Tag: Jason Levien

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Sports Sports Feature

NBA Chaos Theory

“This is why we can’t have nice things.” That’s the first thought I had when I read Marc Stein of ESPN’s tweet dropping the bomb no one (save for maybe Chris Wallace) saw coming: Jason Levien and Stu Lash were on their way out of the Grizzlies organization. The Grizzlies had just finished up a tumultuous season: 50 games won despite injuries; a first-year head coach; long stretches of uninspired, lackluster play; and a barrage of Zach Randolph trade rumors.

Throughout the season, we learned a few things: Dave Joerger, despite his flaws and growing pains, is undeniably a decent coach. (Before you write those angry Lionel Hollins letters, please note that I said “decent.”) Levien, Lash, and John Hollinger proved they could make smart basketball decisions that also took the franchise’s long-term financial health into consideration. On the business side, the team has never been in better shape. ESPN ranked the Grizzlies the #1 Franchise in Professional Sports for a reason.

All of that isn’t necessarily gone, but it’s certainly been jeopardized. Controlling owner Robert Pera has shown some of the smartest guys in the business the door, allowed Joerger to interview for the Minnesota Timberwolves’ coaching job, and has said absolutely nothing about what he’s thinking or where the team is going. Not that he has to, of course. The fact remains, though, that the only people talking about what’s going on are people who were just shown the door, and thus 1) don’t know what’s happening with the team any longer and 2) are, shall we say, motivated to paint what has already happened as the lashings out of a crazy person.

Not that we know whether Pera is a crazy person or not. It’s entirely possible that he is, but it’s entirely possible that he has a carefully thought-out master plan that will take the Grizzlies from good to great. We’ll just have to wait and see.

The onus is now on Pera to regain the trust of the fan base and prove that he knows what he’s doing. Trust takes time to build and no time at all to destroy. There’s every reason in the world to think the Grizzlies are transforming into the Knicks right before our eyes: an owner who wants to call shots he shouldn’t be calling and who lacks the self-awareness to know when to stand back and let the basketball people do their jobs. That works in New York, where the Knicks have a license to print money. That goes a long way to cover up inept management. It doesn’t work in a small market, where the team has to break even to be viable, and a big part of breaking even is careful management, both of the business side and the basketball side. The Grizzlies’ fan base is still young and relatively fragile. A detour back to the broken-foot-Pau days may not permanently damage that relationship between team and city, but it won’t help.

There are on-court things to consider, too. How does this affect Zach Randolph’s decision-making regarding his player option this summer? If Pera makes the wrong moves, will Marc Gasol want to stay around next summer? If the wrong head coach is brought in, will that coach be able to manage the personalities in this locker room? It’s not hard to imagine a scenario where the good things the Griz have built over the past five years are washed away by a bad hire or two.

It could work out, of course. But at the very least, the power structure of the Grizzlies’ unwieldy ownership group has been upended, and relationships there may be damaged beyond repair. A promising front office has been partially dismantled, and a promising young coach has been shown the door, possibly because a player or two didn’t like him (but then, we don’t really know what the players said in those secret season-ending interviews with Pera). At the very least, instability has been injected into a situation where it didn’t seem like there was any, and Pera has taken his basketball team from a smart situation set up for success to, well, who knows?

It was already going to be an important summer for the Grizzlies, but it was only supposed to be roster decisions that determined the future direction of the team. Now there is no direction visible, and all of us get to sit and watch and wait for the Grizzlies to be remade in some image. But whose will it be, and how will it shake out? That’s up to Robert Pera, for better or for worse.

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

Letter From the Editor: Inconvenienced Truth

I was waiting in line at a convenience store, six-pack in hand. The guy in front of me was buying cigarettes. He was overweight, wearing a worn T-shirt and faded pants. He was chatting up the clerk, a tattooed, middle-aged woman who looked like she had a few rough miles on her. They were in no hurry.

“Well,” I heard the man wheeze, as he finally turned to leave, “that was before Obama screwed everything up.” The woman laughed and said, “You’re right about that.”

The man turned to me, smiled broadly, and said, “Yep, Obama screwed everything up, didn’t he?” Not wanting to mix politics with a beer run, I just looked at him blankly.

Back in my car, I had one of those “I wish I’d said …” moments.

