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David Fizdale: The Prince of Process

“I don’t really get caught up in pressure. I’ve got a job to do.”

David Fizdale sits in a folding chair off to the side of the Grizzlies’ practice court, engaged in our conversation, but also watching the players still in the gym putting up some after-practice shots. “I approach it to win it every time.” Is the Grizzlies’ new head coach more interested in process than results?

“When I was at Miami, whether we necessarily had a team that could win it or not, we went after it the same way. And so, that was bred into me. And that’s the thing I respect so much about the Spurs organization, and now Golden State’s organization is becoming that. Cleveland’s becoming that. They expect to be there, and they prepare to be there every year no matter who’s on the team. And so that’s the mentality I wanted to bring to the organization. Because only one winner will be standing at the end of the year, but I want to try to put our team in position to be that team every year.”

Talk to this guy for 10 minutes, and it’s easy to understand why he’s already an NBA head coach. Everything he says is in earnest. Marc Gasol, when asked what he likes most about his new coach, said “he does what he says.” (Knowing Gasol, this is almost certainly a comment on the Grizzlies’ previous head coach, even if it’s a subconscious one.)

Fizdale’s natural leadership ability comes across in conversation, and if one examines how much has changed with the Grizzlies — entering the sixth season of the “Core Four” era — it’s clear that his arrival at the beginning of the summer set off a sea change within a franchise in the middle of the most successful run in its history.

This isn’t how teams used to operate. In the past, you were good for a while, then your guys got old, and then you were bad for a while until you got some new guys. While the stars of a team were in their prime, management’s sole responsibility was to bring in the best players available to patch the holes, to fill in where the “core” of the roster was lacking.

Veteran point guard Mike Conley

As the Spurs rose to dominance and magically stayed there, teams started to smarten up: If a team brings along young talent before their best players age out of their primes, their run of success can be lengthened. The good teams started to become as interested in player development as the bad ones — and now, arguably, even more so than the bad ones.

Much like their on-court product had defied the times, relying on post scoring and stifling, non-switching defensive schemes, the Grizzlies had defied this organizational model, too, burning off draft picks like farmers torching their rice fields, bringing in and relying on “proven veterans” (read: guys in their mid-30s who’d been very good somewhere else first), doubling down on the foursome of Mike Conley, Marc Gasol, Zach Randolph, and Tony Allen, determined to (grit-and-) grind them to dust until there was nothing left to use.

It seems more likely that the Fizdale hire is a symptom of a change in mindset than a cause of it, but regardless, the days of bringing in the Keyon Doolings of the world while consigning rookies to the end of the bench forever (unless they’re Xavier Henry) seem to be over. As the basketball on the court has changed, so has the mentality of the organization. Fizdale’s emphasis on player development was radically apparent even in the first game of the season, when rookie Andrew Harrison started at shooting guard and played 38 extremely uneven minutes, including crunch time of a close game. These are things that don’t happen for the Memphis Grizzlies if David Fizdale isn’t on the scene.

But what about those bad habits from the previous near-decade of Lionel Hollins/Dave Joerger coaching lineage?

“I wouldn’t call them bad habits; I would just call them habits of the system that they played in. You know, they had some big-time coaches before me. You talk about Hubie Brown, Dave Joerger, Lionel Hollins — who is a mentor of mine — these guys are big-time coaches. So they built a system around what they had and what made them successful. My system is different, and that’s all it is, is different, not better, not worse, and I’m just trying to break the habits from the old system to get them acclimated to the new system.”

Rookie guard Wade Baldwin IV

And how much of what Fizdale has brought with him — the easier vibe, the quiet determination, the general getting-down-to-business that has happened on his watch, the commitment to doing something different, old dogs taking it upon themselves to invent new tricks — how much of that is Miami Heat culture, and how much of that is Fizdale culture?

“It’s definitely a bunch of Heat culture, but I had to be … I had to morph into my own personality. So that it’s real, and it doesn’t come off fake. I put a lot of thought into this over the course of my career with the Heat, as far as taking something and morphing it into my personality where I can be genuine in my delivery.”

That authenticity goes a long way toward explaining the connection Fizdale was able to make with the hardest-to-please stakeholders in his project: the players themselves. Knowing he was taking over a group who’d played together a long time, he took it upon himself to win them over. “I tried to get that part out of the way this summer, by going and visiting every guy, one by one, and spending time with them individually. I really wanted to spell out each guy’s role to him. Before we ever got into the season. I wanted to spell out expectations. So by the time we got to training camp, I’d kind of already dealt with the tough conversations so we could just get to work and start preparing for a successful year.”

One of the toughest conversations, no doubt, involved bringing Zach Randolph, “#50 for the City” himself, off the bench instead of using him in the starting lineup — a hard sell for a proud player who admittedly still thinks he can (Randolph always stops short of saying “should”) be a starter.

Unfortunately for Randolph and his battalion of ever-loyal supporters, the signs of Randolph’s age-related decline have been apparent for a couple of seasons now, even as he’s put up solid offensive numbers. He can’t defend the new crop of power forwards in the league — the young guys just as comfortable shooting 3-pointers as they are dunking from the foul line. His lack of foot speed — as if a man made out of granite and tussin should be expected to move quickly — has made him a liability defending the pick-and-roll, causing problems as far back as the Grizzlies’ elimination from the 2013 Western Conference Finals by the Spurs. He’s never been much of a jumper, but as a new crop of hyper-athletic seven-footers takes over center position around the league, his shot is getting blocked more. Starting Randolph, making him the centerpiece of a modernized NBA offense, just isn’t tenable, no matter what sentimentalities would have us want to see it continue.

Zach Randolph

It’s a bold move, taking one of the two hearts of this team, one of the players most responsible for shaping their reputation for winning by sheer force of will and tactically deployed violence, and moving him to a supporting role. But that’s what Fizdale sees: a versatile team, reliant on movement and trust and pace, rather than elbows and hips and wanton destruction of the bodies of other tall men. Randolph doesn’t fit that picture, so to the bench he goes.

If “Grit and Grind” is to continue — and I hope it doesn’t, because in a city this creative we should be able to come up with something new by now — it’s going to have to be abstracted away from the floor itself, from the sets being run, from the post-up isolation possessions.

Fizdale already knows what it’s going to take. “We’re forging ahead. This is what we do. The past is done. One of our core values is ‘growth mindset.’ Growth mindset means you cannot be fixed in the past. You gotta have an open mind and be willing to work toward what’s going to make us the most successful team we can be.”

Given that in two of Joerger’s three seasons, the team rebelled against the changes he tried to implement during training camp, whether “growth mindset” is really taking hold remains to be seen. It’s probably the biggest question facing the Grizzlies this year.

Which isn’t to say it’s the only question, or even the only major one left dangling unanswered as they plunge headlong into the regular season.

Gasol suffered a fractured navicular bone last season, an injury that has ended the careers of other big men. His recovery was remarkable, and he says he feels better than he’s felt in years, but does that mean his foot will hold up to the stress of the rest of his basketball career, or is it going to drag him back down into injury quicksand?

Mike Conley, whom the Grizzlies signed to a $153M, five-year contract this summer, the largest in NBA history, until someone signs one in Summer 2017 under an even higher salary cap, has not been healthy at the end of a season in years. He and Gasol have both played an extraordinary number of minutes for players their age, and with rookies Wade Baldwin (who looks promising, if unpolished) and Harrison (who looks both less promising and less polished) as the only backup point guard options heading into the season, is there any way he can get enough rest to make it to the end of this one?

New signee Chandler Parsons is on a four-year, $94 million deal, had a knee surgery last spring that was supposed to sideline him for six to eight weeks, and still hasn’t been cleared for full contact (at least not at the time this was written). If Parsons returns to his former glory, he’s an offensive weapon like the Grizzlies have never had before, a versatile forward who can shoot threes, yes, but also create offense everywhere on the floor, able to be deployed in just about every offensive scenario imaginable. If he doesn’t ever return to his former peak, the Grizzlies just sunk nearly $100 million into the NBA equivalent of a toxic asset of rolled-up, foreclosed-on subprime mortgages.

