Tag: Memphis Grizzlies

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Opinion

Jock Tax on Grizzlies Under Fire in Nashville

Tony Allen

  • Tony Allen

The so-called “jock tax” on NBA and NHL athletes in Tennessee is tip money to them so it was sad to read in The Tennessean about the opposition to it in Nashville this week.

Tennessee has no state income tax and Memphis has no local payroll tax. To raise money, Memphis must increase the highest sales tax rate in the country or the highest property tax rate in the state. Both the Memphis City Council and Shelby County Commission raised property taxes this year.

The jock tax costs players a maximum of $7,500 a year. According to the fiscal note on the 2009 legislation, the total tax on NBA and NHL players this year is about $3.5 million, about half what Mike Miller will make next year when he returns to the Grizzlies.

Grizzlies fans pay a tax on seats, tickets, and concessions that helps pay the cost of the arena.

Tony Allen, who signed a new contract with the Grizzlies paying him $5 million a year, was in Nashville to oppose it. Allen, who has said he “bleeds blue,” did not speak at the hearing Thursday. If he played in Georgia he would pay state income tax of 6 percent; in North Carolina, the state tab is 7.75 percent. In Tennessee, $7,500.

The Grizzlies ownership opposes killing the jock tax because the revenue is passed through to them. Jason Wexler represented the ownership group at the hearing. He told the Flyer the tax brings about $1.1 million a year to Memphis.

“We use it to recruit events to FedEx Forum,” he said. “Memphis is a good market but not a must-play market. We get about ten concerts a year.”

“It’s working,” he added. “It’s an effective incentive tool.”

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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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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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Sports Sports Feature

Memphis Grizzlies: Bigs & Balance

CREDIT: Larry Kuzniewski

The Memphis Grizzlies emerged from last weekend’s NBA All-Star break still on pace for the best record in franchise history but with many questions to answer over the season’s remaining 31 regular-season games.

If the team, projected to finish fifth in the Western Conference even before the trade of longtime would-be star Rudy Gay to the Toronto Raptors, slides further than that, then jettisoning Gay will obviously be seen — fairly or not, given the preexisting downward trajectory — as a turning point. But if the Grizzlies maintain their ground or better, the correction will have begun not so much with the deal itself but with the delayed acceptance of it.

The Grizzlies, from the head coach down through the locker room, wasted a few days pouting in the wake of the Gay trade, despite the fact that the team’s slide since November had coincided with Gay’s worst season since his rookie year.

The trade itself was a reminder of something we learned with the Pau Gasol deal: that, in a lot of quarters, any deal made by the Grizzlies that includes financial motivation will be seen entirely through that prism.

Make no mistake, with new controlling owner Robert Pera acknowledging some initial cash-flow issues in the immediate wake of his purchase agreement with Michael Heisley, there are legitimate questions about the wherewithal of the new ownership group. But those questions can’t begin to be answered until we see how they conduct the coming off-season. The problem with drawing such conclusions from the Gay deal, of course, is that “financial reasons” and “basketball reasons” are becoming increasingly inseparable in the NBA. Gay is set to make north of $19 million at the conclusion of his current contract without having ever made an All-Star team. In a league with strict rules that tie player payroll to methods of player acquisition, that’s a poor allocation of resources, no matter your market.

Nevertheless, the deal was disruptive, and the team seemed very fragile in its aftermath, with Lionel Hollins seemingly incapable of making public statements without generating controversy and the team’s defensive effort looking near non-existent in the first half of a road loss to the Atlanta Hawks.

But the team rallied to play a competitive second half in Atlanta, and, afterward, team leaders such as Marc Gasol and Tony Allen responded with tough-minded comments that went beyond the usual locker-room platitudes. A day and a half later, Hollins used his pre-game press availability to finally end the mourning. He didn’t pretend to approve the deal, but he did re-engage the season’s challenge.

“Have I been emotional about the trade? Yes,” Hollins said. “But I don’t want it to be taken that I can’t move forward and for my players to take it that I can’t move forward. Because I have and I will. And I expect them to.”

This “calming-the-waters” address was at once emotional, positive, and tinged with defiance. It was also effective, because an hour later, his team took the floor and replicated that tone in a rousing win over the playoff-seeding rival Golden State Warriors, launching a three-game winning streak going into the break and ushering the post-trade malaise out of the organization.

This winning streak brought the Grizzlies to 4-2 post-trade. That’s a small sample size and one made even less persuasive given that five of the six games were at home and four of the six were against teams with losing records. But these games still offer a useful glimpse of the way the Grizzlies may play after two trades that turned over more than a third of the team’s roster.

Removing Gay, who, over the course of the season, has led the team in minutes and used — via shot attempts, assists, and turnovers — nearly a quarter of the team’s possessions while on the floor, created a huge hole in the team’s offense. And replacement small-forward Tayshaun Prince was never going to — really, was never meant to — fill it.

The idea was that Prince would use his possessions more efficiently while fostering better overall team play on the offensive end. Though six games post-trade, so far so good.

There was some thought that the extra touches freed up by Gay’s departure would shift heavily to Zach Randolph, but that has not been the case so far. Randolph’s usage rate since the trade has held steady, and while he’s rebounded from his historically rough January, his still-all-star-level production this season hasn’t come with much that would convince onlookers he can still put a team on his back the way he did two seasons ago.

Instead, these extra touches have essentially been dispersed, with Gasol leading all starters in usage rate since the trade. Fittingly, exchanging an offense driven by a turnover-prone isolation scorer in Gay for one driven by the team’s most talented combo passer/scorer in Gasol has had a dramatic impact.