I wish I’d asked him if he had a problem with a health-care system that would allow him to get insurance when his emphysema got worse. I wish I’d asked the clerk if she opposed a $10.50 minimum wage, which would have no doubt increased the size of her paycheck.

Their taxes haven’t been raised. Their guns haven’t been taken. The economy has come back from the depths of the recession. Why rednecks don’t like Obama is a mystery to me. Sort of.

Speaking of mysteries … how about that Robert Pera? The owner of the Grizzlies created a maelstrom last week by suddenly firing his CEO, Jason Levien, and letting Coach Dave Joerger go off to interview for the Minnesota Timberwolves job. Sports-talk radio hosts were melting down; the town was abuzz with rumors that Pera was “weird.” And he well might be. But he’s also 37. I had to fire someone at my first editor’s job when I was 37. Let me tell you, it’s easy to screw it up.

I inherited a copyeditor who was surly and incompetent. After a month, I went to the publisher and complained. “Fire him,” he said.

I called “Keith” into my office, made some small talk, then said, “Uh, I think, uh, Keith, we have to make some changes … .”

Keith said, “Are you firing me?”

“Well, uh, yeah …” I said. Keith stood up and bolted to the publisher’s office, with me right behind him. “Am I being fired?” he yelled.

“Yes,” said the publisher, calmly. “Give me your key and clean out your desk. We’ll have your last check for you in an hour.” Keith meekly pulled his key out of his pocket and returned to his desk.

So I learned how to be a better manager and how to fire someone without screwing it up. Pera can do the same. No reason to panic, Griz fans.

Besides, as we know, one man’s screwup is just another man’s beer run.

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Grizzlies Fire Levien, Lash

In news that seemed to come out of nowhere, the Grizzlies announced Monday afternoon that the team was parting ways with CEO Jason Levian and basketball operations director Stu Lash.

The press release issued by team owner Robert Pera was terse and light on details:

The Memphis Grizzlies announced today that following discussions with management, the decision was made for Jason Levien and Stu Lash to depart the organization.

“Our franchise has made tremendous strides over the last few seasons and we thank Jason for his hard work and dedication and wish him nothing but success in his future endeavors,” said Grizzlies Controlling Owner Robert Pera. “Rest assured that we remain as committed as ever to bringing a championship to this great city and we are confident that when the new season begins our fans will be excited about both our roster and the direction of our organization.”

Going forward, existing Grizzlies General Manager Chris Wallace will assume interim responsibility for the franchise’s basketball operations and Chief Operating Officer Jason Wexler will remain responsible for the franchise’s business operations.

The Flyer‘s Kevin Lipe will have more on the situation as it develops.

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Sports Sports Feature

Grizzlies Coaching Clarity

CREDIT: Larry Kuzniewski

A few things I know as the Grizzlies part ways with Lionel Hollins and officially embark on a new era:

This shouldn’t be that surprising: Lionel Hollins’ fate as Grizzlies coach was always dependent on the resolution of conflicting normalcies: “Don’t mess with success” vs. “New owners hire new people.” When Hollins bristled publicly about the Grizzlies’ new front office on multiple occasions mid-season, the odds tipped in the favor of change, but that didn’t seal his fate. Instead, closing interviews — not just with Hollins but with others around the organization — seemed to convince team CEO Jason Levien to make the change he probably always desired.

There are many factors at play in this unpopular decision, but it’s ultimately about an apparently unbridgeable cultural divide: Hollins is of the “you provide the players, I’ll coach them” mold. Levien and controlling owner Robert Pera want to forge a more collaborative organizational culture, one where the coaching staff doesn’t just receive players from the team’s front office but also actionable information. Even as Hollins publicly dismissed talk about “philosophical differences,” those very differences were on display.

“Risk” and “mistake” are different things: “Don’t mess with success” is pretty persuasive if you ask me, but to call this a mistake is to assume a future, and I don’t put that much stock in the importance of Hollins or any individual coach. But it’s certainly a risk. There are obviously coaches out there who can work better with his bosses. There are also a smaller number who can be as or more successful on the floor. There’s a smaller group still who can do both. And there’s no guarantee this or any front office can successfully choose that person no matter how good a hire seems at the time. Past Grizzlies history is instructive here.

It could have been handled better but was always going to be messy: Hollins’ success is too glaring in the context of franchise history, his community roots now too deep and personal, and his status as a successful black leader in a city (really, country) where race impacts perception too meaningful for his removal to ever be easy. But Hollins’ own awkward media tour and Levien’s man-behind-the-curtain disappearing act made a bad situation worse.