And what about all of these young guys? JaMychal Green turns 27 this season, so he’s not really that young in NBA time and unlikely to find some new developmental plateau not yet reached. The rest are all unproven: Deyonta Davis, a second-round pick who was projected to go in the lottery. Baldwin, a talented young guard who may have been a steal. Jarell Martin, another guy with a history of foot injuries, who may develop into an extremely athletic, versatile forward, or who may not crack the rotation.

Fizdale isn’t worried about this stuff, or if he is, he doesn’t seem fazed by it. I pointed out to him that when a team is usually 28th in the league in pace, even 20th will seem like a major improvement.

“You could be better. Right?” he said. “You could be better. And so, this is what we do. I’m pretty stubborn when it comes to that stuff. And I’m going to constantly keep my foot on the gas and keep pushing them to get out of their comfort zone.”

The Grizzlies are way out beyond their comfort zone, all of them, from the top of basketball operations to the guys at the end of the bench, but I’ve never seen everyone in the organization this committed to growth. Fizdale is their prophet of change, and like Jonah at Nineveh, his message seems to have been received at once. There are no solid answers about what lies in the future for the Grizzlies; there is only process. “The process is all I focus on,” he says. “And, you know, let the chips fall where they may at the end of it.” — Kevin Lipe

Tubby Smith: A New Era Begins

Transition years happen in college basketball. With the exception of the program in Durham, North Carolina, and maybe Syracuse, New York, coaches keep their bags packed, with a variety of tie colors in their closet. But what about a transition era?

With the departure of coach Josh Pastner (overdue, according to much of the local fan base) and the arrival of Tubby Smith (by more than a few measures, the opposite of Pastner), the Memphis Tigers seem to be entering a season that will be transformative beyond the 30 to 35 games we’ll see this winter. Tiger basketball will be redefined under Smith, for good or ill.

Will the program return to the national prominence it enjoyed late in John Calipari’s tenure as head coach, or might it resettle as a good-not-great basketball home for largely local recruits, the kind of team that might or might not play in the NCAA tournament? (You might remember those teams from late in Larry Finch’s tenure as coach.) Who are the Memphis Tigers? And what can Tubby Smith do to help answer that question?

Calipari’s arrival in 2000 was a big deal, but the U of M has never — ever — welcomed a new basketball coach with the credentials of Orlando Henry Smith. In 25 years as a head coach, Smith has won 557 games and led five different programs — Tulsa, Georgia, Kentucky, Minnesota, and Texas Tech — to the NCAA tournament. His 1997-98 Wildcats won the national championship, one of four times a Smith-coached team has reached the NCAA tournament’s Elite Eight. He has three SEC Coach of the Year trophies on his mantel and just last season earned the same honor from the Big 12, when he led Texas Tech to the Big Dance. Smith was on the staff of the gold-medal-winning 2000 U.S. Olympic team and won the Naismith Coach of the Year Award at Kentucky in 2003. At age 65, Smith will not be surprised by anything he sees on a basketball court. Having reached a career — and life — stage where he can choose when and where to work (he’s declined multiple job offers), Smith has chosen Memphis.

“They called me,” says a grinning Smith, when asked why he’s now head coach at the University of Memphis. “It’s a great opportunity to help this program. I love what I’m doing. I’m healthy. I feel good about what I’ve accomplished in my career. There’s tradition here. It gets me closer to the east coast, closer to home.” (Smith was born and raised in Maryland.)

Sophomore forward Dedric Lawson

As for the expectations — a 19-15 record (like last season’s) doesn’t fly here — Smith spent 10 years in Lexington, Kentucky, so bring them on. “I don’t have anything to hide,” he says. “I’ll do the things I’ve always done, and do it to the best of my ability. I’ve never felt pressure. My dad taught me that long ago: Don’t think of coaching as pressure. Pressure is trying to feed 17 kids, trying to keep a roof over your head. I love the fan base here. But every program has a fan base that cares. The media can blow it up, even the administration. They don’t know the intensity level the players play at or the coaches coach at. We have our priorities and our goals. They’re pretty high, but they’re realistic.”

In forward Dedric Lawson, Smith will have one certifiable star on a roster that will count no more than 11 scholarship players. As an 18-year-old freshman last season, Lawson averaged 15.8 points and 9.3 rebounds on his way to being named Rookie of the Year by the American Athletic Conference. It had been more than a decade since a Tiger posted such figures and 34 years since a Tiger freshman reached these statistical heights. (Keith Lee averaged 18.3 and 11.0 in 1981-82.) Lawson was named the AAC’s Co-Player of the Year (with Cincinnati’s Troy Caupain) in the preseason coaches poll.

“Dedric is a complete player,” says Smith. “He needs to continue to improve his defense, his footwork. As far as understanding the game, he has great instincts. He needs to be a facilitator when teams stack against him. He needs to be a screener, move without the ball. The screener is usually more open than the cutter. If you want to be a scorer — and a good team player — you need to be a good screener.”

Lawson has managed to gain weight (he’s up to 235 pounds) while lowering his body-fat percentage. The trick: cutting fried foods and, begrudgingly, cheese from his diet.

There are only three other members of the Tiger roster who could be considered rotation players from last season. Junior guard Markel Crawford started 25 games in 2015-16, but his numbers — 5.3 points and 3.2 rebounds — will need to improve this winter, even as Crawford defends an opponent’s top perimeter threat.

Junior Markel Crawford will be a defensive stopper for the Tigers.

Sophomore Jeremiah Martin will be in the mix at point guard. The Mitchell High alum played in 29 games as a freshman but averaged fewer than 15 minutes per game. At such a small sample size, what does Martin’s 34-18 assist-turnover ratio really tell us?

Then there’s Dedric’s older brother, K.J. Lawson. The swingman was limited to 10 games by a foot injury and will play this season as a redshirt freshman (creating the oddity of K.J. playing a class behind his younger brother). His height (6’7″) and versatility will be valuable to a generally undersized team. Senior Jake McDowell (5.4 minutes per game last season) and sophomore Craig Randall (8.0 minutes) are back and will get floor time when injuries or foul trouble squeeze the rotation.

Among the newcomers, expect immediate impact from graduate transfer Christian Kessee, a sharp-shooting guard who hit 88 three-pointers last winter and led Coppin State with 14.6 points per game. He should fill the void left by Avery Woodson, who transferred to Butler following his junior season. Freshman Keon Clergeot followed Smith to Memphis after initially signing to play at Texas Tech. He could see time at point guard, likely spelling Martin until a starting five is firmly established.

The Tigers are not a big team, which makes Baylor transfer Chad Rykhoek (RYE-cook) perhaps the most significant swing variable on the roster. At 6’11” and 230 pounds, the senior has the frame for post play. But he hasn’t been able to stay healthy, hip injuries keeping him on the sidelines for two years now. Lawson cannot pull down every rebound or block every shot. Rykhoek could be instrumental in these areas. “Chad brings rebounding,” emphasizes Smith. “We need size and length, and Chad brings that. He’s a very good athlete; we need to be more athletic. He’s been a pleasant surprise.”

Junior Jimario Rivers — a 6’8″ transfer from Southwest Tennessee Community College who Smith considers one of the team’s best defenders — will also be called upon for blue-collar work inside.

Thousands of empty seats at Tiger home games forced the current transition. Longtime followers of the Tiger program turned away from Pastner’s teams, most visibly at FedExForum on game nights when most of the upper deck would be empty. It’s their view of the Tiger program — those ticket-buying fans who chose to stay home — that reveals as much as any game analyst or coaching critic.

Jon Neal is a 1993 graduate of the U of M and a longtime booster. He also became a close friend of Pastner’s after his young son endured a cancer scare at St. Jude during Pastner’s tenure as head coach. While he has nothing but positive impressions — to this day — of Pastner, Neal feels a change was necessary, and Tubby Smith is the right successor.

“Like any human being,” says Neal, “when you’re bombarded with negative stuff, it takes a toll on you. I could see it [in Pastner]. He’s the finest human being I’ve ever met. The only thing that I feel bad about Josh is that whenever there was a glaring need for something, he was resistant to listening to other people for advice. He felt he had a way to fix things, and sometimes he surrounded himself with people who did not help him obtain goals he set out for the team.”