Prior to the trade, the Grizzlies’ team assist ratio and overall offensive production had both fallen to the bottom third of the NBA. In the six games since the trade, against a pretty solid array of defenses, the team has notched an assist ratio that would be in the league’s top five and an overall scoring rate that would be approaching the top 10. People worried about replacing Gay’s team-leading 17 points per game, but, in reality, Gay’s low-efficiency ball dominance may have been a drag on the offense.

For the past few seasons, the over-emphasized question for the Grizzlies has been: Randolph or Gay? The answer, unsurprisingly, may turn out to be Gasol.

Gasol is probably a slightly more prolific scorer on the (left) block than he is in the high post. There, he can score with rumbling hooks and short turnaround jumpers and is more likely to draw fouls. But the team’s overall offense seems to function best with Gasol stationed around the free-throw line, where he can direct the offense out of the high post or form a pick-and-roll partnership with Conley.

Here, Gasol can send bounce passes to backdoor cutters or set up frontcourt mates — namely Randolph — for low-post attempts. If that’s not there, Gasol can simultaneously deliver the ball to curling shooters — primarily Conley — while hip-checking their defender to free them up for open jumpers. And if he can’t make a play for someone else, Gasol can torch defenses with his own near-50 percent mid-range shooting.

While Conley’s individual production has not been as strong as it was in his unsustainably superb November, the team’s offensive performance with him on the floor has been nearly as good, and he’s combined solid shooting with his best assist ratio of the season.

While the early returns on the team’s post-trade offense have been very encouraging, there’s some concern on the other end, where the team’s once-elite defense has slipped a little. The post-trade defensive efficiency would still land the Grizzlies in the league’s top 10 but several spots lower than the overall second-place rank for the season.

The conventional wisdom after the trade was that the Grizzlies would miss Gay’s scoring and shot creation, but they would become even more solid on the defensive end. But Gay’s defense may have been as underrated as his offense was overrated, and exchanging Gay’s minutes on the wing for aging Prince and physically weak Austin Daye has drained the team of some dynamism on that end. An even bigger concern may be Gasol. The team’s defensive efficiency with Gasol on the floor, while still very good, has slipped each month, and the Grizzlies need Gasol, even with an expanded offensive load, to get back to the all-NBA-caliber defense he displayed earlier in the season.

Still, the balance the team has displayed before the trade is more promising going forward than the all-defense/no-offense game the team had played for much of the previous two months. And the realistic goal before the trade — not “winning a title,” which was always loose talk, but fielding a competitive playoff team — seems just as realistic now.

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Sports Sports Feature

Mr. Versatility

CREDIT: Larry Kuzniewski

An unusually eventful Grizzlies season has been even bumpier over the past week, with the most intensely enjoyable home game of the season — Friday’s overtime win against the San Antonio Spurs — followed by two dispiriting non-performances: a big loss in Dallas the following night and a 99-73 drubbing at FedExForum Monday night at the hands of the Los Angeles Clippers. The 26-point scoring margin is the Grizzlies’ worst defeat of the season, and the 30.3 percent shooting was the worst home performance in franchise history.

There were excuses for both bad losses. The Dallas game seemed like a classic schedule loss, the second night of a back-to-back on the road after a draining overtime win. Monday night, the team was playing without leading scorer Rudy Gay, out of town for a family funeral. Gay’s loss, on top of the loss of his own backup, Quincy Pondexter, had the Grizzlies playing unconventional lineups all night and against the league’s deepest team. The Clippers, of course, were playing without their best player, Chris Paul.

If the Grizzlies have a good showing — win or lose — in a Wednesday-night rematch with the Spurs in San Antonio, these losses can maintain their asterisks. A bad showing Wednesday night and alarm bells will sound.

But while the Grizzlies’ contender status and season trajectory still hangs in the balance — pending the next game, the next Rudy Gay trade rumor, or the next Lionel Hollins radio interview — let’s take a quiet moment amid the clamor to recognize one player on the roster undercard who is doing good things now that promise even more going forward.

Darrell Arthur missed all last season with an Achilles injury and then missed the start of this season with a more minor leg injury. Upon his return, it’s taken him a few weeks to improve his conditioning and timing back to something resembling his pre-injury form. But in recent weeks, he’s shown why many — myself included — thought he was the team’s best reserve player and one of the league’s better backup forwards before the injury. Arthur’s minutes and production are both up in January — his rebounding rate up, his turnover rate down, his jumper starting to fall more.

Arthur’s surface stats don’t look like much — seven points, three rebounds a game — but watch him closely and you’ll regularly see Arthur make impactful defensive plays that don’t register in the box score: Blowing up pick-and-rolls. Switching onto and containing perimeter ballhandlers. Cutting off drives and setting up teammate steals. Racing down in transition to disrupt a fastbreak.

This month, with the injury to Pondexter, we’ve seen Arthur add to his resume by playing a more than passable small forward. Prior to Monday night’s debacle, the Grizzlies had outscored opponents by nine points in 43 minutes with Arthur on the wing. Against the Clippers, with most of the team in the tank, Arthur fared a little better than most and did while guarding five different players over the course of the game.

Arthur was the star of that dramatic win over the Spurs, with his best all-around game since facing the same Spurs, pre-injury, in the playoffs two seasons prior. Arthur made a series of big plays in the fourth quarter and overtime in that game: defensive rebounds, mid-range jumpers, winning a tip against Hall of Famer Tim Duncan, and sprinting out for a transition dunk that sealed the game in the final seconds. But his best moment was easy to overlook. In the final sequence of the game, after Gay made a pull-up jumper for the go-ahead basket, the Spurs had a chance to tie or take the lead. They ran a high pick-and-roll between point guard Tony Parker and Duncan. And Arthur blew it up: switching onto Parker and pushing him outside his shooting range, recovering back to Duncan to deny a pass, and then jumping back out on Parker to contest the fadeaway jumper that was left. Three key defensive plays in a matter of seconds to preserve Gay’s big shot and set up Arthur’s own dunk at the other end.