Jason Levien needs to shore up his public diplomacy: I have little doubt that Levien ran this move by players, minority owners, and others around the organization and knew a coaching change would not cause a revolt. But the Grizzlies are at once a private enterprise and public trust, and the community needs a fuller and more personal explanation than the brief, antiseptic press release the team put out Monday night. Levien needs to explain this decision, in direct but polite terms.

For better or worse — and I think it’s both — this is a “speak to the Rotary Club, hobnob at the college football game, banter on the radio shows” kind of market. Levien is a bright man undertaking a big job, but he needs work in this area.

Fan outrage is a by-product of fan investment: The despair in some quarters over a coaching change — something that’s happened with nearly half the NBA in recent months, including several other playoff teams — is a bit much, but it also speaks to the number of new fans created over the past few seasons. That increase in interest is a positive for the organization, but the lack of perspective from many new converts also suggests their fandom is precarious. Ups and downs are unavoidable for most pro sports organizations, but the growing fan base here isn’t stable enough to fully withstand a downturn right now, and the reaction to this move underscores that.

This is about the future: This coaching change won’t alter the Grizzlies’ projection for next season in the minds of most who follow the NBA closely. Coaches matter, but rosters matter much more. What fans need to understand is that the Grizzlies were heading into a period of transition even without a coaching change. How the new ownership and front office manages this transition — not just this offseason but in the next couple as well — will determine their ultimate success or failure.

A longer version of this column can be found at “Beyond the Arc,” Chris Herrington’s Grizzlies blog, at memphisflyer.com.

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Deflections: Levien’s Money Quote, Draft Workouts, Hollins’ Future

CREDIT: 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.

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Beyond the Arc Sports

Coaching Clarity: Two or Three Things I Know about the Hollins’ Situation

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

Dave Joerger [right] may be next in line as Lionel Hollins tenure as Grizzlies head coach ends.

  • LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
  • Dave Joerger [right] may be next in line as Lionel Hollins’ tenure as Grizzlies’ head coach ends.

If coach Lionel Hollins and general manager Chris Wallace weren’t part of the Grizzlies’ future, an uninformed onlooker wouldn’t have known it from the team’s draft workout Monday morning, where Hollins and Wallace sat at the back of the gym talking and new chief decision-maker Jason Levien was nowhere to be seen. But clarity finally came to the Grizzlies’ increasingly messy coaching situation later that day, with the team announcing, via an official release, that it had severed ties with Hollins, whose contract was set to expire at the end of the month.

A few things I know as the Grizzlies officially embark on a new era:

This shouldn’t be that surprising: Lionel Hollins’ fate as Grizzlies coach was always dependent on the resolution of conflicting normalcies: “Don’t mess with success” vs. “New owners hire new people.” When Hollins bristled publicly about the Grizzlies’ new front office on multiple occasions mid-season, the odds tipped in the favor of change but that didn’t seal his fate. Instead, closing interviews — not just with Hollins but with others around the organization — seemed to convince team CEO Jason Levien to make the change he probably always desired.

There are many factors at play in this unpopular decision, but it’s ultimately about an apparently unbridgeable cultural divide: Hollins is of the “you provide the players, I’ll coach them” mold. Levien and controlling owner Robert Pera want to forge a more collaborative organizational culture, one where everyone is working on the same track and the coaching staff doesn’t just receive players from the team’s front office, but also actionable information. Even as Hollins publicly dismissed talk about “philosophical differences,” those very differences were on display.

Film references are instructive (at least for me): Via Japanese master Akira Kurosawa there’s the Rashomon effect, in which truth is difficult to uncover because people tend to give contradictory interpretations of the same event. Hollins, by his account, thought his exit meeting with Levien and Pera went really well. Levien and Pera apparently thought otherwise. Via French titan Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game is the wisdom of “The awful thing about life is this: Everybody has their reasons.” It’s equally easy to see — at least to me — why Hollins would assume he’d earned a new deal and also why Levien would be reluctant to commit a long-term contract to a coach with whom he didn’t think he could have a productive working relationship. Blame feels irrelevant.

