too hard to come by, and Davis’ tantalyzing flashes of great play will convince somebody that he’s worth that kind of a contract. By locking him up now, the Grizzlies would prevent whatever bidding war has the potential to erupt—particularly if Davis has the breakout year everyone seems to be expecting him to have.

What effect does that have on how the Grizzlies play right now, though? Jon Leuer is having a great preseason, and playing like a guy with something to prove. As it currently stands, the Grizzlies can roll out a matchup-based power forward by committee approach and play whichever player—Davis, Z-Bo, or Leuer—is going to create the most problems for their opponent. That kind of depth can only be a good thing. But if the Grizzlies are able to sign Davis to the extension currently being discussed, and then Leuer plays his way up the depth chart into being the first 4 off the bench—while making $900,000—what happens with Davis? Obviously his trade value is still high, so it wouldn’t be the end of the world, but I wonder about the effect that would have in the locker room. Z-Bo may be a great locker room guy now, in a way that he wasn’t in the earlier phases of his career, but you have to think that the uncertainty around this whole situation is going to show up somewhere on or off the court.

We saw the same thing happen last year as the Rudy Gay rumor mill cranked up: the team was clearly not present mentally, and they got beaten by bad teams because they were on the court but they weren’t together, weren’t sharp, weren’t focused. The constant uncertainty even got to Lionel Hollins, who was making open pleas to management not to make a trade, only to lash out when it happened. (My favorite—and I don’t remember exactly which game it was, maybe the Nets—was right after the Cleveland trade that sent Marreese Speights, Wayne Ellington, and Josh Selby to the Cavs for Jon Leuer, when Hollins said he had to play Hamed Haddadi so much because he “didn’t have any centers anymore.”) That kind of question mark needs to be settled sooner rather than later for the good of team chemistry and cohesion. If the Grizzlies are going to sign Ed Davis to a long-term extension, I think they’re going to have to keep Zach Randolph’s $16.5 million salary from being on the books next year.

It’s interesting that all of this has come up as the Grizzlies prepare to play their partner in the Rudy Gay trade (not counting Detroit). Storylines have a way of asserting themselves sometimes, don’t they? Maybe it’ll give ’em all something to talk about if they go out to grab a drink with Rudy after the game.

• Larry Kuzniewski
• Jerryd Bayless could not miss in Sunday’s game at Atlanta. Except the one time he did.

After hiding away in my underground lair to work on the big Grizzlies preview for this week’s print edition of the Memphis Flyer, which will hopefully be in your hands soon, this weekend gave us a couple of preseason away games for the Grizzlies that happened seemingly in a vacuum: no one was watching in the arena, the action wasn’t televised, and since I couldn’t get the radio to work inside my house—Eric Hasseltine actually called the game yesterday afternoon in Atlanta by himself—for yesterday’s I was reduced to following along with an auto-updating box score on NBA.com while the rest of the world watched football and napped.

I’ll start with the game I could actually see with my own eyes: the Grizzlies’ 97-91 road win over the Orlando Magic. If you were able to watch the League Pass feed of this game, you noticed instantly that the whole thing was being broadcast via two cameras, one on each baseline. It was like watching some sort of Soviet-era broadcast of an exhibition game between East Germany and Czechoslovakia telecast from a disused hangar for transport aircraft.

Camera jokes aside, there were some noteworthy takeaways from the Magic game: Mike Miller played 30 minutes and was one point short of a 20-10 game, finishing with 19 points and 11 rebounds. One assumes that sort of performance isn’t going to be commonplace from Miller during the regular season, as his health (or lack thereof) was one of the main reasons his role was so limited for the Miami Heat the last couple of years. If Miller has really healed enough to be able to handle that sort of workload on a semi-regular basis, this Grizzlies team just got that much more dangerous. The Grizzlies’ other player with a double-double against the Magic was Ed Davis, who racked up 16 and 10 (along with 2 blocks) in 28 minutes. Davis also shot 7-10 from the field (and made 50% of his free throws). Davis, along with Marc Gasol, got in some good minutes against Orlando’s up-and-coming young big man Nikola Vucevic, who looks poised to have a breakout year this year.