While many things are uncertain about the Grizzlies right now, Arthur’s comeback and blooming versatility is a good story flying under the radar.

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Opinion

Going to Eddie Vedder at Orpheum? Beware Scalpers

scalper.jpg

Consider the scalper, a guy standing outside FedEx Forum waving his arms, maybe holding a sign, and hollering “who needs (or has) extra tickets?”

A hustling street-level entrepreneur exploiting market inefficiencies, serving willing customers, and establishing a secondary-market price, like his well-dressed counterparts on Wall Street pricing the Facebook IPO or the computers at Delta Airlines that change ticket prices minute by minute?

Or a scourge rigging the game and jumping the line and creating bogus prices, like his well-dressed counterparts on Wall Street pricing the Facebook IPO or the computers at Delta Airlines that change ticket prices minute by minute?

Or a relic of an innocent age before paperless tickets and smart phones and a bit player in a bigger battle between corporate giants StubHub (owned by eBay) and Ticketmaster?

Some 60 Tennessee sports and entertainment organizations, including the Memphis Grizzlies, FedEx Forum, Beale Street Music Festival, Live at the Garden, and The Orpheum, have banded together “to stop the rampant problems caused by deceptive, professional scalpers” according to a news release this week.

The Tennessee Sports & Entertainment Industry Coalition (TSEIC) is calling on the Tennessee General Assembly to do something next year. The proposed legislation, called the Fairness in Ticketing Act, “will strengthen the free market by empowering fans to make informed decisions when they purchase tickets for sports, musical, and other performance events held in Tennessee.”

Its sponsor, Rep. Ryan Haynes of Knoxville, introduced a similar bill in the last session. One of the coalition members is country singer Eric Church, the subject of an investigative report by Phil Williams in Nashville earlier this year.

Coalition members include major sports and music venues in Memphis, Nashville, and Knoxville. “These are the organizations that have an investment, employ people, pay taxes, entertain, and help drive tourism for Tennessee as opposed to out-of-state scalpers who do not contribute to the growth of Tennessee.”

The pressing issue appears to be the Internet and paperless tickets more than people standing outside stadiums and arenas hawking a pair of tickets. An impresario in the tickets game told me scalping, also known as “dynamic pricing,” is one facet of a battle between StubHub and Ticketmaster that is playing out in Tennessee and other states. The issues include consumer fairness and how and through what channels tickets are transferable on the resale market.

From the news release: “The unscrupulous scalpers ruin the ticket market for fans,” said Sean Henry, president and chief operating officer of the Bridgestone Arena and Nashville Predators. “The bad actors do not participate in a free market; they manipulate a black market that raises prices for everyone. They cut ahead of fans during internet onsales with sophisticated and often illegal software. They drive a wedge between fans and artists, teams and venues. They hike up prices. They refuse to disclose who they are, where they operate and if they actually have the tickets they claim to sell. They create an environment rife with counterfeits and fraud and fans are left disappointed and cheated. The Fairness in Ticketing Act is a consumer protection bill. It would restore the free market and protect fans that spend their hard-earned dollars on live entertainment.”

Scalpers purchase some of the best seats as soon as they go on sale. By using bots, scalpers cut in line ahead of customers buying through official channels.

Counterfeit tickets are one risk of buying from scalpers. Scalpers use websites that masquerade as being affiliated with venues, sports teams, or recording artists to mislead fans into purchasing tickets on the resale market, often for prices well above face value. This deceiving tactic is often used when face-value tickets are still available through primary ticket sellers and the box office.

Teresa Ward of the Orpheum Theater told me there have been many times when she has seen patrons in tears who were misled by online brokers or copycat sites similar to the historic theater’s official site. Some tickets have been sold multiple times, and only the first customer showing that ticket gets the seat. An upcoming show stars Eddie Vedder. Ward said 46 percent of the available tickets sold within seconds to organized scalpers in Connecticut, Las Vegas, and Florida.

Eric Granger, vice president of arena operations for FedEx Forum, said copycat sites are a chronic problem “on the availability of what you can get at what price.” Some fans found out too late that they had illegitimate tickets for the Justin Bieber concert last week, he said. FedEx Forum has an exclusive contract with Ticketmaster.

The Fairness in Ticketing Act will be filed in the 2013 session of the Tennessee General Assembly. The act proposes consumer protections for the online ticket resale market for Tennessee events. Provisions include requiring resellers to disclose original face value, seat location, and whether the reseller actually has the tickets they are selling in hand and explaining to consumers the differences in non-sanctioned and unofficial resale sites.

For more information on the Fairness in Ticketing Act, go here.

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Cover Feature News

Hoop City

The Grizzlies
by Chris Herrington

Breakthrough or breakup? That could be the central question for this Grizzlies season. Faced with an increasingly expensive core, the Grizzlies decided to keep their team mostly intact this summer and were even willing to go over the NBA’s luxury-tax threshold — at least for the moment — to give that core some support.

The bet is that we haven’t yet seen the best that this iteration of the Grizzlies can be: that a healthy Zach Randolph, a rising star Marc Gasol, a potentially improved Mike Conley and Rudy Gay, and a deeper and more versatile overall roster will be enough for the team to stand toe-to-toe with the NBA’s elites. The risk is that the Western Conference’s other contenders have gotten better — especially the Los Angeles Lakers, who added two All-Stars to the couple they already had — and the Grizzlies may have lost their best chance with Randolph’s injury last season.