Like many followers of the program, Neal saw the sudden departure of star forward Austin Nichols (for Virginia during the summer of 2015) as the beginning of the end for Pastner. “Josh was submarined on that,” he says. “Decimated. Everything about last season was set up for Austin Nichols being here with Shaq Goodwin. Players transfer from every school. But something happened here the last few years, and players couldn’t get away fast enough. Why are players leaving so rapidly after they were dying to get here [to play for you]? Josh was a career recruiter, but he didn’t … cultivate relationships after players [arrived]. This may have been his undoing.”

Neal sees Tubby Smith as checking most every box Pastner did not, starting with a comfort level even amid criticism from a fan base or the media. “Coach Smith has been doing this for so long,” he says. “He’ll be a master organizational guy. All roles will be defined. Each player will be developed to benefit the overall goals of the team. He brings a success story that precedes him. And he’ll bring a side of accountability that we haven’t seen in some time. People will come to watch winning, but we have to learn to win first.”

Ken Moody played for Dana Kirk’s last Tiger team (1985-86) and Larry Finch’s first as head coach (1986-87). Now a special assistant to Memphis mayor Jim Strickland, Moody is reluctant to blame Pastner personally for the program’s recent decline, but like Neal, he sees Smith’s arrival as necessary, even critical.

“We have some of the most astute fans,” says Moody. “We should never insult their intelligence by portraying something other than the facts. Regardless of what our won-lost record has been the past couple of years, our program is a respectable one that will always generate national attention from high school players and media.

“Coach Smith’s honesty and integrity are his best virtues. At his initial press conference, he talked about loving every player he has coached. He’s respected by all of his peers because he’s always done it the right way. When parents give you the responsibility to help shape their sons, they want someone like Tubby Smith to be the example.”

To a man, the Tiger players are motivated by the preseason poll that placed them fifth in the AAC (behind Cincinnati, Connecticut, SMU, and Houston). Crawford in particular has relished what might now be called “Tubby time” in these parts. “It’s been a business approach,” says the former Melrose High School star. “He brings family love and discipline, things we stand upon. There’s a sense of urgency to get us better. We’ll be playing hard for 40 minutes; fans won’t be in doubt.”

Smith grew up the sixth of 17 children, a born leader (by necessity) under the guidance of his father, Guffrie Smith, and mother, Parthenia. Among the early lessons Smith took from his dad: Debt, if managed intelligently, is not a bad word. Whether borrowing money to purchase real estate or taking home groceries in advance of payment, Smith’s dad always paid his debts. As his son emphasizes today, there was honor involved. And a communal bond forged between hard-working parents and those who helped raise a large family.

Somewhere in this life fabric is the reason Tubby Smith is now in Memphis, in charge of a program that has lifted — sometimes maddened — its large following for several generations now. Is Smith in debt to Memphis? Quite the opposite. (Smith’s contract will pay him more than $15 million over five years.) No, if Smith owes anyone anything at this point in his career, it’s the game of college basketball itself. And what better way to pay such a debt than to help a family — a basketball community — in need?

“I can’t do enough,” says Smith. “I can’t pay back enough, for what this game has meant to me and my family from the day I decided to get into teaching and coaching. Donna and I got married, and she made sacrifices. I’ve always said, the greater the challenge, the bigger the reward. The more you give, the more you receive. My dad had nothing. But it doesn’t cost a thing to be polite or do a good deed. If we all believed that, the world would be such a great place. I’m happy I learned that lesson.” — Frank Murtaugh

The Tigers play CBU in an exhibition at FedExForum on November 7th. The regular season opens on November 14th when Texas-Rio Grande Valley comes to town.

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News News Blog

Craig Brewer Helms Film to Retain Mike Conley for Grizzlies

The Grizzlies have released a short film by Memphis-based director Craig Brewer that’s aimed at Mike Conley — with the specific goal of getting the point guard to re-sign with team. It’s called “Our Conductor,” and features an introduction by Justin Timberlake, and the voices and images of Marc Gasol, Tony Allen, and Zach Randolph, also known as the other three members of the Grizzlies’ “core four.” Watch it HERE.

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Sports Sports Feature

Grizzlies Face Three Big Challenges This Summer

CREDIT: Larry Kuzniewski

The firing of Coach Dave Joerger wasn’t a surprise to anyone who had been paying attention to the Grizzlies’ tumultuous 2015-16 season. That’s not to say that Joerger’s dismissal was entirely about him, or his behavior, but it was clear to all involved — especially by the final media availability of the season — that Joerger and the Grizzlies’ front office were headed toward some sort of divorce.

I won’t get into the specifics of that divorce here — what’s done is done, and Joerger is now comfortably ensconsed (complete with a $4 million salary) as the head coach of the Sacramento Kings. But with the Grizzlies’ coaching search still in full swing at the time of this writing, I think it’s important to talk about the three things the Grizzlies have to get right this summer.

Hire the Right Coach: Mike Conley is a free agent this summer, and hiring a coach for whom he would be comfortable playing is a big step toward retaining his services. In his final media availability, Conley talked about his desire to see a plan from the Grizzlies, given how much uncertainty faced the franchise, and that was before they’d fired Joerger. Hiring a coach Conley is happy with is a must.

By the same token, in basketball, your three best players determine the way you play. After this summer, Marc Gasol, Conley (assuming he re-signs), and Hypothetical Wing Free Agent (see below) will be the Grizzlies’ three best players, and that will require a fairly radical reconsideration of the way the Grizzlies play, and the role of some beloved players — Zach Randolph and Tony Allen — may have to be scrutinized. The right hire is a guy who can get Gasol and Conley to buy in to the direction he’s headed offensively — something Joerger was never able to do, as evidenced by the two player revolts against “the new offense” in 2013-14 and 2015-16. It’s a big task on a team with some (quietly) headstrong personalities. Hiring a coach who can handle it is imperative.

Re-sign Mike Conley: The odds are in the Grizzlies’ favor here. Conley’s never played anywhere else, is very close friends with Gasol (with whom Conley consulted before Gasol signed his $120M deal last summer), and the Grizzlies can offer him a longer contract for more money than any other team. Conley’s injury history and the mileage on his 29-year-old body are of concern at this point, and a five-year max deal is a gamble, but the Grizzlies don’t have many other options if they want to avoid rebuilding the team completely, and Conley will probably have a hard time turning down the extra $35-40 million that the Grizzlies can pay him.

The only way this goes wrong is if the Grizzlies don’t 1) hire a coach Conley approves of and 2) can’t convince him they have a plan for staying competitive while retooling around him and Gasol.

Sign the Right Hypothetical Wing Free Agent: This is the thing the Grizzlies have never done before that they have to do this summer: attract a free agent making more than the mid-level exception salary (that is, around $5 million per season). It’s no secret that the Rudy Gay/Tayshaun Prince/Jeff Green transitions at the starting small forward spot didn’t do much to improve the team, and, if anything, they solidified Conley, Gasol, and Randolph as the team’s three best players and primary scoring options.

This summer, they’ve got to do something, whether it’s bringing in Nic Batum from Charlotte, prying Evan Fournier away from Orlando, throwing a big contract at Kent Bazemore, or trying to create a new wing player from a supercomputer à la Weird Science. As Randolph and Allen age, it becomes less realistic to rely on them to contribute at a high level every night. This summer is the Grizzlies’ chance to reconfigure around a (presumably re-signed) Conley and Gasol core.

Achieving one of these challenges would make for a big summer for the Grizzlies, but they’ve got to do all three — and they’ve got to monitor Gasol’s recovery, make a draft pick, develop their younger players, and fill out the rest of a half-empty roster. It’s a challenge the Grizzlies’ decision makers have to meet if the team is going to remain competitive.

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Opinion The Last Word

Goon Squad Forever

CREDIT: Larry Kuzniewski

“Only in the movies, and in Memphis.” And maybe the Old Testament.
Because the long succession of “What now?” moments the 2015-16 Memphis Grizzlies season has endured rivals the Plagues of Egypt. Even Job would be like “Man, that Joerger dude has got it rough.”