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I don’t think the Magic are going to be very good this year. They’re in the middle of a full-on rebuilding process that started with the exit of Dwight Howard, and they’ve got a nice collection of young players at this point, but that’s about it. They’re still a year or two away from cohesion, to my mind. That means Davis’ stat line comes with a large “yeah, but it was in preseason against the Magic” caveat. Still, given the expectations on Davis, it’s good to see him have an efficient, productive night playing a lot of minutes. That’s the kind of thing he needs to be able to do going forward.

Sunday against the Hawks, well, that was the one I just followed the box score of. But the main thing I took away from Sunday’s game was the incredible depth of this roster. Mike Conley had the day off, Tayshaun Prince is still unable to play, and Kosta Koufos sat out again—three starting-quality players not able to go for Memphis—and the Griz were still able to run out a ten-man rotation and beat the Hawks.

That’s depth. The starters were Miller, Zach Randolph, Marc Gasol, Tony Allen, and Jerryd Bayless, and the “second unit,” Hubie Brown style, was Quincy Pondexter, Jamaal Franklin, Nick Calathes, Jon Leuer, and Ed Davis. All ten of those guys played more than 16 minutes and fewer than 25 or so. That doesn’t even count Tony Gaffney and Willie Reed at 9 and 10 minutes respectively, or recent signing Andre Barrett, who saw the court for a couple of minutes. This Grizzlies team is deep. That depth is going to become a huge factor this year, because the minute load on the starters has been one of the biggest negatives for the Grizzlies over the past few years. Even if it only takes four minutes a game off the average workload of Mike Conley and Marc Gasol, that’s a blessing come playoff time.

I can’t talk about Sunday’s game without mentioning the fact that Jerryd Bayless’ shooting was so hot he almost melted through the floor of Philips Arena. Bayless started out 5-5 from three, and extended the streak all the way to 8-8 from the floor and 6-6 from long range before he finally missed a jumper. If Bayless is going to be perfect from long range and put up 22 points, in addition to what the rest of the offense is doing? Yikes.

All in all, the games are starting to feel more like meaningless preseason games and not vital yardsticks to measure the progress of the team. Every game is starting to feel like it has less to teach us about every single player on the roster and more like “hey, let’s try this.” This is about the point in the preseason where watching the games just makes me start to miss “real” basketball even more, and we’re still nine days away from the Grizzlies’ opener on the road in San Antonio. That said, this weekend had some highlights.

Camera angles were not one of them.

• Larry Kuzniewski
• Quincy Pondexter has been playing like a man with something to prove so far this preseason.

The Grizzlies and Bucks played a very competitive, close-fought game tonight at FedExForum, even though it was a preseason game, no one was watching, and half of the Bucks’ almost completely nonsensical roster (more on that later) was out with an injury. The NBA is a beautiful thing, and sometimes it’s at its most beautiful when nothing happening makes any sense. I don’t think I’ve had enough caffeine and/or 12-hour Sudafed to be able to stitch this game recap into a coherent narrative, so I’m just going to give it to you straight.

1.

Neither Zach Randolph nor Tayshaun Prince were in the building tonight, as both of them are resting up and staying healthy. Randolph sat out for “lineup” reasons, and the official word is that Prince is recovering from a stomach bug, but I’ve yet to see his face on the Grizzlies’ bench this preseason—in or out of uniform. He just plain hasn’t been around. I have no reason to doubt the official narrative, and I haven’t been able to verify whether he’s been practicing all along and just not playing, but I do think it’s exceedingly weird that we flat-out haven’t seen him in the building, four games into the preseason.

Randolph, for what it’s worth, has been playing really well so far this preseason, and looks to be in really good shape. The buzz about when/whether he’ll be traded has already started, but it doesn’t seem to be affecting him on the court yet. Whether it will down the stretch as the rumors start flying closer to the deadline, I can only guess. It always seems like he’s one or two bad weeks away from slipping back into the “not nice Z-Bo” of old, but for whatever reason it hasn’t happened, and I’m glad. I hope that continues to be the case.