If this Grizzlies team doesn’t advance on previous accomplishments, there’s a good chance there will be major changes next summer. For now, at least, this core controls its own destiny. And here are the issues that will determine how far they can go:

The Starting Five

1. The Z-Bo that we used to know: When Zach Randolph went down with a torn knee ligament four games into last season, the Grizzlies proved that a Mike Conley-Rudy Gay-Marc Gasol foundation was good enough to be a playoff team without him. But the team’s offense sputtered in the post-season as a returned Randolph averaged 13 points on 42 percent shooting and seemed incapable of the scoring eruptions and bully-on-the-block physicality that had made him a Memphis folk hero the prior spring.

Heading into this season, it’s reasonable to conclude that the Grizzlies’ opportunity to be a legitimate contender, despite lacking the kind of transcendent star (Lebron, Kobe, Durant) often considered a contention prerequisite, is largely dependent on Randolph returning to his pre-injury, all-NBA level. And coming off a serious knee injury at age 31, there was good reason to doubt Randolph’s ability for a full bounce-back season.

Happily, preseason returns have been extremely encouraging. Randolph has pinned bigger defenders in front of the rim and finished easily over them. He’s beat multiple defenders on second and third jumps going after offensive rebounds. He’s looked like the Z-Bo that we used to know. Can he dominate again? Consider this: When we last saw Randolph healthy in the playoffs, he was the second best power forward on the planet, behind Dallas’ Dirk Nowitzki, another floor-bound big man who carried his team to a title strictly on skill and guile. This season, Randolph is still a year younger than Nowitzki was that season.

After the Grizzlies’ first exhibition game, against Spanish team Real Madrid, I spotted an excited Randolph bouncing irrepressibly around his locker, like Tigger, like he was hoping for a double-header. I told him he looked like his old self, and he smiled broadly and put his finger to his lips. “Shh,” he said. “It’s a secret. It’s coming. I’m getting back to the old Z-Bo.”

2. Conley is the key: Back in the day, former University of Memphis point guard and current Grizzlies broadcaster and minority owner Elliot Perry had inscribed on his knee pads the mantra “Confidence is the key.” For the Grizzlies this season, that could be amended to “Conley is the key.”

While Zach Randolph’s return to form is obviously a paramount concern, the feeling here is that Mike Conley is otherwise the most important player on this year’s team. Last season, as one of only eight point guards to average more than 35 minutes per game, the slight Conley’s production faltered badly in fourth quarters, but the team’s lack of viable options behind him made it difficult to take Conley off the floor.

This season, with young veteran free agent Jerryd Bayless and high-upside rookie Tony Wroten Jr. in the fold, Conley has more ball-handling help, which can keep his minutes in a more reasonable range while also freeing him up to play more off the ball and exploit his underrated three-point shooting. Meanwhile, Conley’s own off-season regimen has him looking stronger, quicker, and more confident than ever. In the preseason, he’s been the team’s best player.

Even with the help, there’s still a lot of pressure on Conley. The Grizzlies may be a post-oriented team, but in a league where the very best players are on the perimeter, the Grizzlies need some dynamism in their backcourt, where their increased depth of ball-handlers and shooters is unlikely to yield anyone with the explosive potential of the departed O.J. Mayo. If the increased and improved ball-handling Rudy Gay has shown in preseason carries over — a big if at this stage of Gay’s career — that will be a significant help. But the onus is still primarily on Conley. For the Grizzlies to have a big season, he needs to have a big season. He knows it. He’s prepared himself for it. And he looks ready to make a leap.

3. Three-pointers and pace: The Grizzlies’ offense last season fell to 21st in the NBA in points per possession, down from 16th the season before. Losing Randolph had a lot to do with that, and getting him back will give the team a boost, as will potential development from Conley and Gay. But for the Grizzlies to have a chance to push toward a Top 10 offense, a couple of other factors will be key.

One is pace, where the Grizzlies fell from 15th in 2010-2011 to 18th last season. Playing a little faster would help Randolph and frontcourt partner Marc Gasol get some easier baskets, before defenses can fully set up, would help take better advantage of the speed of Conley and Gay, and will help create more open looks from beyond the arc.

And that last component is the biggest key of all: For the Grizzlies to have an above-average offense this season, they simply must be a better three-point shooting team. The Grizzlies have been among the NBA’s least prolific and least effective three-point shooting teams over the past three seasons and just said goodbye to their most significant shooter from that stretch with Mayo’s departure. But there’s still some potential for improvement here.

Newcomers Bayless and Wayne Ellington could collectively duplicate Mayo’s outside shooting, while reserve swingman Quincy Pondexter is emerging as a shooter and Gay should bounce back to his career averages after a terrible shooting slump. The wild card in the mix could be second-year guard Josh Selby, who lit up the Vegas summer league and has continued that hot streak into the preseason.

Even without an individual shooter as prolific as Mayo, the deeper cast of shooters should lead to better spacing and a more symbiotic relationship between spot-up shooters and the team’s post game.

4. Maintaining a Top 10 defense: If the Grizzlies will be trying to boost their offense this season, the challenge defensively will be to maintain what has been a Top 10 unit for each of the past two seasons.

The anchors for this are still in place, with Marc Gasol manning the paint and Tony Allen patrolling the perimeter. Gasol’s size, smarts, and dedication have made him a much more considerable defender than his relatively limited athleticism would suggest, while Allen is the catalyst for a defense that’s led the league in opponent turnovers from the moment he donned Beale Street Blue.

Allen’s had chronic knee issues and had surgery this summer to help clear it up. He’s looked fine on the floor, and his limited minutes in the preseason seem to be just a means to limit mileage on Allen in games that don’t count. With Conley adding strength to help him better combat bigger opponents, the team’s starting lineup should again be a high-level defensive unit.