And the hits just keep on coming. Vince Carter — who has been surprisingly durable this year, despite being the fourth-oldest active player in the league — is hobbling to the locker room as I type this.

The storyline is full of you-can’t-make-this-stuff up adversity that might make inspiring 30 for 30 material, depending on how it ends. It began with a summer of mostly unwarranted suspense, after which the undisputed anchor of the team re-signed. The draft brought an unknown big-man option from LSU. Free agency brought a promising big-man option in Brandan Wright. And Matt Barnes? Sure, why not? He seems grit-and-grindy enough. Not a whole lot of drama, as far as NBA offseasons go.

Larry Kuzniewski

Dave Joerger

Then the season started and things got weird. An opening-night blowout at the hands of LeBron and the Cavs? Not great. A 50-point shellacking at Golden State? Yikes. Losing to the hated Clippers? Ring the alarm, it’s time to shake things up.

Shipping beloved backup Beno Udrih and local product Jarnell Stokes out of town stung enough on its own. But asking salty, grudge-loving Memphians to cheer for the Mario Chalmers, a man whose game-tying shot once crushed their dreams? That might be one of the front office’s boldest moves yet.

Redemption came quickly for Chalmers, who had really just been doing his job all along. As much as I miss Beno’s cheery tweets from Hog and Hominy, we needed a point guard who wasn’t 34 and injured. Chalmers filled in ably for the unlucky Mike Conley, whose contract year has been disrupted by injuries. Could the search for a serviceable backup point guard finally be over? Did we curse him by considering the possibility? Are we just cursed in general? Did somebody move the crystal skull from the top of the Pyramid when the Bass Pro Shops opened?

On the Boston Celtics’ parquet court, Chalmers uttered four words that forecast the sudden end of his Grizzlies career: “I heard it pop.”
“It” was his Achilles tendon. The team had to waive him because there were not enough healthy players to field a team, even before his injury. Nine players dressed that night, which was actually an improvement over the previous game. Forget “Memphis vs. Errrbody.” The Grizzlies’ new slogan is “Errrbody Is Injured.”

It started with Wright. Then Marc Gasol — the literal engine that propels the Grit and Grind Machine — suffered a season-ending foot injury that has felled some players for good. Tony Allen has missed games. Zach Randolph, Barnes too. Sometimes I forget Jordan Adams is even on the roster. Oh, and I forgot to mention Lance “Born Ready” Stephenson is on the team now. And P.J. Hairston. And Birdman. He’s “Grizzilla” now, though. And you’re never going to believe this, but he’s hurt too. Courtney Lee and Jeff Green are no doubt relieved they were traded before the injury bus could run them over too.

Our starting point guard is on a 10-day contract. He had to jump in on such short notice they couldn’t find him a pair of shorts that fit. He went from packing for a D-League game in Ohio, to playing and starting in his first NBA game, in 36 hours. If you told me you saw him in the Grizz Den before tipoff getting his name sewn on to the back of his jersey, I would believe you. I would believe anything at this point. Conventional wisdom would have eliminated the Grizzlies from the playoffs the moment Marc Gasol went under the knife. Conventional wisdom has been writing eulogies for “Grit and Grind” for three years.

Yet here they are, on the verge of another playoff appearance. This time they’ve added more grit, more grind, and more guys with wacky nicknames who fit only in a place where you’re never fully dressed without a chip on your shoulder.

So obviously the Grizzlies are going to win their first NBA title this year. Yeah, the odds of that happening are something like 200:1, but they have already shown that they care not for your odds, your conventions, or your logic. Look out, Warriors and Spurs. You don’t want none of the Goon Squad.

Jen Clarke is an unapologetic Memphian and a digital marketing strategist.

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From My Seat Sports

Memphis Sports 2016: Change is Coming

CREDIT: Larry Kuzniewski

2016 will be a year of change in Memphis sports. Just as 2015 was, and 2014 the year before. If there’s a single, unifying reason any of us turn to sports on a daily basis, it’s the mystery of what’s to come. The changes happening — often in dramatic fashion — between serial tweets and highlights. A basketball game (or football game, or tennis match . . .) has long been the best reality show on television. The only thing consistent with sports prognosticators (including yours truly) is how much we get wrong. Change is coming.

Larry Kuzniewski

ZBo: Will he stay?

The Memphis Open is under new ownership (again). Kei Nishikori can’t possibly win a fourth straight title at the Racquet Club, can he? The FedEx St. Jude Classic has a new tournament director. Stephen Piscotty will open the next baseball season in the St. Louis Cardinals’ outfield, not that of the Memphis Redbirds. A year ago today, Austin Nichols and Nick King seemed like both the present and future of Memphis Tiger basketball. A year ago, we all wondered what more Justin Fuente and Paxton Lynch could give us. And few people on this side of the Mississippi River knew the name Mike Norvell. Change is coming.

The most significant change we’ll see this year on the local sports landscape? I’m convinced it will be with the roster of the Memphis Grizzlies, and I don’t mean the kind of change that yields Brandan Wright or subtracts Kosta Koufos. This is the year we could see the Beatles break up.

The Grizzlies’ version of the Fab Four — Marc Gasol, Mike Conley, Zach Randolph, and Tony Allen — is playing its sixth season as a band, aiming for a sixth playoff appearance, and roughly six millionth smile generated in the Mid-South. Particularly in the modern NBA, such a run is epochal. Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili have set a standard for teammates by playing 14 seasons together (and winning four championships) in San Antonio. But who is their Ringo Starr? Bruce Bowen? Kawhi Leonard? (It’s actually their coach, Gregg Popovich.)

One of the greatest foursomes in NBA history was the one that took the Boston Celtics to four straight Finals in the 1980s. Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish, and Dennis Johnson played seven seasons together, merely one more than the current Griz quartet have enjoyed. But that was an era when stars like Parish and McHale, let alone superstars like Bird, ignored the siren calls of free agency. It didn’t hurt, of course, to be contending for the Larry O’Brien Trophy every spring.

Allen turns 34 this month and has one more season ($5.5 million) on his contract with Memphis. Randolph turns 35 in July and likewise has one more year ($10.3 million) under contract with the Grizzlies. The franchise’s career games leader, Conley, will be a free agent. Since Gasol re-signed with Memphis last summer, the presumption has been his point guard will follow suit in the summer of ’16. Perhaps he will, and perhaps the Grindfather and Z-Bo will come back for one more tour in 2016-17.

But be prepared for change. On January 1, 2015, the Grizzlies were 23-8 and heading toward what looked like the franchise’s first division title. Today, Memphis is 18-17, sixth overall in a weaker Western Conference. It’s a team that should reach the postseason, but is it a team that appears able to win a series? To win two and return to the conference finals?

Sentiment can be deadly, both in reality TV and sports. Teams that get old together inevitably lose together. In their last season as a band, that famed Celtics foursome blew a 2-0 lead and lost their first-round series (then a best-of-five) with New York in the 1990 playoffs.

Change is coming in 2016. How it impacts this city’s only big-league franchise remains to be seen. Let’s keep watching.

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Cover Feature News

Hoop City Memphis 2015!

CREDIT: Larry Kuzniewski

The Grizzlies

Can the Core Four take it up a notch?

Last year’s Grizzlies were the best or second-best team in the NBA for most of the season, before a collapse down the stretch lost them the Southwest Division title and landed them in the fifth seed in the playoffs. Marc Gasol had a career year, Zach Randolph had the best season since his 2012 knee injury, Mike Conley elevated his play offensively, and until the Griz fell apart and then limped into the playoffs with key injuries to Conley and Tony Allen (not to mention the broken face Conley suffered in the first round against Portland), it looked like last year was “the year.”

Larry Kuzniewski

Marc Gasol

Instead, they took the Golden State Warriors to six games in the second round before being eliminated, and what looked like “the year” became another run at the title that didn’t quite get there.

This year, things are in flux a little bit. Here are the 10 biggest questions facing the Grizzlies in the 2015-16 season:

Can the Grizzlies really win a championship in today’s NBA?

This question has hounded the Grizzlies since they lost to the Spurs in the Conference Finals a few years back, and has only intensified in the years since, with the rise of the Warriors and Hawks and other “pace-and-space” three-point shooting teams, and of “small-ball” lineups that push the pace without traditional big men.

