Author: Kevin Lipe

Larry Kuzniewski

The Grizzlies pulled off a big win over division rivals the Houston Rockets last night at FedExForum, 103–89, and the final score is actually closer than the game felt by the end. The 5–1 Grizzlies now have two wins over Houston already. Houston, without Chris Paul and Eric Gordon, was unable to keep up with the Grizzlies’ second unit on either end of the floor, which is the story of the young season for Memphis so far.

The Griz are lucky the bench had a big night, because wasn’t a pretty game for the starting unit. But more about that later. Here are five thoughts about what happened last night and What It All Means:

★ Chandler Parsons had himself a game. For the first time in a Grizzlies uniform, Chandler Parsons looked like the platonic 2014–15 ideal of Chandler Parsons. In 18 minutes, Parsons scored 24 points on 9–11 shooting, including 6 of 8 from 3. Most of that came in even less time than that. Not shown in the box score is the time he drove the lane on Ryan Anderson and dunked, which I think we can all agree is something that seemed unlikely (if not impossible). After the game, Mike Conley said the last time he saw Parsons play that well was when Parsons played for Houston and dropped “about 10 3’s” on the Grizzlies, and Parsons referenced the same game in his postgame interview. At any rate, it’s been a long time since Parsons has been that player, and it was wonderful to see it happen last night.

I had no expectations for Parsons this year. I thought it was possible that me might not be able to play at all, and so did people inside the organization. But all year long he’s been solid defensively, and as he’s gotten more comfortable in the flow of the game, his shot has returned to him as well. Even if he never has this sort of outburst again, the fact that he’s able to be a key contributor to a very good second unit is a positive outcome for everyone involved, and makes for a much happier vibe around the season. Good for Chandler Parsons. Maybe his Instagram manners will come around next.

Larry Kuzniewski

★ The Grizzlies’ depth is their strength. The Grizzlies beat the Rockets by 14 points, led by as many as 19, and didn’t have a single starter score 10 or more points. The leading scorer among starters was actually Jarell Martin who finished with 9. Counting the basket made by Deyonta Davis after the game was in garbage time, the Griz bench was responsible for 67 points last night, compared to the Rockets’ bench’s 25. The Grizzlies are crushing people without any starters on the floor this season. It’s been the story all along. But last night it was even more important, with the injury-hobbled starting lineup failing to get anything done.

After the game, coach David Fizdale had some interesting things to say about how he’s approached the bench. With the injuries to JaMychal Green, Wayne Selden, and Ben McLemore, the starting lineup is sure to change as guys come back, so Fizdale has focused on keeping his second unit—Mario Chalmers, Tyreke Evans, Dillon Brooks, Chandler Parsons, and Brandan Wright—as cohesive as possible while letting the starters carry the weight of the missing players.

That explains why Andrew Harrison and Jarell Martin are still starting, especially Harrison, who has struggled mightily and played his worst game so far last night. Green is sure to return in Martin’s spot, and one assumes either Selden or McLemore will start in Harrison’s spot, whichever is healthy first. But if the bench unit is staying together, including sensational rookie Dillon Brooks, either Selden or McLemore may find himself on the outside looking in once they’re all back. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out as guys return.

★ Dillon Brooks is smooth. That’s all I have for this one. Brooks had 6 points and went 2–7 from the field, and even in an “off” night I was impressed by his poise on the court. He guarded James Harden some. But his pull-up 3 in transition showed an ease with the NBA game that the Grizzlies haven’t seen in a young guy in years.

Larry Kuzniewski

★ Mike Conley’s struggles are not getting better. Conley was flat-out bad last night. Marc Gasol was off, too, but he’s had enough MVP-like games that he gets a pass. Conley, on the other hand, struggled for all four quarters last night, unable to turn it on for the final frame like he has in other big games this year.

When I asked Fizdale about it postgame, he pointed out that defenses are keying in on Conley even more than in the past, and it’s taken some time to get used to it. He also pointed out that he’s not worried—that he knows Conley’s game will come around when it comes around. Last night the Grizzlies were able to see their way to a blowout without Captain Clutch, but one wonders how many more big wins they’re likely to get with Conley and Gasol both in single digits.

★ Tyreke needs to facilitate more instead of looking guys off. Yeah, right. But he did miss white-hot Parsons wide often for three, more than once.