But maintaining the team’s defensive level throughout the rotation may require key contributions from a couple of players we haven’t seen much of this preseason. Most significantly is reserve forward Darrell Arthur, who missed all of last season with a torn Achilles and was sidelined on the eve of training camp with a more minor leg injury. Arthur is slated to return to the floor in the season’s opening month, but it may take longer to get fully up to speed. With Dante Cunningham gone from last year’s team, Arthur is potentially the team’s most versatile frontcourt defender, the one best able to defend the pick-and-roll and chase more mobile forwards along the perimeter.

In the backcourt, defense could be rookie Tony Wroten’s path to playing time. While a gifted playmaker, the 19-year-old’s high-risk/high-reward offense is unlikely to garner trust from coaches early on. But as a strong, dynamic athlete with 6’6″ length, Wroten offers match-up possibilities on the defensive end that the team can’t count on from reserve guards Bayless, Ellington, or Selby.

5. Betting on big: With the Miami Heat winning an NBA title with ostensible small forward Lebron James as the second biggest player in their primary lineup and many other teams following suit, the Grizzlies are one of the only contenders — the Lakers, with Dwight Howard and Pau Gasol, are the most prominent exception — built around a big lineup.

The Grizzlies lost some small-ball versatility by trading Cunningham this summer. While only a role player, Cunningham is particularly skilled at guarding both the perimeter-shooting “stretch” power forwards and big small forwards that have become de rigueur in the modern NBA. While Gay can — and almost certainly will — play this role in small lineups this season and the team hopes a returning Arthur can mitigate much of what was lost with Cunningham’s departure, the Grizzlies’ path to success won’t come from matching with other teams’ small lineups. It has to come from forcing opponents to handle the Grizzlies’ size advantage.

This could make the Grizzlies one of the most interesting teams in the the NBA this season, with the interior tandem of Randolph and Gasol providing counterprogramming — and an old-school foil — to the speedier, trendier attacks of teams like the Heat and Thunder.

Buzzer beater: Even with a returning Randolph, a lot of national prognostications have the Grizzlies slipping this season. ESPN’s John Hollinger projects the Grizzlies to finish fifth in the Western Conference. Basketball Prospectus has the team falling back to the 8th seed. Maybe this is hometown optimism talking, but based on Randolph’s fitness, Conley’s sense of momentum, and better depth in terms of the frontcourt (where re-signed third big Marreese Speights has looked sharp), outside shooting, and ball-handling, I think this is the most promising team with which the Grizzlies have ever opened a season.

What would success reasonably look like? How about combining the franchise-first feats of the past two seasons: again obtaining homecourt advantage in the first round with a top-four playoff seed, but this time advancing. How about an old-fashioned goal for an old-fashioned team: winning the franchise’s first division title, which would itself ensure a top-four seed.

For basketball coverage throughout the season, be sure to check out memphisflyer.com. Frank Murtaugh’s Tiger coverage can be found on “Tiger Blue,” at memphisflyer.com/blogs/tigerblue. Chris Herrington’s Grizzlies coverage can be found on “Beyond the Arc,” at memphisflyer.com/blogs/beyondthearc.

The Tigers
by Frank Murtaugh

THE STARTING FIVE

1. Will a veteran team make a difference? This is debatable. With four juniors and two seniors expected to be in the rotation, this is the first of Josh Pastner’s teams that can be described as experienced, seasoned even. The ebb and flow of the season will feel natural to most of the roster. And the rookies can only benefit from the guidance players like Tarik Black, Joe Jackson, and D.J. Stephens should provide.

“There’s a difference,” Jackson says. “You can tell. Everybody’s listening. We’re trying to prepare for what we need to do this year. We’ve been through a lot. It’s a different vibe: team first. It’s easy to say that, but now I can feel it.”

“Since I’ve been here, we had juniors and seniors, but some of them were transfers or had not been here the whole time,” Black adds. “Now we have a group of guys who are legitimate juniors, not juco transfers. We’ve been in the program long enough that we can teach the young guys instead of having to learn while they’re learning. That’s an advantage for this year’s team.”

But remember the 2005-06 Tiger team when weighing the value of experience. That club started two freshmen (Antonio Anderson and Shawne Williams) and two sophomores (Darius Washington and Joey Dorsey). They merely went 33-4 and reached the NCAA tournament’s regional finals.

2. The Tigers have a roster 10-deep with rotation players. Who is the one player indispensable to their success? Let’s allow Joe Jackson to chime in on this one.

“Tarik Black. He’s a force,” Jackson says. “I’ve been playing with him forever. This year, he’s going to have to be a marquee player. He’s always been the guy nobody seems to know about. This needs to be his year for him to be one of the best big men in the country.”

Black averaged 10.7 points and 4.9 rebounds last year while setting a Tiger single-season record by shooting 68.9 percent from the field. But you just got the feeling we never quite saw Tarik Black unleashed. (As a freshman, he averaged 9.1 points and 5.0 rebounds.) His height (6’8″) won’t allow him to play center as a pro, but Black’s quickness, soft hands, and strength make him well-nigh a prototype for a college pivot man. “I was playing lighter last year,” he says, “so I had to find new ways to guard people. But I’ve added muscle, and I’m at a weight where there’s balance.”

Conference USA coaches apparently agree with Jackson’s assessment of Black’s value to this year’s Tiger squad. He was the only Memphis player voted to the preseason all-conference team. (Jackson, Adonis Thomas, and Chris Crawford were named to the second team.)

3. What kind of impact can be expected from the three rookies? Damien Wilson smartly toed the program line when asked by a gathering of media earlier this month what kind of role he’ll play. Rubbing his lengthening beard (“My James Harden”), Wilson said, “I need to play hard on defense and rebound.”