Given the Grizzlies’ offensive limitations, it’s not hard to see that in the postseason, when the game slows down and becomes much more chess-like and concerned with tactical adjustments made on a nightly basis, the Griz are uniquely built to be hard to adjust to, given that what’s different about them is their personnel and not the plays they run. But, as we saw in last year’s second-round series against Golden State, those limitations can become a liability in the playoffs, when the other team decides to take away the ability to score in the post and dares the Griz to shoot long-jumpers.

I’m not sure what they can do to counter those adjustments, besides have a different roster and play a different way. And with Gasol returning on a five-year deal, and Conley likely to do the same, it seems exceedingly unlikely that that’s what’s going to happen. In the meantime, we watch and wait to see if they can evolve offensively enough to turn the corner.

Is the season a failure if the Griz don’t make it past the second round?

One thing was repeated in almost every Grizzlies preview story written in national media this year: As good as these Grizzlies have been, and for as long as they’ve been that way, we still don’t know whether they’re good enough to win an NBA title. The question remains: Are the Grizzlies just going to be the speed bump in the path of the great teams forever, like the Bad Boy Pistons to the Western Conference elite’s Jordan Bulls?

This year’s team is basically the same as last year’s, with a different look from the bench (bringing in Brandan Wright and Matt Barnes has totally changed the complexion of the second unit) and a brewing controversy about whether Jeff Green or Allen should start at small forward (hint: not Green).

Now that “Can they go the distance?” is the question most often asked about the Grizzlies, instead of “Can they make the playoffs?” it’s hard to argue that it’s anything less than a disappointment every year that they don’t make a deep run into the postseason.

Is this year actually a stealth rebuild?

The conventional wisdom is that with Gasol’s return on a five-year contract, the Grizzlies are essentially “running it back” this year with the same guys, and rolling the dice to see if they can end up with better seeding and better matchups in the playoffs, thus making it to the Conference Finals or maybe even the Finals.

On paper, it looks like that’s exactly what’s happening, but I’m not so sure. Yes, the personnel is mostly unchanged from last year, but, while adding Wright to the bench is a huge deal for what the Griz can do offensively, outside the “Core Four,” the team is mostly made up of young guys who haven’t proven themselves, veterans in contract years, and old guys on the verge of retirement (Okay, maybe that’s just Vince Carter).

Is this really a stealth rebuild with a bunch of roster churn where the Grizzlies try to stay good while flipping pieces around and loading up for next year?

Let’s think through this “stealth rebuild” hypothesis. Obviously, the Grizzlies have been an excellent team for the last five straight seasons. That has to end at some point.With Randolph entering the season at age 34, and Allen turning 34 in January, it’s obvious that age will catch up with these two guys at some point. Who are the guys who are going to step up if it happens to be this year? (Crickets)

Exactly. Those guys aren’t on the roster right now. There was talk of Jarnell Stokes being “Z-Bo replacement” material, but that was a stretch at best. Right now, the Grizzlies don’t have a backup plan. The way to have a backup plan is to build your next core group while your current core group is still playing. The Spurs did this right around the time that some team from Memphis knocked them out in the first round, and came out of it with future Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard. They looked completely done in that series, but all the while some of the pieces that would win them their next championship were already on the roster.

The Grizzlies don’t have that right now. They’ve got a bunch of guys who could be that but haven’t played much, and they’ve got some guys who are probably going to be gone after this year, and then they’ve got the Core Four and Wright.

This team has a lot of expiring contracts and decisions to make this summer. Players who are free agents after this season: Conley, Green, Courtney Lee, Beno Udrih, and Barnes.

And these are the players who have team options after this year, meaning the team can decide whether to pick up that option: Jordan Adams, Stokes, Russ Smith, JaMychal Green. Carter’s final year of his contract is $4.2 million on paper but is only partially guaranteed, meaning they don’t have to pay him the whole thing if he’s waived. All nine of these guys are basically going to have to prove their worth this season (except Conley, one assumes).

I’ve said all this and it makes it sound like I think the team is going to win 30 games. I don’t believe that. I think, as good as this group of players is, health is the only thing that could keep them out of the postseason. But I do think we’re going to see the start of that roster churn this year. I think guys are going to get traded. I think they’re going to struggle to get it together because there are some interesting depth issues and some real crowds at the forward positions. I think the organization’s eyes are probably on being as good as they can this year while trying to build the next great Grizzlies team around Gasol and Conley.

If Jordan Adams gets healthy, is he going to matter this season?

Adams has the unenviable position of being a late first-round pick on a veteran team that can’t afford to “miss” on many first-round picks because most of them have been leveraged to build the current core of players.

With any luck, Coach Dave Joerger will realize at some point this season that he simply has to play Adams for the good of the team: If they’re going to develop him into a rotation player, he has to play NBA minutes. It’s the same problem former Coach Lionel Hollins had of not developing talent and then blaming the younger players for their own lack of development. I’m not encouraged that Adams will be given a chance to make a difference, but I hope he will, because the Grizzlies simply can’t afford for him not to; they’ve given up too many future draft picks already.

Larry Kuzniewski

Mike Conley

Can Mike Conley make it to April without health issues?

Even before he got his face broken in the Portland series last year, Conley was already so banged up he could barely play. He and Allen both went into the postseason with nagging injuries, the kind that don’t heal unless you take time off, and the first round of the playoffs is not the time for that.

So can Conley keep his body together long enough to make it to the playoffs intact? That depends on whether the Grizzlies’ current backup point-guard tandem of Udrih and Smith can play well enough so that Conley doesn’t have to be on the floor for more than 35 minutes a night.

Udrih isn’t really in game-shape after offseason ankle surgery, and Smith is young and unproven, just as likely to turn the ball over as he is to dazzle the crowd. And if they can actually hold down the fort, will Joerger take the opportunity to rest Conley or play him so that the Grizzlies have a better shot of winning regular-season games? If the Grizzlies are going to emulate the Spurs model, resting players and not worrying about every regular-season game is something they’re going to have to do.

Is this the year Tony Allen gets old?

Allen turns 34 this season, and his maniacal defense is greatly dependent on his athletic abilities and using his incredible physical gifts to be in the right place at the right time. But his quickness and reflexes are going to leave him at some point. He won’t always be able to play the game the way he plays it now.

Injuries have plagued Allen the last couple of years. He only played in 63 games last year, and the year before that he played 55. If that’s the beginning of a pattern, the Griz shouldn’t be surprised if Allen misses 20-plus games again this year.

I think Allen’s got another season or two left before he starts to really feel the effects of age, but his recent injury history is worrying, especially, because as far as I know, there’s not a backup plan for losing one of the league’s best perimeter defenders.

Jeff Green’s not really a starter, is he?

I’m withholding judgment on the Green Starting at Small Forward era until I have more than one game’s worth of evidence on which to base said judgment, but that first game was just like the preseason, and just like the games last year where it happened: The offense reverted to the bad old days of the Lionel Hollins/Rudy Gay Memorial Clogged Toilet Offense — nobody moved and guys dribbled the ball until somebody came open for a quick shot instead of passing the ball around.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the presence of a player similar to Gay in the lineup has brought back the same issues that plagued this roster when Gay was here. But maybe Green just hasn’t found his rhythm yet. Maybe he needs a few games to get his sea legs.

Who will be on the roster after the trade deadline?

I’m sure that if the Jeff Green experiment has proven by February that it’s not going to work out, Green will be shopped (he’s got a $9 million expiring contract). Other guys with expiring contracts might be too, though if Lee can keep up his hot streak of aggressive play from the preseason, he won’t be going anywhere and will probably get re-signed to the Grizzlies to a new deal. Time, and Lee’s production, will tell.

Is this the year people stop saying they want Lionel Hollins to be coach again?

Judging from Twitter during the Grizzlies’ blowout loss to the Cavs to open the season, not even close. — Kevin Lipe

The Tigers

Can the Tigers turn the program — and Josh Pastner’s career — around?

These are sunny days for the University of Memphis — if you’re a football fan. But what of the long-proud basketball program, last seen leaving a court in Hartford, Connecticut, an 18-14 season in the books, and no postseason tournament for the first time in 15 years? The questions abound.