Tweet of the Night

Chandler Parsons' jumper is so hot tonight that he just started creeping in its Instagram comments.

— Yaya Dubin (@JADubin5) October 29, 2017

Grizzlies 103, Rockets 89: Five Thoughts

Up Next

Monday night, the Grizzlies take on the Charlotte Hornets at home, and then Wednesday night the home stand wraps up against the Orlando Magic. Given the Grizzlies’ track record against East teams, especially mediocre-to-bad ones, it’s anybody’s guess how these next two play out (although the Magic are currently on top of the East standings, so I suppose anything is possible). After that, it’s a weekend in LA, which we’ll talk about more later in the week. For now, the Grizzlies are back on top of the West standings, and anyone who says they saw this start coming is probably full of it.

This week on the show, Kevin and Phil talk about:

• The 3-0 Grizzlies’ victories over the Pelicans, Warriors, and Rockets (which actually happened!)
• The impressive defense from the Grizzlies, ahead of schedule
• Mike Conley’s three bad quarters and one great one against the Rockets
• The ejections of Steph Curry and Kevin Durant, and the Chalmers/Harden scuffle
• Chandler Parsons’ not-dead-yet first three games
• The week to come: Dallas twice, Houston again, and Charlotte—can the Grizzlies go 8-0?

The Beyond the Arc podcast is available on iTunes, so you can subscribe there! It’d be great if you could rate and review the show while you’re there. You can also find and listen to the show on Stitcher and on PlayerFM.

You can call our Google Voice number and leave us a voicemail, and we might talk about your question on the next show: 234-738-3394

You can download the show here or listen below:

Joe Murphy (NBAE/Getty Images)

Tyreke Evans

Fresh off a victory over the Warriors, the Grizzlies went to Houston last night and beat the Rockets 98–90 in a classic, Grind-inflected battle of wills. It was an unexpected win, but once the game got going, you could see what was happening: the Grizzlies’ defense, well ahead of schedule, was driving Houston crazy, and as usual, the offense was just doing enough to break even. A fourth-quarter outburst from Mike Conley pushed the Grizzlies over the edge (and the Rockets over the edge of frustration) and the Griz were suddenly 3–0 and in possession of first place in the Western Conference. (You can go on and start the playoffs now, Mr. Silver.)

Here are four key points from last night, in abbreviated “road game” form:

★ TA left, but Grit and Grind did not. I thought the Grizzlies would struggle on defense this year, but in Tony Allen’s absence they’re actually doing a better job implementing the system Fizdale tried to put in place last year. The Grizzlies switch now, and they do it well, and the fact that they’re all bought in instead of gambling for steals at every opportunity might mean they’re actually better off. If driving the opponent’s star player to draw a frustration-based tech while holding the score under 100 isn’t Classic Grizzlies, I don’t know what is.

★ Jarell Martin has to get better defensively. Houston saw a weakness in Martin’s pick and roll defense and exploited it ruthlessly. Of course, he’s not the intended starter at that spot, but until JaMychal Green gets back, Martin needs to do a better job of holding down the fort on that end. I was having Zach Randolph Western Conference Finals flashbacks watching him get burned on possession after possession.

★ James Ennis is the best starting small forward since Rudy Gay and it’s not close. I said that already after the Warriors game but I think people are still sleeping on this fact.

★ The second unit is going to get weird when the injured guys return. I’m not sure who I’d give the minutes to right now, or from whom I would take them. The current ten-man rotation feels straight out of the Hubie Brown playbook.

Tweet of the Night

No team will have better back-to-back wins this year than Memphis beating Golden State & Houston. Really impressive 3-0 start for the Grizz.

— Tim Bontemps (@TimBontemps) October 24, 2017

Grizzlies 98, Rockets 90: Road Rundown

Up Next

The Grizzlies are in Dallas Wednesday night and then return home Thursday night to play… Dallas. After that it’s another matchup with the Rockets, this time in Memphis, on Saturday night, which—given the near-fisticuffs between James Harden and Mario Chalmers near the end of last night’s game—may get interesting.

Larry Kuzniewski

Saturday night at FedExForum, the Grizzlies pulled off an improbable win over the defending champion Golden State Warriors in a game that was really only ever close in a few spots. After taking the lead somewhere in the middle of the first quarter, the Grizzlies put their collective foot on the gas and never looked back, leading by as many as 19 points in the third quarter.