More than blue-collar support will be expected from Shaq Goodwin, who will likely give Pastner three former McDonald’s All-Americans in his starting lineup (along with Jackson and Adonis Thomas). Rebounding was an issue last season, when Will Barton (no giant) was the only Tiger to average more than five per game. If Goodwin (6’8″) can complement Black (6’8″) and get support from the likes of Thomas (6’6″) and Ferrakohn Hall (6’8″), the Tigers’ rebounding margin should grow from last season’s measly +1.3.

Goodwin lost 15 pounds during his first two months on campus, an effort to be in game shape for the faster pace of college basketball. And during his introductory session with the media, the Georgia native emphasized the sense of chemistry he felt on a largely veteran team, a precocious observation if it translates to play on the floor.

Then there’s Geron Johnson. The combo guard — a Doc Rivers look-alike — managed to qualify academically after a troubled past that saw him dismissed by two junior-college programs. He brings starter talent to the Tigers and could fill much of the slasher role on offense personified by Will Barton the last two years. Since his arrival, Johnson’s emphasized looking only at the future, at finding “a better outcome.” Tiger fans are hoping Pastner’s straight-laced tutelage is the prescription for growth — personal, as much as basketball-wise — for a player talented enough to make a difference even as a rookie.

4. What could go wrong? Basketball is played with one ball. And the Tigers have a team heavy with players used to being a star on the floor: Thomas, Jackson, Black, Goodwin, Johnson. For now, they’re all saying the right things about team chemistry and the value of having such a deep and talented roster. But what happens if minutes diminish for one or more of these players as Pastner figures out his strongest rotation? Remember all the talent the 2004-05 Tigers had on opening night (Darius Washington, Sean Banks, Rodney Carney, freshman Joey Dorsey)? That team couldn’t get along and lost 16 games, the last of them in the NIT.

5. Can the Tigers have a successful season without winning an NCAA tournament game? Easy answer: no. Conference USA championships are fun, and the Tigers are intent on finishing their 18-year run as the league’s standard-bearer. But for 2012-13 to be a measurable success, the U of M has to advance in the NCAA tournament. (The Tigers lost their opening game to Arizona in 2011 and to Saint Louis last March.)

Three reasons the regular season is merely prelude:

This is Josh Pastner’s fourth season at the helm, and, with the graduation of Wesley Witherspoon, the team is decidedly his. Mr. Recruit has a team he assembled from top to bottom, the objective being NCAA tournament wins. (Remember, according to Pastner and his predecessor, “This is a national program.”) No four-year plans in these parts. Time to extend the stay on the dance floor come March.

Losing is fuel. Led by juniors Black, Jackson, Crawford, and Antonio Barton (not to mention seniors Ferrakohn Hall and D.J. Stephens), the Tigers have tasted March Madness but only morsels of the sport’s glamour event. The disappointment of the NCAA tournament losses the last two seasons should rev up the competitive drive for each and every upperclassman.

Adonis Thomas won’t be here as a junior. He took two weeks before deciding to stay in school for his sophomore season (knowing he could well have been a first-round pick even after an injury-shortened freshman campaign). This is the year to capitalize on his prodigious talents.

Buzzer Beater: Last season, the Tigers lost two games in November and three more in December. The team found itself climbing the rest of the season, well off the Top 25 radar. Pastner needs a signature win (outside C-USA play), and it could come before the new year, against the likes of Duke (in the Bahamas, Thanksgiving weekend) or Louisville on December 15th. With a win over a major opponent (Pastner is 6-12 against teams from the six power conferences), the Tigers should enter conference play securely in the Top 20, which should yield an NCAA tournament seed higher than eighth, as they received last March. Seeding, come tournament time, isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.


The Grizzlies: Seven Dates to Remember

• Monday, November 5th — Grizzlies vs. Utah Jazz: The Grizzlies’ home opener showcases two of the NBA’s most productive frontcourts, with Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol facing off against Utah’s Paul Millsap and Al Jefferson.

• Sunday, November 11th — Grizzlies vs. Miami Heat: Lebron James and the defending NBA champion Heat make their lone FedExForum appearance at 5 p.m.

• Friday, November 16th — Grizzlies vs. New York Knicks: The Grizzlies’ first nationally televised home game is an 8:30 p.m. tipoff on ESPN against the New York Knicks, a game that pits Baltimore small forwards Rudy Gay and Carmelo Anthony.

• Friday, November 23rd — Grizzlies vs. Los Angeles Lakers: The new-look Lakers, who added the league’s best center (Dwight Howard) and perhaps most skilled point guard (Steve Nash) to a core of Kobe Bryant and ex-Griz Pau Gasol, make their first FedExForum appearance. If you cup your hand to your ear, you can hear the “Beat L.A.” chants already forming.

• Monday, January 14th — Grizzlies vs. Los Angeles Clippers: The Grizzlies will open their season on the road against the Clippers, but this will be the other L.A. team’s first return to the scene of their Game 7 crime, a chance for the home team to partially exorcise their playoff demons from this spring.

• Monday, January 21st — Grizzlies vs. Indiana Pacers: The annual Martin Luther King Day matinee tips at noon and will be broadcast on ESPN, pitting the Grizzlies against their Eastern Conference doppelganger — a small-market contender built with lots of really good players but no “superstar.”

• Wednesday, March 20th — Grizzlies vs. Oklahoma City Thunder: The defending Western Conference champions and one-time Grizzlies playoff rival make their lone appearance at FedExForum as both teams gear up for a final playoff push.