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2.

The most interesting things going on tonight were the lineups, especially the ones Coach Joerger threw at the Bucks involving three “point guards” at the same time (applying the term loosely here to Bayless): Mike Conley, Jerryd Bayless, and Nick Calathes all on the court at the same time, with Jon Leuer and Marc Gasol in the frontcourt. Later on we’d see the three-guard look again, but with Gasol and Ed Davis briefly and Davis and Leuer briefly. As Joerger explained in the postgame presser, the three-guard look allowed the Grizzlies to drive the ball into the paint pretty much at will, and on defense it didn’t cause too many problems (except maybe against athletic freak and very skilled rookie Giannis “The Alphabet” Antetokounmpo). I would expect that the three-point-guard lineup is something that we’re going to see Joerger pull out of his back pocket from time to time this season as the matchups call for it. It’s certainly a look that’s harder to defend. Switch Calathes out for Tony Allen or Jamaal Franklin and the lineup still retains some of its interesting size-matchup properties, but gets less effective at moving the ball.

3.

Jon Leuer continues to play very, very well. If he keeps this up, I think we’re going to have to have a conversation at some point about who that 4th big off the bench will be this year (assuming Kosta Koufos will be the 3rd big in the rotation, coming in to spell Gasol, which is a safe assumption since Koufos started 81 games for a playoff team last year): will it always be “Power Forward of the Future” Ed Davis, or will it be Leuer when the matchup favors him, or will Leuer—obviously a much different player than Davis, in terms of skillset— play his way all the way into that spot? I’ve always been a believer in Ed Davis’ potential to be the starting power forward for the Grizzlies, but that this point, this early in his Grizzlies career, it’s still just potential. Leuer is already signed to a long-term deal and he’s playing really well now. It’s worth keeping an eye on.

4.

We have to talk about this Bucks roster. What are they doing? Why did they trade for Caron Butler? Are they trying to build a contender in the Heat-laden East with a backcourt of Brandon Knight and O.J. Mayo? Why did the sign Zaza Pachulia? Is Larry Sanders worth the money they paid him? Are they going to pretend they’re not going to trade Ilyasova, or just get it over with? Luke Ridnour? Carlos Delfino? (Worth mentioning that Delfino, Ilyasova, Pachulia, and Gary Neal—yes, the Bucks also signed Gary Neal—were all out with injuries on Tuesday night.)

I kind of figured the Bucks would tread water and coast into the 8th seed in the East this year with 35 or 38 wins, but after seeing them in person, even injury limited, I dunno about that. The roster just doesn’t make any sense to me. I don’t understand what they’re trying to do, or what kind of team they’re trying to build. Maybe they’re playing chess while I play checkers, but it feels more to me like the Bucks are the team that went to the thrift store and bought a bunch of awesome stuff and got home and realized they’d bought six paper grocery bags full of sweaters so hideous Bill Cosby wouldn’t put them in his backup sweater closet.

And where does Luke Ridnour fit on the All-NBA North American White Dude Team? He’s on the roster, right? 11th or 12th?

5.

Quincy Pondexter is playing like a man with something to prove this preseason. Since playing for the first time Sunday against Maccabi Haifa, he’s attacked the rim relentlessly, and while he’s still using the three-point shooting that he improved so dramatically last season, he’s now driving straight at the hoop every opportunity he gets, and converting most of his attempts. Plus, he drove straight at John Henson and elevated and dunked it right on Henson’s head, and if I hadn’t remembered at the last possible second that I was sitting at the scorer’s table, I would’ve jumped up and yelled. It was great.

Pondexter is a guy who finished the season with a lot of buzz last year, and his name is coming up more and more as someone who could potentially start in the place of Tayshaun Prince at the small forward spot. I still think Pondexter’s defense is weaker than his offense, and needs to improve before I’d feel great about starting him, but I definitely think that if he keeps playing the way he’s playing, he’s going to make the “Should Pondexter start?” question one that has to be asked in the Grizzlies’ coaching meetings as seriously as it’s asked in the media.

6.