Should Memphis coach Josh Pastner take the departures of Austin Nichols and Nick King personally?

Yes and no. Anytime a still-valued player leaves a program (read: coach), exhaust fumes from the proverbial getaway car surround the coach with an unmistakable stench, at least for a while.

Larry Kuzniewski

Josh Pastner

King and Nichols were Pastner’s prize catches in the recruiting class that arrived merely two years ago. Furthermore, they are products of this city, raised on blue dreams and gray passions. For each player to decide — after but two seasons — that the hometown program (read: coach) is not a good fit is quite the opposite of a selling point for future prize recruits, be they from Memphis or elsewhere.

“I was totally blindsided by Austin Nichols,” Pastner says. “Had no idea. I’d had many conversations with him. He told me he loved it here. That said, there’s no ill will. We move forward.We’ll play differently, spread the floor more.”

But then also consider the departures, in modern terms, business decisions. King was a disappointing player over his two seasons with Memphis. A new environment and uniform can make for a fresh start in ways that more subtle adjustments (goal-setting, work habits, etc.) cannot. And Nichols clearly had one eye on Virginia since his days at Briarcrest. Memphis (read: Pastner) obviously didn’t provide enough to refocus that wandering eye, but this is a divorce initiated by the player, not the coach. The Tigers will not win without players who want to play for Memphis.

Can Shaq Goodwin (finally) be The Man?

The Tigers’ senior power forward has had a nice college career. In 101 games with Memphis (91 of them starts), Goodwin has averaged 9.5 points and 6.0 rebounds. (As a junior last season, the numbers were 9.6 and 7.1.) With 44 more points, Goodwin will become the 50th member of the program’s 1,000-point club. If he stays healthy, the Georgia native will likely climb to ninth in career rebounds at the U of M. But …

There always seems to be a “but” in measuring Goodwin’s impact. He was positively monstrous (23 rebounds) in a one-point loss to Temple at FedExForum last February. But he took only eight shots (and made only two), coming up short on the offensive end in a game the Tigers had to win (and lost by a single point). Goodwin must be a complete force — the face and body of this program — for the Tigers to have any hope of NCAA tournament play come March.

What are we to make of the Tigers’ backcourt?

Lots of pieces here, few of them guaranteed playing-time. There are a pair of seniors with SEC experience (Kedren Johnson and Ricky Tarrant). There are two familiar faces whose roles never became clear last season (Avery Woodson and Markel Crawford). There’s a trio of freshmen who could land rotation spots or end up waving towels at the end of the bench (Jeremiah Martin, Randall Broddie, and Craig Randall).

If Pastner fails to clearly identify and assign roles, the backcourt could become a mess. Try winning a basketball game when you don’t know who is handling the ball.

“[Tarrant] is a veteran guard,” Pastner emphasizes. “He can score; he knows how to play. When he wants to be a very good defender, he can be.” Tarrant is well-traveled, having scored 1,000 points at Tulane (where he was C-USA’s Freshman of the Year in 2012) and last season at Alabama before transferring as a graduate student to Memphis. He would seem to be a stabilizer for an otherwise young roster, a player who won’t be surprised by the size and speed of Division I college basketball.

“I’m excited to see how we play with better spacing,” Pastner says. “And we’ll play faster. We need to do some things better than we did last year. We had a lot of turnovers to start the season and gave away games. Our guard play wasn’t good enough, and that falls on me. I made some recruiting misjudgments.”

Johnson has been dealing with a balky right shoulder, and Tarrant is coming off foot surgery, so this bounty of guards may be reduced — temporarily or long-term — when the Tigers open against Southern Miss on November 14th.

Larry Kuzniewski

Shaq Goodwin and Dedric Lawson

What can be expected from star recruit Dedric Lawson?

Memphis has seen mixed results from the last four McDonald’s All-Americans to suit up as Tigers. None of them — Elliot Williams, Joe Jackson, Adonis Thomas, and Goodwin — reached the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament. (Goodwin, of course, has one more season to change this.) Lawson turned 18 on October 1st. Can he compete immediately against players four and five years older?

“He’s a high-IQ and skill guy who can shoot the ball,” Pastner says. “He can create matchup problems. We’re asking him to do a lot from the get-go.” Having his older brother, K.J., nearby could ease the transition to college life for Dedric. “There’s a comfort level,” Pastner says, “and they’ve had success together, both in high school and AAU ball.” (Having one’s father on the bench, on the other hand, can be a mixed blessing. We’ll see what kind of influence Keelon has this year with two of his sons fighting for playing time.)

Does this team have a good shooter?

Woodson (37.7 percent) and Johnson (35. 3 percent) were competent but inconsistent from the outside last season. Tarrant (29.9 percent) won’t make anyone forget Doneal Mack, let alone Rodney Carney. Newcomers Broddie and Randall know their way to the basket, but neither will be a high-volume scorer from long distance. Former Mitchell High School star Jeremiah Martin — in the mix at point guard — shot 37 percent from three-point range as a senior and could build his value in the rotation as an off-the-bench shooter. “He plays hard,” Pastner says. “We’re teaching him some things. He has a tendency in transition to gamble. You can get away with that in high school.”

Pastner thinks his team needs to be more efficient from the three-point range. “The adjustments we make, spacing-wise, will allow more time for shooters to set their feet,” he says. “We’ll get open looks with better spacing.”

Are the Tigers too small?

The Tigers have exactly three players taller than 6’7″: Goodwin and Dedric Lawson are each 6’9″ (and must avoid foul trouble like processed meat), and Marshall is 6’11”. A native of Lexington, Tennessee, Marshall will likely absorb much of the blue-collar responsibilities: shot-blocking, offensive rebounds, defense help. “He’ll have some highs and lows as a freshman,” Pastner says. “He runs hard, rebounds hard. He’s not really skilled offensively right now. But his effort’s there. In time, he’ll be really good for us.”

Larry Kuzniewski

Shaq Goodwin

Goodwin loves what he’s seen from Marshall. “He’s my favorite,” the senior says. “He’s big. So much opportunity. He’s smart, too. And he’s got a soft touch around the bucket; he’s just a little raw.” The Tigers are a small team. Pay close attention to Marshall’s development.

Who is the Tigers’ X factor?

Trahson Burrell. The senior swingman displayed versatility on the wing (and on both ends of the floor) that called to mind former star Will Barton, but with the frequency of a moon phase. Six straight games with at least 10 points last December (five of them Tiger wins). Six straight games in single figures last February (three Memphis wins).

“He has to be a better defender for us,” Pastner says. Even with a season under his belt, Burrell may have the biggest “upside” of any player on the Memphis roster. And this team needs him … way up.

Can the Tigers win the AAC?

The American Athletic Conference sent two teams to the NCAA tournament last March. Defending league champ SMU has been banned from postseason play (and its Hall of Fame coach, Larry Brown, suspended nine games) for NCAA infractions. Cincinnati is a perennial threat, but a team Memphis beat by 13 last winter. The transitional nature of modern college basketball makes it hard to forecast a team’s strength based on the previous season. AAC coaches picked Memphis to finish fifth in the league, behind SMU, UConn, Cincinnati, and Tulsa, so these Tigers will play as underdogs.

What’s the most important area of improvement for the Tigers this season?

Count the empty seats at FedExForum. Last winter, there were an alarming number. If more of them aren’t filled this season, you’ll know the program is heading in the wrong direction. As recently as 2010-11 (Pastner’s second season as head coach), the Tigers averaged 16,768 tickets sold on game night. Last season, that figure plummeted to 13,915 (still 21st in the country).

For the second season in a row, Memphis will pack December with seven home games. The opponents are not the kind you circle a date to see: Louisiana Tech, Southeast Missouri, Manhattan, Southern, Ole Miss (okay, one circle), IUPUI, Tulane.

If the Tigers were in the Top 10 and bursting with star power on the court, you might see 16,000 fans visit FedExForum on a December Tuesday with Southern in town. The 2015-16 Tigers will be fortunate if 10,000 show up.

Will this be Pastner’s final season with the Tigers?