“Risk” and “mistake” are different things: “Don’t mess with success” is pretty persuasive if you ask me, but to call this a mistake is to assume a future, and I don’t put that much stock in the importance of Hollins or any individual coach. But it’s certainly a risk. There are obviously coaches out there who can work better with his bosses. There are also a smaller number who can be as or more successful on the floor. There’s a smaller group still who can do both. And there’s no guarantee this or any front office can successfully choose that person no matter how good a hire seems at the time. Past Grizzlies history is instructive here.

But, to his credit, Levien showed a confidence and willingness to make unpopular decisions with the Rudy Gay trade, though the team was on firmer ground there, even if a lot of traditionalists didn’t know it (and still don’t). The risk is greater this time.

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News News Blog

Hollins Out as Grizzlies Coach

After leading the Memphis Grizzlies to the most successful season in team history, Lionel Hollins has been let go by team management. The official Grizzlies press release is below. Chris Herrington will post on the coaching situation on Tuesday.

Lionel Hollins

MEMPHIS GRIZZLIES WILL NOT OFFER HEAD COACH

LIONEL HOLLINS A NEW CONTRACT

Memphis, Tennessee – The Memphis Grizzlies announced today that the team will not offer Head Coach Lionel Hollins a new contract when it expires on Sunday, June 30 and effectively immediately, he is no longer with the organization.

“After a thorough internal process, which included conversations with Lionel and his representatives, we decided as an organization to move in a different direction,” said Jason Levien, CEO & Managing Partner of the Memphis Grizzlies and FedExForum.

“On behalf of the Grizzlies organization I would like to thank Lionel for his service and hard work in helping this organization throughout his years in Vancouver and Memphis,” Levien continued. “Lionel, the coaching staff, the players and the organization achieved new heights this season with our run to the Western Conference Finals and for that, we are grateful. The entire Grizzlies family wishes Lionel all the best and great success as he moves forward in his career.”

The 22-year NBA coaching veteran was an original member of the Vancouver franchise and was a staple on the coaching sidelines for 10 of its first 12 seasons (1995-00, 2002-07). Hollins also served as the club’s interim head coach on two separate occasions. Hollins guided Vancouver to an 18-42 finish (.300) in 1999-00, replacing Brian Hill after the team started the season 4-18 (.182), and again took over for four games in 2004-05 following the resignation of Hall of Famer Hubie Brown. Hollins owns an overall career head coaching record of 214-201 (.516), including two stints as Grizzlies interim head coach. In 35 career playoff games, he holds an overall record of 18-17 (.514).

“We have begun to identify our next head coach, who we feel can best move us forward,” Levien further said.

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Beyond the Arc Sports

The Coaching Endgame? — Griz Give Hollins Permission to Shop Around

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

Is the clock ticking on Lionel Hollins coaching tenure with the Grizzliesl?

  • LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
  • Is the clock ticking on Lionel Hollins’ coaching tenure with the Grizzliesl?

Major movement erupted on the Grizzlies’ coaching front Sunday afternoon when multiple outlets reported that the Grizzlies had given head coach Lionel Hollins permission to negotiate with other teams after an apparent bad turn in talks between Hollins and the Grizzlies. (Sorry. I was traveling when all of this came tumbling out. I have no idea who reported it first.)

Most stories cite sources as saying “major philosophical differences” were the reason talks stalled even before the sides could negotiate potential contract terms. It’s hard to be too surprised by this. In citing a series of questions and concerns that might prevent Hollins from returning to the Grizzlies’ sideline next season, I led with “implementing organizational philosophy” when working through The Coaching Question back in April. Revisiting the issue in May, I wrote this:

Given the on-going success of this postseason and the team’s player-contract situation, bringing the current core back next season now looks likely, and bringing Hollins back to coach it preferable. But this core has a two-year expiration date. So, is Hollins the right coach to preside over the transition to a new roster and potentially new style, the territory a new contract would take him into?

When that becomes part of the question, then issues about Hollins’ commitment to and ability to implement a new organizational philosophy, as well as his development of young assets begin to loom larger.

A second issue with a new long-term contract for Hollins — and one I’d prefer not to get too far into right now because if feels unnecessarily trouble-making, but here we are — is the opportunity cost in likely losing lead assistant Dave Joerger to a head-coaching opportunity elsewhere. Joerger has been, in large part — let’s not deny Hollins his due credit here as well — the architect of what may be the league’s best defense and has a compelling head-coaching pedigree at the minor-league level. There are many who believe he could be the next Tom Thibodeau or Erik Spoelstra. While Hollins may be the best coach for the present, does a long-term deal close off the possibility of Joerger in the future?