I won’t say I was shocked by last night’s outcome—the Grizzlies have had the Warriors’ number for a long time now, and there always seems to be at least one game per year in which the Grizzlies get in the Warriors’ heads and camp out for a while. But I didn’t expect the Grizzlies to look so dominant, or for the bench to outperform the starters so thoroughly. (Well, except Marc Gasol, but we’ll get to him in a bit.) It was a good all-around win for a team with a lot to prove, and it came much earlier in the season than was probably fair to expect. For all of the doom-and-gloom about the Grizzlies headed into this year—and make no mistake, they’re only two games in and there are still questions yet to be answered—it does seem like maybe the “rebuild in place” is happening a little faster than the national basketball commentariat predicted. Here are five other things that stood out about last night:

★ Marc Gasol is not from this planet. Gasol ended last night with 34 points on 16 shots, 14 rebounds, and a career-high 17 free throw attempts. Gasol was everywhere last night, shooting 50% from three, cooking in the post, defending well, pulling down rebounds at a rate we’ve never seen before¹, and mostly making up for Mike Conley’s off night in every statistical category. It was a marvelous game from him last night, one of the best I can remember in a long time.

If Gasol is going to play like this all year (barring the nights when the conditions just aren’t right for him to create his basketball art) the Grizzlies are going to make the playoffs, simply by the sheer force of his will towards perfecting each individual possession.

Larry Kuzniewski

★ The current second unit is unstoppable so far. Mario Chalmers, Tyreke Evans, Dillon Brooks, Chandler Parsons, and Brandan Wright got the Grizzlies the lead in the first half and played a big role in their keeping it. Gasol already had a double-double by halftime but the rest of the Grizzlies’ starters stumbled out of the gate a bit, and it was up to the bench to salvage the situation. Chalmers only took 4 shots but got to the line for 8 FT attempts, Brooks ended with 9 points but was more impressive on the defensive end (except for the few times he got burned, because, y’know, rookies get burned), Parsons was 2 of 4 from 3 and moved the ball well, and Wright, even though the stat sheet doesn’t really show it, kept things moving with his length and athleticism.

It’s been quite a while since the Grizzlies had a bench that was this reliable. And they did this, last night, missing two or three rotation players (JaMychal Green, Wayne Selden, and Ben McLemore, all of whom will presumably play—though maybe not if Brooks continues to perform at this level). I wrote in my season preview that the Grizzlies’ wing rotation top-to-bottom was better than it’s been in a long time, and I think even then I wasn’t positive enough. The bench is good. This, apparently, is a seriously deep team.

★ Jarell Martin probably isn’t ready to be a starter yet, but held his own. Martin got the start in place of the injured Green. Before the game, head coach David Fizdale said he wanted to start Martin as a test to see where he’s at, but also that Martin’s versatility “fits this game.” Once the game was underway, one could see what he meant: Martin seemed overwhelmed at times against the Warriors’ starters, especially when the Griz defense started switching more rigorously, but he was able to make plays with his athleticism that he 100% would not have made in the previous two seasons. There is real growth happening there with Martin, even if it’s still the early stages of what he can be. “Everyone’s consensus pick to be cut at the end of camp” to “starting against the Warriors in Game 2” is a heck of a recovery.

★ James Ennis is the starting 3 the Grizzlies have needed for five years. Since Rudy Gay was traded, the Grizzlies have had issues at the small forward spot. Tayshaun Prince was a good facilitator and defender but he was on the downslope of his career and his shot had mostly started to fail him. Jeff Green was apparently on the Grizzlies for a while. Chandler Parsons was forced to start for 20 minutes to rehab his knees and clearly couldn’t play. But this year, with Ennis in that spot, he’s everything they’ve needed for years. He’s athletic, he can defend, and he doesn’t need to produce much offense, but when he does, it’s extremely efficient. Ennis was 6 for 6 last night, finishing with 13 points, and it felt like all 6 of those made field goals were lob dunks or putbacks. He’s the cleanup guy, not doing anything flashy but making sure the Grizzlies aren’t leaving points on the board. Every game he has like this I get retroactively more upset that Dave Joerger once cut him to re-sign Ryan Hollins. Sure, when the Griz signed Parsons, the plan was for Ennis to be farther back in the rotation while Parsons manned the starting 3 spot. But plans change, and Ennis has changed them as much as any other circumstances have. If only this Ennis had been on the 2014 or 2015 Grizzlies.