If the Tigers win 25 games and reach the second week of the NCAA tournament, Pastner will not just return; he’ll likely get a raise and an extension (beyond his current contract, which has him here through the 2017-18 season). If the Tigers fail to reach the NCAAs for a second year in a row, it’s hard to imagine Pastner surviving the outcry. The U of M fan base can go negative in the best of times. (Remember John Calipari’s “Miserables”?)

The Tiger coach remains positive. Reflecting on significant players’ transfers, Pastner notes, “Everything was basketball-related. We’re in Memphis, and you’re under a microscope 365 days a year. We’re privileged to have that microscope. The offseason had its challenges, but it was nothing that embarrassed the university or was against the law.”

Pastner thinks the number of televised games has contributed to the lower attendance figures, and on-court struggles have been exacerbated by that metaphorical media microscope. “There’s a lot of negativity by some media members,” he says. “Maybe they don’t like me. Maybe they don’t like me because I’m positive and they choose to live their lives negatively. I think it gets overblown. I’m gonna stay positive, locked in on who I am.

“When you step back and look at the success we’ve had here over six years [148 wins, 58 losses], a lot of people would have signed up for that. I love my job, and I love Memphis. I hope to be here a long time.”

Count at least one significant player fully in Pastner’s camp. “It took me a while to understand it,” Goodwin says. “But that’s how he is, 100 percent of the time. You can think of things — anything in life — two different ways: positive or negative. So why negative? I took it and ran with it. I preach it to the team. Last year, when I was struggling, I looked at things in a negative light. Had to change my mindset.”

Wins have historically been the best mindset-booster in sports. For this team, its coach, and fan base, a season of revelation is upon us. — Frank Murtaugh

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From My Seat Sports

An Elvis Dedication for Marc Gasol (and Others)

CREDIT: veeoz.com

veeoz.com

I like to contribute to Elvis Week each summer by dedicating a few of the King’s hits to local sports personalities. These are carefully considered, and dedicated with all heart, some grit, and a little grind.

To Marc Gasol, “If I Can Dream”: Sure, $110 million helps one dream a little. But Gasol — first-team All-NBA center — is not still a Memphis Grizzly if he didn’t dream big, and dream about an NBA championship parade on Beale Street. His free agency was blessedly, pleasantly brief, with not so much as a blown kiss toward another suitor. He clearly feels a commitment from owner Robert Pera, from point guard Mike Conley, and from a fan base that adores every big stride he takes at FedExForum. “Got to be birds flying higher in a sky more blue.” If Gasol can dream of a better land, well, so can errbody else.

To Jacob Wilson, “Can’t Help Falling In Love”: There have been other University of Memphis alumni to suit up for the Redbirds. Mark Little played for the 2000 Pacific Coast League champs and Scott McGregor pitched at AutoZone Park just last year. But this Bartlett native has made a quick impact on the St. Louis Cardinal system, just three years after being named Conference USA’s Player of the Year. He took over third base for Memphis in May and is fourth on the team in homers (10) and RBIs (41). Wilson also leads the club in promotional jersey giveaways. He’s as Memphis as Graceland and will be ours until the Cardinals call him north.

To Justin Fuente, “Tiger Man”: This song can be nonsensical. Something about getting up on a mountain and calling a black cat. “I am the king of the jungle / They call me Tiger Man.” Whatever its actual message, let it be said there is one king of the Tiger kingdom these days, and it’s fourth-year football coach Justin Fuente. As recently as 2011, Memphis led conversations about the worst college program in the country. Since the Tigers’ win in the Miami Beach Bowl last December, they’ve been a Top-25 team. That’s the stuff of fiction. “If you cross my path / You take your own life in your hands.” Sing it, Coach.

To Josh Pastner, “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”: So long Pookie Powell. All the best, Nick King. Austin Nichols … you leaving, too? The Memphis Tiger basketball program — meaning, really, its head coach — has endured a mass exodus of players expected to carry a team back to the NCAA tournament after a winter of discontent (18-14). The offseason has been less about who’s arriving (say, McDonald’s All-American Dedric Lawson) than about the kind of friction that leads to a pair of native Memphians (King and Nichols) deciding the U of M is not for them. Fame can be a lonely place. So can the head coach’s seat in the Tiger basketball offices.

To the 2014 Memphis Tiger football team, “Promised Land”: In 2011 (Larry Porter’s last season as head coach), the Tigers won two of 12 games and were outscored by an average of 35-16. Last fall (Justin Fuente’s third season as head coach), the Tigers went 10-3 and outscored their opponents by an average of 36-16. That, friends, is a turn-around . . . and a Top-25 finish is one way of defining “the promised land” for a long-suffering program. This tune was written by Chuck Berry, then given new life by Elvis on an album released in 1975. Which means the Tigers had more wins last season than in any since the King himself belted out this tune.

Happy Elvis Week everybody.

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From My Seat Sports

Austin Nichols/Marc Gasol: It’s All About Relationships

CREDIT: Larry Kuzniewski

Larry Kuzniewski

Austin Nichols

This week has been a lesson in relationships for Memphians, at least for those of us who pay attention to basketball. (And there are a few in the Mid-South who do.) On Monday, All-NBA center Marc Gasol — an unrestricted free agent — officially announced he would stay with the Memphis Grizzlies, signing a five-year contract extension that will pay him around $110 million. The sound of angels singing could be heard from the Mississippi River halfway to Jackson, Tennessee.

The next day, though, all-conference forward Austin Nichols announced that he would be leaving the University of Memphis, forsaking at least one, probably two seasons of All-America candidacy in blue and gray. You could feel the tremors emanating from the Finch Center several miles away, at least to the Nichols family home in Collierville.

Larry Kuzniewski

Marc Gasol

Gasol’s return is a special, human tribute to the Grizzlies franchise and also the larger Memphis community, one the native Spaniard has come to know well since he wore a Lausanne Collegiate School uniform while his big brother, Pau, starred with the Griz. Let’s be a bit clinical and acknowledge the 110 million reasons Marc has to stay in Memphis . . . but the fact is, he appears to love Memphis, particularly the likes of Mike Conley and the teammates he feels have helped create an annual title contender. Gasol is good enough to play for other contenders. And there are other contenders who can pay the former Defensive Player of the Year more millions than he or his children will ever be able to spend. But Marc Gasol, let it be said, has become a Memphian. He met with one (and only one) franchise during his brief free agency. Where else would a Memphian play?

Then we have the saga of Austin Nichols, the Briarcrest product around whom Tiger coach Josh Pastner built a roster, the shot-blocking face and leader — captain! — of a team hoping to prove last season was an 18-14 anomaly, a single down year in what has been one of college basketball’s most successful institutions this century. Despite swirling rumors since late March, Nichols appeared to be all-in as a Tiger, even after the spring departures of teammates Pookie Powell and Nick King. But something clearly changed the 20-year-old’s mind over the last three months. A player who would make preseason All-America lists is willing to stay on the sidelines a year to get away from the Memphis program he joined two years ago, a match he considered — 24 months ago — a dream come true.

The Memphis-Nichols divorce is simply the other end of the relationship spectrum from the Memphis-Gasol marriage. And these relationships, remember, are intensely personal. No matter how close we media types like to think (or say) we are to a team of athletes and their coaching staff, few relationships outside actual family are as interwoven — and complicated — as those on a basketball team. The rosters are small, the coaching staff smaller (certainly relative to football). If there is the slightest animosity between two personalities, a locker room can divide. When one of those personalities is the head coach? The fracture can be quick, emotional, and permanent. That appears to be the case with Josh Pastner and Austin Nichols.

Can Pastner — and in the larger picture, the U of M basketball program — recover from this mess? Not in time for the 2015-16 season. If you’re going to hold anything against Nichols, it should be the timing of his decision more than the choice to leave itself. Whatever scraps may be left among college basketball transfers (the NCAA has free agents, too), they won’t replace 13 points, six rebounds, and three blocks per game. Worse, they won’t mollify a fan base that has come to consider Pastner a fine recruiter who cannot retain the talent he brings to Memphis. Tarik Black leaving after three seasons (having earned his degree) was one thing. Nick King leaving after two injury-riddled, disappointing seasons was another. Austin Nichols is precisely equivalent to Marc Gasol choosing to leave the Grizzlies. With one parting handshake (or other hand signal), a team is diminished.