Melvin Ely played 10 minutes tonight. I keep wanting to call him “Marvin Ely” and I don’t know why. I apologize for that, Melvin Ely.

Also, I tweeted this at one point during the game tonight:

Stephen Graham yelled "And one" really loud as he went up for a layup that he bounced off the backboard and straight to Melvin Ely.
— Kevin Lipe (@FlyerGrizBlog) October 16, 2013

…and it was favorited by a Twitter account for Melvin Ely fans, which is apparently a thing that exists. I don’t know what Ely’s chances of making the final Griz roster are—I’d assume they’re pretty low—but he played hard and made some good plays tonight in the minutes that he got, and for a “training camp roster” type guy, that’s sometimes more than you can ask for. I hope he at least sticks around until I can stop wanting to call him “Marvin.”

7.

I started off my Beyond the Arc career saying that there were a lot of questions surrounding the Grizzlies as they started this season, and that we’d hopefully begin to answer some of them as the season approached. We haven’t. Not in my mind. I don’t even feel like we’ve replaced them all with better questions yet. This team is still 100% enigma. The fact that not everyone has even played yet hasn’t helped. It’s been impossible to make any sort of actual judgements based on preseason play so far, beyond very limited scopes.

And that just makes me that much more excited for the actual season to get underway. The preseason is doing nothing to satiate my (and hopefully your) curiosity about what kind of a team the Grizzlies are this year—what makes them tick, how they perform under pressure, what happens when a big game is on the line, and what happens on a Tuesday night in Sacramento when no one is watching? I want to be in the real season. These preseason games are just making me wish the games counted already. Give me basketball. Real, for-keeps basketball. That’s the good stuff. Preseason is fun—like Larry Sanders getting called for an offensive foul, running down to the other end and slapping the Grizzlies backboard as hard as he could during a dead ball, drawing a technical (I mean, what did he rationally expect to be the outcome of that action?). But it’s not the good stuff.

The good stuff is two weeks away.

• Larry Kuzniewski
• ESPN’s 5-on-5 Grizzlies preview was down on Z-Bo, but it’s not a forgone conclusion that he’ll be gone after this year.

Grizzlies vs. Bucks: Treading Water in a Sea of Tanking

Tonight, in the fourth game of their preseason, the Grizzlies take the court against a Milwaukee Bucks team that’s in a transitional period, one that finds them uncertain about the way their team is built but still probably good enough to make the playoffs in a top- and bottom-heavy Eastern Conference.

There is one new Bucks player who is making waves, though: rookie standout Giannis Antetokounmpo. He’s made a splash in three preseason games so far for the Bucks, scoring and rebounding and generally looking like a guy who’s going to make a name for himself in the upcoming season. It doesn’t hurt that he’s already picked up a pretty great nickname along the way: “The Alphabet.”

Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention another new face on the Milwaukee bench, one who will be familiar to Grizzlies fans: former Grizzly O.J. Mayo signed with the Bucks over the summer, as they looked to strengthen their roster and fill the hole left by the departure of Monta Ellis for Dallas. I found it pretty funny that Mayo, whose name was always brought up in trade rumors involving Ellis while he was in Memphis, ended up essentially taking Ellis’ place on a Bucks roster that, on the face of it, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Brandon Jennings is gone, replaced by Brandon Knight (who survived this attempt on his life by DeAndre Jordan last year). They signed frontcourt standout Larry Sanders to a long-term deal.

In a year in which many teams that would normally be happy to be fringe playoff teams are frantically trying to implode their rosters in a race to the bottom of the draft lottery—in an attempt to cash in on this year’s loaded draft class, presumably—the Bucks seem to be… sort of rebuilding and sort of just shuffling around players in an attempt to tread water as an 8th seed, a position that got them into the playoffs with a 38-44 record last year, but not exactly a position from which to build a championship-contending small market team out of spare parts.

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In a league in which the “smart teams” are all trying to follow the Sonics/Thunder model of being terrible for several years in order to stockpile lottery picks and then get the most value out of them before turning them into more draft picks, the Milwaukee Bucks seem to simply be trying to tread water and make the playoffs every year. It’ll be interesting to see whether that approach works out for them this year. My suspicion is that it will, since every other team in their vicinity (except maybe the Raptors) will be attempting to plummet to the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings like Operation Dumbo Drop.