Larry Kuzniewski

★ The defense is much farther along than I expected it to be. Last year’s model of Tony Allen was not the Tony Allen of old; he’d lost a step and was making up for it by gambling for steals and cheating into passing lanes, often leaving Marc Gasol home alone under the rim to deal with whatever got past Allen. But even with that being the case, I still wondered what the Griz defense would look like without him. It’s been seven years since I had to think about it.

Last night was at least an early sign of what this team can be defensively. Fizdale and Gasol both stress repeatedly that the defensive end is still their focus, and last night it showed. Everyone was locked in, forcing 17 turnovers, holding the Warriors under 40% from the field, frustrating ball handlers and denying the ball to anyone not named Durant or Curry. Durant finished with 29 and Curry finished with 37. Klay Thompson had 14, but most everyone else on the roster finished with 0, 2, or 4 points (though Shaun Livingston had 8). They switched, and it worked. I repeat: They switched, and it worked. This is not the 2013 Grizzlies, who overloaded the strong side and stayed there until Tony Allen forced a turnover. This is a totally different defensive system than the one in which Marc Gasol once won a Defensive Player of the Year award, and yet it’s still working for them. Maybe he can win another one.

Tweet of the Night

It’s a tie. First, from noted Warriors fan Jacob Greenberg of The Diss:

Warriors wanna be on the couch on a Saturday. Watching netflix, smoking that legal weed. I feel that. I RESPECT that. Love my team

— jg 🍤 (@jacobjbg) October 22, 2017

Grizzlies 111, Warriors 101: Five Thoughts

Then, Marc Gasol is going to cause Klay Thompson to run up an expensive therapy bill for this one:

#NBA Ayer Marc Gasol (34 pts, 14 reb) le hizo ESTO a Klay Thompson. pic.twitter.com/1oNu4h2D9Z

— BasketX NBA (@NBABasketX) October 22, 2017

Grizzlies 111, Warriors 101: Five Thoughts (2)

Up Next

The Grizzlies are in Houston Monday night to take on the Rockets, who find themselves without Chris Paul. Without Paul, the Rockets look to be… exactly like they were last year, when they were really good. Even after knocking off the Warriors, in some ways Monday’s game is more important; the Griz play the Rockets four times by November 18, which is insanely early to be completely done playing a divisonal opponent. They need to win as many as they can even while it’s the first month of the season, because the West playoff race will be tight and every tiebreaker they can rack up now will undoubtedly pay off later. If Paul is out that whole time, maybe that helps, but the Rockets were a very tough out for the Grizzlies last year even without him. In some ways, it’s a more interesting test of where the Grizzlies are this early in the season than the Warriors game.

[slideshow-1]

This week on the show, Kevin and Phil talk about:

• The dawning of the Dillon Brooks era
• Chandler Parsons’ new life as the Grizzlies’ backup power forward
• The injury to JaMychal Green, and whether Jarell Martin is ready to step into his role immediately
• The void left by Tony Allen’s departure and the emotional tribute during Wednesday night’s game
• The development of Andrew Harrison
• The Grizzlies two big upcoming games against the Warriors and Rockets

The Beyond the Arc podcast is available on iTunes, so you can subscribe there! It’d be great if you could rate and review the show while you’re there. You can also find and listen to the show on Stitcher and on PlayerFM.

You can call our Google Voice number and leave us a voicemail, and we might talk about your question on the next show: 234-738-3394

You can download the show here or listen below:

Larry Kuzniewski

The Grizzlies started the season with a win last night, defeating the New Orleans Pelicans 103-91 and creating several new narratives in the process. You can find straight recaps of game action elsewhere—I want to talk about what I think matters from last night.

Five Things

★ Dillon Brooks is for real. He’s going to have bad rookie games, and maybe even more of them than good ones, but last night showed that his preseason performance wasn’t fool’s gold: he’s an NBA player, and most likely sooner rather than later. Last night Brooks got hot and stayed in the game all the way through the end, racking up 19 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists, 4 steals, and 2 blocks in one of the most impressive rookie debuts by a Grizzly in a long time.