There is no winner in the Tiger divorce. Nichols appears to be indecisive, minus the leadership skills Pastner trusted him to display next winter. And the coach, as noted earlier, appears to get in his own way when it comes to building a strong, steady program, let alone a Final Four contender.

For now, Memphis basketball fans should open their arms and return the embrace Marc Gasol offered so openly on Monday. Some relationships come and go. Others come to define a franchise and the community it represents.

Categories
Sports Sports Feature

Farewell, Sweet Grizzlies

There’s lots to say about whether the Memphis Grizzlies’ season was a successful one or not, or whether they did as well as they could have against the Golden State Warriors, given the circumstances.

There’s no doubt that their ever-present lack of offensive firepower and outside shooting played a big role in their elimination, but so did the laundry list of injuries to Mike Conley — a wrist issue, a bum foot that never got all the way healed, a broken face with titanium plates in it and a nasty recovery from a tough surgery, and then an ankle injury on top of all of that — and the fact that Tony Allen tried to play Game 6 and contribute on defense but could neither run nor jump because of his hamstring injury. The Grizzlies got bitten by the injury bug at the worst possible time; that’s not an excuse for why the Warriors were about to handle them in six games, but anyone who says that didn’t play a factor is being dishonest.

So now the season is over.

Coming into this year it felt like The Year — it felt like it had to be. It still feels that way a little bit, but the truth is that it wasn’t The Year. Until the Grizzlies figure out how to score enough to keep up with the modern NBA, it will never be The Year, and this season made that even more painfully clear than the 2013 Western Conference Finals did. Defense and a maniacal determination not to lose from your best players will only get you so far.

Given the way the Griz played until the All-Star Break, it felt like maybe the formula had been found. But after the Jeff Green trade (and maybe because of it but I’m not sure we’ll ever know the full story) things started to fall apart for a while, in a way that never really pulled back together until the playoffs, and even then only for some of the games. We may never see that group of Grizzlies again, the ones who were the best team in the league, with a top-five offense and defense.

This offseason is going to be one long gut check. Marc Gasol is a free agent, and while it seems likely that he’ll stay — and the Grizzlies haven’t made much noise about being worried that he’ll leave — that’s certainly not a guaranteed thing. Gasol has to now see, just like the rest of us do, that this team as currently configured will have to get extremely lucky to advance past a truly elite team in the playoffs. They’re very good, and no one wants to play them, and they’re always a threat, but that might be the extent of it without catching some lucky breaks along the way.

Even if Gasol stays, there’s work to do. The wing positions still don’t produce enough. Jeff Green has a player option he’ll probably pick up — and no one should fault him for that, really — and Vince Carter will still be here. There are exciting young players at the end of the bench in Jordan Adams, Jarnell Stokes, and Russ Smith (and JaMychal Green is also on a multi-year deal), so there are players to develop. Backup point guard is better than it’s ever been, but Nick Calathes is a restricted free agent. There’s a high probability that next year’s Grizzlies will look very different in some ways.

For now, though, the 2014-15 Grizzlies are done. This was a legendary regular season that turned into a frustrating one, that then turned back into a legendary playoff run featuring a point guard who put a mask on and carried the team to some improbable wins, even though he had no business doing so. We didn’t get to see them play for as long as we’d hoped, because in the end they weren’t who we wished they would be. But that’s how things go sometimes, and even in those moments it’s better to embrace what’s there than be dissatisfied by what isn’t.

We’re entering a very important summer for the franchise and its future and its fanbase. But even in these moments of loss, there’s a sense that this was a special year, a year of things that will not soon be forgotten. There will be more about this season and what it was in these pages, but now is the time for gathering ourselves, catching our breath, remembering the thundering roar of the Forum when the masked Mike Conley was introduced before Game 3, the way every other sound in the world was drowned out by the howl of the crowd, even the sound of your own thoughts.

In that roar, somewhere, is everything.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Sit! Stay!

CREDIT: Larry Kuzniewski

I saw a fantastic play at the Orpheum last month.

Well, in the interest of full disclosure, I saw about three-fourths of a fantastic play. I left once I figured out how it was going to end. Because, you know, traffic and stuff.

Larry Kuzniewski

Hannibal Buress was hilarious at Minglewood Hall a few weeks ago. From what I saw, at least. I left early because it was raining. Gotta beat those crowds, right?

I know what you’re probably thinking. “Wow, this woman is a real piece of work. Why go at all, if you’re not going to stay until the end? That’s dumb. And rude.”

Yup. Sure is.

Other than the part about Buress being hilarious, I made that stuff up. I would never leave a play before the final curtain. I wouldn’t leave a concert before the house lights went up.

And I sure as hell wouldn’t leave a Grizzlies game early — and neither should you. Especially when they’re winning. Especially during the playoffs.

Despite five straight years of playoff appearances, the Grizzlies haven’t been rewarded with the respect they deserve beyond the hometown. Instead, we get to read yet another round of articles titled “Don’t Sleep On the Grizzlies.”

Because “It’s a small market.” Because “People want to watch superstars.” Because “They play ugly, old-school basketball.”

Blah, blah, blah.

Memphis’ roots in the NBA may be shallow, but the city’s relationship with that orange ball is deep. If Z-Bo’s twerk moves in the post, Marc’s off-the-charts hoops acumen, and the Grindfather’s general chaos aren’t entertaining enough for you, well, I don’t know what to tell you. Sorry your life is so boring.

Here in We Don’t Bluff City, we know the Grizzlies belong. But some fans aren’t helping our Beale Street Bears prove it when they can’t even stay in the building for the full 48 minutes. Let other teams’ fans look like jerks on TV. We can be better.

The families who leave at halftime to put the kids in bed? I get it. Bless them and their little future season ticket holders. They weren’t the ones filing out of the Grindhouse during Game 2 against Portland while several minutes remained in the fourth quarter.

As I stood to let an older couple out of my row, I secretly rooted for the Blazers to mount a comeback. Not enough to win it, of course — just enough to teach those fans a lesson. To remind them that in the NBA — as Kevin Garnett once famously declared — anything is possible. He may not have looked like much against the Grizzlies, but Damian Lillard has killed before. (Just ask the 2014 Houston Rockets.)

I don’t remember much about Miami’s improbable Game 6 comeback in the 2013 NBA Finals, but I sure remember shaking my head at all the Heat fans shown pounding on the doors and pleading to be allowed back into AmericanAirlines Arena. Think they still bail out early?

It pays to stick around for the final buzzer, if only for the sheer joy of the glorious, quintessentially Memphis moments that follow: Streamers rain from the rafters, and DJ Khaled’s voice fills the building, declaring that all our beloved Grizzlies do is win, win, win, no matter what. The sound of thousands of elated fans pouring into the lobby, high-fiving amid chants of “Z-BO! Z-BO!” is as sweet as a giggling baby. If I could bottle that feeling, I’d be an instant bajillionaire.

What’s the rush? Downtown Memphis does not suddenly become New Delhi after a Grizzlies game. We may not know what the lever next to the steering wheel does, other than make a weird clicking sound, but we have it pretty good when it comes to traffic. “Beating the traffic” saves you about 10 minutes. You’ll spend more time waiting for a table at Babalu on a Saturday night than you will sitting in post-game traffic.

Oh, but you have to work in the morning? So do all the other 18,000-plus people here. That’s why coffee exists. There are three locally owned coffee shops on Cooper Street alone.

FedExForum is vaulting up the ranks of the league’s best playoff environments, thanks to a lot of dedicated people who work their asses off. They’re on the court with GRIZZLIES on their chests and numbers on their backs. They’re playing soundbytes and dancing at center court. They’re sharing Zach Randolph’s Deep Dish Thoughts and dropping giant banners to proclaim “WE GRIND HERE.” They’re growling those three magic words, “SHOT CLOCK … VIOLATED!” They’re flipping off trampolines in Elvis costumes. They’re scrambling to get a growl towel on every chair before the doors open. Do them the honor of sticking around for the whole show.