Though sources close to the talks have apparently stressed that a deal could still be reached, those two issues — Hollins’ potential incompatibility with the organizational philosophy and the long-term considerations that have to come into play when considering a likely four-year commitment — are the ones that now seem to be driving Hollins and the team apart. In both of those earlier posts, I concluded that losing Hollins would be very risky and that I felt the team was likely to try to bring him back. My opinion hasn’t changed on the former, but on the latter the tea leaves were pointing in the other direction last week, which Chris Vernon and I talked about on his show on Thursday.

A few thoughts on where we are now:

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Beyond the Arc Sports

The Pera Presser: Highlights from Owner Robert Pera’s Second Media Address

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

Robert Pera, from his debut appearance before local media. He returned today.

  • LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
  • Robert Pera, from his debut appearance before local media. He returned today.

New Grizzlies controlling owner Robert Pera made his first visit to FedExForum since his post-changeover debut, meeting this morning — along with CEO Jason Levien — for a roughly 20-minute press conference with local media.

Pera and Levien wore matching Grizzlies warm-up gear, evoking visions of Ben Stiller and his sons in The Royal Tennenbaums. There was no topping that, but they did have some interesting comments on a variety of topics.

Here are some highlights, all comments from Pera unless otherwise indicated:

On his overall impressions of team:

The thing I like most about the Grizzlies is that when you look at basketball, it’s different from other sports. In baseball, you can put together a team of all-stars and the sum kind of equals the total of the parts. But in basketball, it’s a team sport and there’s a lot of chemistry. And certain players, depending on how they come together, the sum of the parts could be much greater. And that’s what I really like about Grizzlies’ basketball. With the latest trades and the way the team’s constructed, I think it has the potential to be the best Grizzlies team yet.

I really like the way the parts fit, with the traditional inside-out game. I think if they gel, hopefully it could be the best playoff run yet.

On the timing of the trades:

I think the most unfortunate thing about the trades was the timing. I really wish we could have gotten a deal [to purchase the team] closed before the beginning of the season and made all the personnel moves before the season started, to give these guys a full year to play together.

But I think if you look at the year before last, when they upset the Spurs as the 8th seed, the [main] pieces from that run are still here now and I think the supporting pieces we’ve picked up are even stronger. So, like I said, if the team comes together and gels in the second half of the season, it’s going to be really interesting.

Categories
Beyond the Arc Sports

Game 38 Preview: Grizzlies vs. Kings — Never Mind the Hoops, Here’s the Palace Intrigue.

CREDIT: LARRY KUZNIEWSKI

The Grizzlies look to get back on track tonight against the 15-24 Sacramento Kings. But tonight’s game isn’t about match-ups or stylistic contrasts, it’s about the Grizzlies fixing themselves.

And the issue of the day isn’t on the court anyway, it’s all the off-court intrigue currently festering around the team. So, today, let’s make that the subject of the usual three points:

Grizzlies controlling owner Robert Pera and team CEO Jason Levien.

  • LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
  • Grizzlies controlling owner Robert Pera and team CEO Jason Levien.

1. The Pera Meeting: The Commercial Appeal reported yesterday that majority owner Robert Pera met with Mike Conley and Marc Gasol while the team was in Oakland to face the Golden State Warriors earlier this month, with the heavy implication that this meeting has been internally disruptive.

I’d say the details are very much unclear. Who instigated the meeting? (It was initially characterized as an invitation from Pera but was later softened to something more neutral. I’ve heard it two different ways: One that Pera asked for the meeting, and another that Conley and Gasol asked for it.) What was talked about? (I heard, unsurprisingly, that Gasol and Conley made a case for keeping the current core together for the remainder of the season.) To what degree was it actually disruptive?

There’s certainly a chance that this meeting may have been unwise, counterproductive, or poorly staged, but even if it was at Pera’s invitation — which, again, is very much unclear — I think some of the initial reaction to it was curious. I see nothing “weird” or perplexing about it. In fact, the potential rationale would seem pretty obvious.

This Grizzlies are facing very serious organizational decisions in the near future. It’s a near certainty that Conley and Gasol will be here next season, and, for various reasons, they’re probably the only core figures you can say that about. It’s not surprising that new ownership might want to take their pulse as part of their decision-making process.