There will be growing pains, of course, and no rookie starts off good and only gets better without some bumps along the way. But Brooks has a confidence about him and a smoothness and ease to his game that make me very hopeful for his future in Beale Street Blue. Last night was a coming-out party for a young guy who is certainly worth watching.

★ This is Mike Conley’s team, still. The playoffs proved it, but last night was another point of evidence. Conley was masterful, with no sign that it was the first real game of the season—he picked up right where he left off in the San Antonio series. The result was one of the quietest 27 points on 15 shots I’ve seen. Conley was dominating the game without looking like it, while the crowd’s attention was focused on other things. One hopes he can maintain this form all year.

Conley’s night was also a stark contrast to Marc Gasol’s. Gasol’s first quarter was bad, he got things going a little in the second half, and then he fouled out. Obviously, the Pelicans’ big man tandem of DeMarcus Cousins and Anthony Davis had something to do with that, especially with Gasol’s new focus on rebounding. But that wasn’t the whole story; Gasol just looked off, as he is wont to do when conditions aren’t perfect. Whether this is a single off night or a bad start to the year remains to be seen, but given the shape Marc is in and that he’s been playing all summer because of Eurobasket, he shouldn’t have those kinds of cobwebs.

Larry Kuzniewski

★ Chandler Parsons finally looked like a basketball player, if only for a little spell. He came in struggling, missed some free throws, got some boos (which Grizzlies fans seem to love doing early in the year to guys who already have shaky confidence, because Memphis remains inexplicable) but—for the first time since signing a 90-whatever-million-dollar contract last summer—he had a stretch where he played well! (Yes! That merits exclamation points!) After the rough start, over a span of a few minutes, Parsons hit a couple of shots, facilitated some nifty plays with drives and kicks, and even played excellent defense on Anthony Davis, which I’m still not sure I believe even though I was present when it happened.

That’s not to say all is well with Parsons, who pretty clearly will never be a third-piece-of-a-big-Three small forward again because he’s just not fast enough anymore. But last night showed promise: even in a diminished role, the Grizzlies would just be happy for him to be productive somewhere in the rotation making things happen, and ultimately he’s probably more reliable than some of the younger guys would be in the same role. Even that seemed like it would never happen again, and last night it did for a little while. Shelve those career obituaries for a little bit longer.

★ The JaMychal Green injury could make things interesting. Green left the game early last night after rolling an ankle pretty badly (which, after the Hayward injury in Boston, made everybody’s stomach a little uneasy until he eventually made it back to his feet and they were still pointing the right direction). If he misses any significant time, it might be Jarell Martin who fills that spot in the rotation, and last night he wasn’t ready for that workload yet.

Granted, I’m going to wait until he’s not dealing with Boogie and AD to make a more solid judgement. New Orleans has issues, but the quality of their starting big men isn’t one of them. But Martin, who played his way back from the brink of being cut by demolishing everything in his path during camp, will have to perform against those kinds of players if he has a future as a starting power forward. We’ll find out, and maybe faster than we would have liked.

★ I remember why I was excited about Brandan Wright. After he struggled with injuries for two straight years, it was easy to forget why the Grizzlies signed Wright in the first place and wish they’d traded his very reasonable contract. But last night, he showed what they signed him for, defending well, making athletic plays at the rim, setting Conley up for pick and roll baskets that no other big on the roster would have facilitated, and more. I hope he can keep it up, because this Brandan Wright makes the Grizzlies better, much faster and more athletic, and more fun to watch.

Tweet of the Night

Official Announcement:

The Brooks Museum of Art has moved to @FedExForum

— Jason Wexler (@MainStMemphis) October 19, 2017

Five Notes on Grizzlies/Pelicans

Up Next

The Warriors, Saturday night. But we can talk about that more tomorrow; for now, let’s bask in the glory of a promising start to the year. My season preview went out in this week’s Flyer, and is now online. I have a lot to say about what I think this year’s Grizzlies team is going to be, and I said most of it there.

Larry Kuzniewski

Wade Baldwin IV

The Grizzlies have until the close of business today to get down to the official 15-man opening night roster, and it’s been a matter of some speculation who would be the final players waived.