The Tigers: Five Dates to Remember

• Wednesday, December 5th — Tigers vs. Ohio: Call them mid-major if you like (they hail from the Mid-America Conference, or MAC), but the Bobcats did some big-time dancing last March, knocking off Michigan and South Florida on their way to the Sweet 16 (where they fell to North Carolina in St. Louis). The run landed coach John Groce a new gig (at Illinois) and opened a chair for new head coach Jim Christian.

• Saturday, December 15th — Tigers vs. Louisville: This is a date you don’t so much circle on your calendar as cut out, laminate, then paste upon every flat surface of your blue-and-gray man cave. Once among the greatest rivalries in the country, the series resumed last season after six long years (and will continue annually when Memphis enters the Big East next year). To date, the Cardinals own a 52-34 edge. Rrrrrrrrgh.

• Wednesday, February 13th — Tigers vs. UCF: C-USA coaches tabbed UCF senior forward Keith Clanton as the league’s preseason Player of the Year. Last season, Clanton averaged 14.5 points and 8.1 rebounds. As a junior, Clanton scored 23 points against Memphis in a Knight victory at Orlando but was held to seven points in a Tiger blowout at FedExForum.

• Saturday, February 23rd — Tigers vs. Southern Miss: This is one league rival the Tiger faithful will miss when the U of M moves on to the Big East. Memphis has played the Golden Eagles 88 times on the hardwood (and won 64), the most against any opponent.

• Saturday, March 9th — Tigers vs. UAB: Two programs forever connected by the spirit of Hall of Fame coach Gene Bartow. Memphis has won the last 13 games in the series.


On the Record

A handful of hopeful predictions for the 2012-2013 Grizzlies season:

1. I’ve made this prediction before, but I’m dusting it off again: Rudy Gay will make his first All-Star team. I don’t necessarily think Gay makes a significant improvement from his career norms, but with Zach Randolph’s minutes declining, he’ll be the leading scorer on one of the conference’s best teams and will be considered the second-best small forward in the conference, after Oklahoma City’s Kevin Durant. Working in Gay’s favor: a rising consensus that he’s one of the best players in the league who hasn’t made the team, which will have coaches primed to give him the nod if both he and the Grizzlies are having a good season.

2. Though it’s probably unreasonable to expect him to ever make an All-Star team in this golden age of point guards, Mike Conley will make a leap this season, reaching career highs in most statistical categories. As a result, Mike Conley will finish in the top five in voting for the league’s Most Improved Player award.

3. Zach Randolph will not return to 20-10 form but only because he will play fewer than the 37 minutes per game he averaged in his two healthy Griz seasons and he’ll sacrifice a little scoring for more passing. It says here Zach Randolph sets a new career high in assists, easily surpassing his previous career best of 2.2 per game.

4. This will not be a “redshirt” season for Tony Wroten. The rookie will start at the bottom rung of the team’s 13-man roster and may see some D-League action, but his size, defense, and dynamism will vault him into the rotation by the season’s end.

5. The Grizzlies will win a franchise-record 52 games but can’t quite catch the San Antonio Spurs in the race for the Southwest Division crown. As a result, they duplicate last season’s number-four seed but this time topple the fifth-seeded Denver Nuggets in the playoffs’ opening round before falling again in another seven-game, second-round thriller against the Oklahoma City Thunder.

— Chris Herrington


Coach Speak

Josh Pastner lives with the expectations. Matter of fact, he’s embraced the extraordinary altitude of Tiger Nation’s basketball standards. Now a veteran coach (entering his fourth season at the helm) and with a growing family (his third child, daughter Kamryn, arrived September 13th), Pastner has skipped the formula for young coaches learning their trade gradually, off the radar.

“I enjoy this,” Pastner says. “Have there been stresses and ups-and-downs? No doubt. But I’ve enjoyed it. I love being part of a situation where the energy and enthusiasm for basketball is at such an enormous level. And I love that it’s a 24/7/365 job. On a much smaller scale — I’m not saving lives — it’s like being a doctor. I’m always on call. For some reason, I like that. I don’t like having down time.”

Now 35, Pastner concedes that he’s aiming for more balance, particularly with a young family at home: “It’s not easy, because there are a lot of responsibilities with this job and not just coaching the team. In the community, I try to be out as much as I can. My wife’s been tremendous. But I don’t want to look back and say, ‘I wish I’d enjoyed the process.’ I’m enjoying everything.”

Are there elements that Pastner didn’t anticipate upon taking the job in 2009? “Unless you’ve been a head coach,” he explains, “it’s hard to imagine all the responsibility that comes with it. You are responsible for so much that you can’t picture it all. Especially these days with instant technology. You’re held responsible for things, including some you have no control over.” Pastner is hands-on (and then some) with compliance and academics, insisting on a daily report on class attendance for each of his players.

“You’re educating your players and staff all the time,” he adds. “There are not just rules of law, but NCAA rules. I’ve tried to do a better job of delegating, and it’s something I was not good at. But there’s no way I could do it all.”

As for living with the expectations of a fan base hungry for Final Four appearances, Pastner retains perspective by focusing on today’s challenge (then tomorrow’s), as it’s the first step on that proverbial path to greater achievement.

“I feel like we’ve got the ship righted from when I first took over,” he says. “It’s not a thunder storm. I feel at ease. We have a veteran team, which is a first for me. These are all guys I recruited. I promise you, there’s no one who wants to advance in the NCAAs and win a national championship more than me. But I can’t do that in October. It’s a process. We have to do a great job in nonconference, a great job in league play, and set ourselves up to advance.” — Frank Murtaugh

Game On
How to Tailgate B-Ball-Style
by Susan Ellis and Hannah Sayle

Beyond the Arc

While Lunchbox Eats is primarily a lunch spot, they take advantage of their proximity to FedExForum and extend hours during Grizzlies and Tiger games, and when the weather is warm, they grill outdoors — smoked sausage, chicken kabobs, ribs — for some proper tailgating. The food is designed for patrons to grab and go, but the games are broadcast, when available, on the restaurant’s 100-inch projection screen indoors and on a 55-inch plasma they bring out to the patio. More fancy footwork comes via the sweet parking spots on the south side of the building. Fans who eat at Lunchbox Eats can park there for free.

