The Grizzlies made official a worst-case scenario that had been feared for a while: That Rudy Gay will have to have surgery to repair the shoulder he injured against the Philadelphia 76ers last month. This will end Gay’s season and put him on a 4-6 month rehab stint could inch uncomfortably close to the start of next season. (Though a potential lockout might give Gay plenty of time to get ready for next season.)
- LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
- The Grizzlies will continue their playoff march without the services of Rudy Gay.
It’s sad for Gay, who has suffered through years of losing for the Grizzlies and was enjoying his best individual season. Now, with the team finally in the thick of a real playoff race, Gay has to watch from the bench.
But what does it mean for the Grizzlies?
Putting the Loss in Perspective:
I think we have to be careful with comparing this team pre- and post- Rudy Gay’s injury. While the body of games — 14, in which the team as gone 8-6 — the team has played since Gay’s injury are easy to generalize from, the 57 games — in which the team went 31-26 — the Grizzlies played before losing Gay for the season are not. The Grizzlies have evolved into a better team over the course of the season and that process was happening — had happened, really — before Gay was injured.
The NBA regular season is a long one, but fans who have been paying attention from the beginning will remember that this team had lots of problems early on that were entirely unrelated to Gay. The Grizzlies started the season 8-14, dealing with season-starting injuries to big men Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol. More so, the team wasn’t utilizing its backcourt rotation well, playing the wrong veterans over the wrong rookies, and vice versa.
Behind Mike Conley at point guard, the Grizzlies went with vet journeyman Acie Law over rookie Greivis Vasquez to start. In that opening 22-game stretch, Law appeared in half the games, dragging the bench down with a scary 0.4 player efficiency rating. Vasquez, who has played most of the back-up PG minutes since the team jettisoned Law, has provided a modest but vastly better 9.4 PER. But the starker difference was on the wing, where the team spent the first quarter of the season playing rookie Xavier Henry over free agent signee Tony Allen.