As first reported by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski and confirmed by the Flyer, the two guys on the outside are Wade Baldwin, IV and Rade Zagorac.

The decision to cut bait with Baldwin is no doubt the more frustrating of the two. Taken in last year’s first round, Baldwin failed to develop in a way that the Grizzlies found promising, and you only have to do a couple of Twitter searches to find evidence that he lacks a level of self-awareness and maturity to indicate that growth would be happening any time soon.

As for Zagorac, it seems like the Grizzlies signed him to a guaranteed deal simply to keep him from signing a multi-year deal with Mega Leks or some other European team, essentially paying him a million bucks to try out for the team. So while it’s not ideal that the pick didn’t pan out, the stakes are also somewhat lower given that the only reason Zagorac is being cut and not Jarell Martin is that Martin came into training camp and preseason playing at a level he’s never shown before.

You win some, you lose some. There are other guys they could’ve taken with both picks who would’ve panned out better, for sure, and especially with Baldwin, who frankly should’ve been able to play better than Andrew Harrison and Kobi Simmons if he wanted to keep his spot. It’s frustrating to see a team so historically starved for development letting go of two young players who have shown promise, but also admirable to see them admit the mistake, cut the sunk costs, and move on. It also speaks to how unlikely it was for Mario Chalmers to make a nearly-full recovery into a solid backup point guard.

At any rate, now we know who the 2017-18 Grizzlies will be, barring any unforeseen transactions. Let’s hope the players who won the battles for roster spots continue to show why they were the ones to keep.

Larry Kuzniewski

Wade Baldwin

Last night the Grizzlies lost another preseason game, this one a 101-89 home showdown against the newly Chris-Pauled Houston Rockets. With Wayne Selden out (and Ben McLemore still nursing that broken foot back to health) Andrew Harrison got the start at shooting guard, and things got more interesting from there. Here are five of those interesting things from last night.

★ Preseason games with an 8:40PM tip should be outlawed by the Geneva Convention. This might be a little Inside Baseball, but a late tip makes for an even later night for the people covering the game, and that’s hard enough to deal with when the games actually count. Last night’s didn’t.

★ Chandler Parsons: not great. It’s becoming clear that the “he’s a backup power forward” phone call was coming from inside the house, so to speak. Parsons is moving OK, but so far he’s been a total non-entity on the court. Last night Rade Zagorac had more impact on the game, and Parsons hasn’t had any performances that were much better. The catch is that I don’t think the Grizzlies are willing to sacrifice those 20 minutes a night to his rehab process this year; given the changes on the team and the strengthened West, they can’t afford to. Until he proves otherwise, I think expectations for what the Grizzlies can actually get from Parsons this season should rightfully continue to trend downwards, and (to state the obvious) that’s ultimately a bad indicator for what the ceiling of this year’s team will be.

★ Dillon Brooks is an NBA player. Brooks went in the second round last year, but watching him so far, I think he probably should have been a late first-round guy. He already looks better than last year’s first round pick (sorry Wade) and he looks to have a natural feel for his position. I’ve only heard good things from people around the team. Brooks seems like he could be a piece of the rotation for years to come, and getting that from a second round guy is the exception, not the rule.

★ Wade Baldwin still needs to learn how to play, and I’m not sure he will. My problem with Baldwin after his first season was that he tried to force every play to happen with his athleticism rather than using his head and making the right play. (I realize this is a very “Gasol” thing to say, but there are worse things about which to be fanatical than “make the right play.”) His errors almost always happen because he’s trying to force a play that just isn’t available to him. In year two, that doesn’t seem to have changed much. He’s a little more contained, but only a little, and the comments about how he “dominates” in practice and thinks he’s the best guy on the floor don’t lend themselves to many charitable interpretations. Couple that with scuttlebutt about his attitude, and you’ve got a recipe for a guy who might not be worth the effort required. They won’t cut him, probably, but if the Grizzlies could get a protected future second rounder for him—the old “Tony Wroten Special”—my suspicion is that he’d already be gone. Baldwin is a(nother) player whose time so far is a sunk cost.