Matchups to watch for: assuming Tony Allen plays, he sure loves shutting down O.J. Mayo (even in fistfights on the team plane). Also, if preseason trends continue and Ed Davis is going to play a lot of minutes, it should be interesting to see what happens when he and Larry Sanders (“Hey now!”) are on the court at the same time.

ESPN’s Preview, Z-Bo, and You

Elsewhere on Planet Grizzly, yesterday ESPN posted their 5-on-5 preview of the upcoming Grizzlies season and had some prognostication regarding everyone’s favorite ground-bound power forward that were more negative than I felt like they should have been. To a man, the five guys on the panel (Kevin Arnovitz, D.J. Foster of ClipperBlog, Darius Soriano of Forum Blue and Gold, Amin Vafa of Hardwood Paroxysm, and Jack Winter of WarriorsWorld) all had something to say along the lines of “Zach Randolph will be replaced by Ed Davis this year.” (Paraphrasing, of course.)

I don’t know that that’s necessarily the case. I certainly see it as a possibility, but I don’t think it’s a certainty. Randolph has a $16.5 million player option after this year, one that would certainly weigh down the Grizzlies and dramatically limit their options next offseason. But there are still scenarios in which Randolph remains in Memphis—albeit perhaps in a more limited role going forward—for the long term. This specific contract idea came up in a Twitter conversation yesterday with Chris Herrington of the Commercial Appeal and Matt Hrdlicka of Grizzly Bear Blues. If Randolph doesn’t pick up that $16.5mil option, but instead signs with the Grizzlies for a front-loaded deal of three years, $30mil, he could get one more big contract, same the team money next year and still make more money long-term than he might if he takes the $16.5mil—which could force the front office’s hand and make them have to get rid of him just to be able to make moves next summer—and then tests his value on the open market.

Randolph is certainly on the downslope of his career. There are some signs that his decline has already begun, but he’s also still very capable of playing at a high level. He led the league in offensive rebounds last year. He made the All Star team last year, and then carried the team through large stretches of the playoff series against the LA Clippers, continued to be a primary scoring threat and all-around tough guy against the Westbrook-less Thunder, and fought valiantly against the Spurs even though he was completely swamped every time he touched the ball, trying to operate without even the tiny slivers of space normally afforded him by last year’s Grizzlies offense. None of that is to say that he’s going to be able to play that way forever, or that his current level of production is commensurate with the amount of money the Grizzlies are paying him in this post-lockout CBA era.

Obviously age is the primary factor here, and time is not on Z-Bo’s side. But if he can transition his game into more of a supporting role, if he doesn’t pick up that player option (and that’s a big “if”, because $16.5 million is a lot of money; my gut tells me the only way he doesn’t pick up the option is if the Grizzlies offer him more money over more years in its place), and if the Grizzlies organization feels like he can contribute in a way that makes him worth keeping around for another long-term (three or four year) contract, there’s no reason Z-Bo won’t still be here.

That said, I certainly don’t think it’s beyond the realm of possibility that Randolph’s days as a Grizzly are numbered. But I don’t think his trade value is high enough, nor do I think Ed Davis is anywhere near proven enough, for it to be a foregone conclusion that Randolph is gone and Davis has already earned his place in the starting lineup. There are certainly scenarios in which Z-Bo stays around—scenarios that make sense beyond sentimental “but we love Z-Bo” reasons.

• Larry Kuzniewski
• Griz Coach Dave Joerger had most of his starters for the first time tonight against Maccabi Haifa.

The Grizzlies’ first win of the 2013 preseason came against Maccabi Haifa of the Israeli Basketball Super League, and it was… not close. The Grizzlies never trailed, and after leading 28-14 at the end of the first quarter, they never really felt pressure again through the rest of the game.

