- LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
- Jason Levien
Levien Speaks: Soon after I posted yesterday, writing in part that Grizzlies’ CEO Jason Levien needed to more fully and directly explain the decision to part ways with Lionel Hollins, Levien took to local airwaves via two afternoon radio programs to do just that. (Note: I’m not actually taking credit for something that was going to happen anyway.)
Levien first spoke with team play-by-play man Eric Hasseltine on 92.9/730 ESPN Radio. He followed with team sideline reporter Rob Fischer and Fischer’s co-host Brett Norsworthy on Sports 56 WHBQ. You can listen to the interviews yourself, but if you don’t want to wade through the boilerplate, here’s the money quote, taken from the Hasseltine interview but repeated in close to the same language on Sports 56:
“We want to have the kind of organization where we get people in a room who are prepared, who have opinions, who are going to disagree about what we should do and what the personnel moves should be. I want that disagreement. We want to really dig in and get messy when we’re in that room talking about what the decision and direction should be. And then once we come to a decision, whatever that personnel decision is, we want to walk out of the room arm-in-arm, locked together in how we’re going to proceed. And we’re going to face the public that way together. And we’re going to go out and face our adversaries that way together. We believe that getting the right head coach in here, working with our personnel folks. Working with our organization, we’re going to have great success.”
Additionally, on Hasseltine, Levien shot down the notion that the coaching decision was driven by financial considerations and said a final decision on a new coach would come “sooner rather than later.”
On “Fish & Stats,” Levien said he had not made a decision on Hollins at the time the season ended and that it was possible for events in the interim to change his decision. Levien said that he did not underestimate the amount of criticism the decision would bring and referred to “the public record” of critical comments from Hollins as a factor in the decision.