★ Tyreke Evans is still Tyreke Evans. Some of my excitement about the Evans signing was, in hindsight, optimistically colored by my non-remembrance of his ball-stopper side. I still think he can be a very valuable member of this team, and his presence means good things for a Grizzlies wing rotation that might be deeper than it’s been in the Conley/Gasol era even without Tony Allen around. But.

Tyreke Evans just looked off eight Grizzlies.

— Hardwood Paroxysm (@HPbasketball) October 12, 2017

Five Things About Grizzlies/Rockets

This is going to be a tweet that happens on a regular basis over the course of the season. It just is. Embrace it, rather than fighting it, and it won’t be so bad. But know that it will happen.

What’s Next

The Grizzlies play the Pelicans Friday night, in Tony Allen’s first (albeit “not real”) return to FedExForum in a New Orleans jersey. I expect that to be weird. The main thing looming over the Grizzlies is the roster situation, which will have to be resolved by Monday no matter what. I’m not sure which course of action I endorse at the moment, but most of the young guys have played well enough that I’m glad it’s not my decision to make. The regular season is now less than a week away. Time to start loading in your antacid stash.

The Grizzlies lost a preseason game to the Atlanta Hawks last night, 100-88. I don’t put much stock (or any, really) in preseason wins and losses, but that doesn’t mean preseason games are totally meaningless. Here are ten things we can take away from last night’s game.

Larry Kuzniewski

• Chandler Parsons as a small lineup power forward is a thing. As Peter Edmiston pointed out on Twitter, that’s actually the only spot he’s seen any minutes this preseason. And while it’s not really ideal for your $94M playmaker to be a backup 4, that spot is actually an OK fit for his size and speed at the moment. Zach Lowe has said it, others have said it, and it’s happened in the games.
• Starting Andrew Harrison next to Conley is not great. That’s what happened last night, presumably because Harrison is in the running to get cut before the season starts and Fizdale wanted to give him heavy minutes. Harrison is better than Wade Baldwin but not better than Wayne Selden. He’s not bad, but might not ever be much better than he is now. Cutting him would not be because he can’t be an NBA player—there’s no shame in being a decent end of the rotation guy. But somebody’s got to go. He plays well next to Conley, but I don’t think Harrison showed anything he hasn’t already. I’m glad that’s not my decision to make.
• Marc Gasol is still the best. Marc Gasol cares about preseason games about as much as I care about renewing my driver’s license, but he still had a couple trademark Cheeky Marc passes last night. Those are fun and I missed them.
• Tyreke Evans is a unique addition to this team. Evans is a unique player in general, but the Grizzlies have never had this kind of “super 6th man” on the wing (it was supposed to be Vince Carter, and maybe it was for parts of last year, but not like this). I’m really interested in seeing him develop chemistry with Conley, Gasol, Chalmers, et al.
• Deyonta Davis doesn’t look great. I thought it would be obvious that he’s made progress. It isn’t.
• Brandan Wright is still an odd fit with this roster. Year Three of the Wright experiment and it still seems hard for the Grizzlies to figure out who to play him with. He’s a good player, and very skilled, but he’s so different from the rest of the Grizzlies’ bigs that it’s always going to be a little weird. That said, if he can stay healthy this season (I say that phrase a lot these days) he brings a versatility that would be hard to replicate with any other center.
• James Ennis is pretty good. He struggled to find a spot in the rotation last year, and the year before Dave Joerger cut him for one of Ryan Hollins’ many stints with the team, but with Tony Allen gone there should be a place for his two-way play.
• Rade Zagorac is a long way off. He still needs a lot of time to adjust to the NBA game, and to get his conditioning right. He’s never going to be a speed demon, but he’s just not there yet. I still believe in his potential, but at this point it’s still very much potential.
• Wade Baldwin isn’t as bad as he was last year. I don’t have anything else to say about that.
• If a lot of the games the Grizzlies play are like the one last night, it’s going to be a long year. The offense just wasn’t happening, the defense struggled a little (but, as ever, not as much as the offense) and everything was disjointed and ugly. Granted, this is a description of the last seven seasons of playoff appearances, too, but that doesn’t mean it’s fun to watch. Preseason is preseason, so I’m hesitant to make any judgement about anything beyond that fact, but last night’s game was the bad kind of “in the mud,” the “mud is coming out of my faucets” kind. One hopes for the team to play with more pace and fluidity as the season rounds into form. We’ll see.