Tonight was a milestone for the Grizzlies’ preseason, and not just because of the lopsided win: this evening’s game was the first in which the Grizzlies were playing at something resembling full strength: Marc Gasol, Tony Allen, and Quincy Pondexter all made their first preseason appearances, and Kosta Koufos was back in action after sitting out Wednesday night’s game against the Dallas Mavericks.

Still missing from action was Tayshaun Prince, who—yet again—wasn’t even in the building. I joked on Twitter early in the game about the possibility that Prince had actually been kidnapped, or maybe abducted by aliens, or maybe even was off fighting crime as a masked superhero of some sort¹. Ron Tillery of the Commercial Appeal had the scoop on Twitter, though, saying the Griz veteran has been battling a stomach bug.

The starters (minus Prince, presumably, although there’s been chatter since the end of last season that Quincy Pondexter may make the leap to the starting lineup this season) played a good deal tonight, with Gasol, Allen, Mike Conley, Zach Randolph, and Mike Miller all playing more than 20 minutes. From the looks of it, they needed the time on the court together, feeling out the new Dave Joerger playbook. Ball movement looked very crisp at times, swinging the ball all the way from one side to the other quickly. Not sure if it was the sub-NBA competition, or if the Joerger Regime is really changing things up already, but it seemed to me at times that the passing and ball movement were much improved over last year, with guys going out of their way to make the extra pass and swing the ball around. At any rate, it’s something to watch for, as the grind of the season starts to wear out guys that may be feeling fresh now. The pace may be up right now because it’s preseason, or it may actually be down because guys aren’t totally comfortable with the system yet.

Another lineup that was on the floor a good bit was a Bayless/Pondexter/Miller/Davis/Koufos unit that will presumably be one of the Grizzlies’ main all-reserve lineups this year. Bayless had been playing mostly off the ball in the first two preseason games, but against Maccabi Haifa tonight he saw a good deal of time as the backup point guard. Nick Calathes played 13 minutes, instead of the big workload he carried Wednesday night against Dallas.

What stuck out to me tonight is the depth of this team. This is a team that can start Conley/Allen/Prince/Randolph/Gasol, swap that entire unit out for Bayless/Pondexter/Miller/Davis/Koufos, or Calathes/Franklin/Miller/Davis/Koufos, or swap Leuer for Davis or Leuer for Koufos, or move Bayless off the ball with Calathes at point, or…

…lots of options. Right now, with Tony Gaffney and Willie Reed and some of the other guys around who might not make the roster for the year, the Griz have a bit of a logjam in the bench backcourt and the bench frontcourt—there are just too many good players on the roster. For a Grizzlies team that has struggled so mightily with having a crappy bench for so many years—guys that just couldn’t hold a lead, and certainly couldn’t extend one, even against the worst teams in the league—having a roster where twelve guys can play actual meaningful minutes must feel like an unimaginable blessing.

Looking forward to the upcoming games this week, the Grizzlies take on the Bucks (featuring former Lionel Hollins Doghouse resident O.J. Mayo and exciting big man Larry Sanders²) at home on Tuesday night and then travel to Orlando on Friday to play the Magic. Tuesday night, I’ll be watching for bench lineups again. I think Joerger still has a long way to go to figure out who his go-to guys are coming off the bench. Obviously a lot of eggs are in the Ed Davis basket, but Jon Leuer and Kosta Koufos have both played well, too. Pondexter established his sixth-man credentials in the playoffs last year, but he’s got competion from rookie Jamaal Franklin, and he’s also got Mike Miller soaking up some of the minutes at the 3 spot that used to belong to Pondexter. (I, personally, hope we see Calathes-Franklin-Pondexter-Miller-Koufos or Davis before the end of the preseason.) There are certainly questions yet to be answered about who is going to get the minutes, and I don’t expect those questions to be answered any time soon.

Later this week I’ll take a look at the matchups against the Bucks—operating on the assumption that the starters are probably going to play at least a few minutes a game from here on out—and dig deeper into some of the questions surrounding the Griz frontcourt rotation as we continue our inexorable march toward October 30^th and a season-opening revenge match against the San Antonio Spurs. That’s the first one that matters for playoff seeding, and the first one where a win means something besides pride. That’s the first one that matters.