Lunchbox Eats, 288 S. Fourth (526-0820)

Hook Shot

South of Beale has become a favorite for basketball fans for pre- and post-game meet-ups. One reason: Fans who show the SOB crew their tickets receive 20 percent off on food. Another: the impossibly rich gouda mac & cheese and the duck fried rice (recently featured on Guy Fieri’s Diners, Drive-ins and Dives) and washing them down with a local brew like Ghost River while cheering on the local teams. And here’s a hook: Griz shots, an appropriately blue concoction of vodka, peach schnapps, and blue curaçao.

South of Beale, 361 S. Main (526-0388)

Double Dribble

The Blind Bear bears a Prohibition-era speakeasy theme, so it’s fitting that basketball fans need a password for access to specials during the games. (Psst, it’s “Basketball Special.”) Admittance brings $5 chili-cheese Bear Dawgs, half-off appetizers, and $2.50 Budweisers, Bud Lights, and Michelob Ultras. Fans who plan on watching the games while beering and dawging may want to work on hand-eye coordination to avoid double-dribbling.

Blind Bear, 119 S. Main (417-8435)

Home Court Advantage

The advantage of going to a sports bar is that sports will be on, and so it goes at Max’s Sports Bar. The cozy bar boasts 10 TVs, which breaks down to roughly a one-three TV-to-seat ratio. Plus, there’s a projection screen on the patio. And while drink and food specials have not been set for this basketball season, there are some givens: $1 hot dogs during happy hour, 4:30 to 7 p.m., and the $14.25 bucket holding five beers.

Max’s Sports Bar, 115 G.E. Patterson (528-8367)

Grit & Grind

Everyone knows Felicia Suzanne’s has Cajun-Creole Southern favorites on lockdown. So while the Griz prepare for some grittin’ and grindin’ on the court, why not tackle some shrimp and grits in the courtyard? Round things out with an artisan cocktail and you’re one short walk from the Forum and ready to get rowdy with the best of them. Sure, it’s a little more upscale way of tailgating, and it’s definitely classier than slamming back a pre-game 12-pack in the Peabody Place parking garage, but nobody said class and “grit and grind” were mutually exclusive.

Felicia Suzanne’s, 80 Monroe (523-0876)

Three-Point Play

The best things come in threes: points and plates alike. At Flight Restaurant and Wine Bar, each “flight” you order comes with three samples — a trio of salads, soups, entrées, or wines. Whether you’ve got tickets to cheer on the Tigers or the Grizzlies, if your idea of ramping up for the action involves a good meal and a bottle of fine wine, head to Main Street before the main event.

Flight Restaurant and Wine Bar, 39 S. Main (521-8005)

In the Paint

Bleu Restaurant and Lounge downtown is so close to the action, it’s practically in the paint. Directly across the street from FedExForum’s main entrance, Bleu welcomes game-goers with a full bar and their popular BYOBurger (Build Your Own Burger) concept, which is normally reserved for the lunch menu. Tiger bleu or Grizzlies bleu, it doesn’t matter; you’ll find tasty appetizer and cocktail specials, large comfy booths and bar seating, as well as free valet parking and one of the shortest walks from bar-side to courtside.

Bleu, 221 S. Third (334-5950)

Bank Shot

If you’re looking for a bank shot, look no further than the Brass Door, an Irish pub that serves up pints, eats, and shots in an ornate, refurbished bank building. Few spaces downtown rival its unique décor, and when it comes to drink specials, this Irish pub is expanding its offerings, with an eye on cutting-edge mixology. Traditionally a soccer and football kind of pub, they’re reaching out to basketball fans this season. Kick off the game night here or kick back and spend the game night here — they’ve got plenty of televisions and game-day cocktail, beer, and food specials.

The Brass Door, 152 Madison (572-1813)

Categories
Opinion

Grizzlies Execs Met with Memphis Leaders for Four Hours to Discuss Team’s Future

Michael Heisley

  • Michael Heisley

The Grizzlies have raised their game. Now Memphis fans have to raise their game.

That was the gist of a four-hour meeting Saturday of team owner Michael Heisley, his top executives, and several Memphis business and community leaders. The meeting was prompted by, among other things, recent reports that Oracle CEO Larry Ellison is interested in buying the team and possibly moving it to California. The newly created advisory board or local board of directors — the title is not yet clear — met in an office at FedEx Forum. This account is based on interviews with participants Kevin Kane and Henry Turley.

Others at the meeting were Stan Meadows, Chris Wallace, and Greg Campbell representing Heisley and the Grizzlies, and Memphians Pitt Hyde (a minority owner) Bryan Jordan, Lawrence Plummer, Billy Orgel, Otis Sanford, Bob Henning, and Joe Hall, the head of a public relations firm in Nashville that worked with NBA NOW 12 years ago. Absent were Staley Cates, Willie Gregory, and Beverly Robertson.

Wallace discussed player personnel; the Grizzlies are at full strength for the first time in this abbreviated season, but are battling to make the NBA Playoffs and repeat or exceed last year’s exciting run to the second round.

Meadows talked finances. Under the new collective bargaining agreement, teams can earn $20 million a year in revenue sharing if they meet certain attendance goals. The Grizzlies have the lowest average ticket price in the league — $39.50 compared to an average of $101 — and are the only franchise to offer a $5 ticket. Attendance has improved since 2008 when the Grizzlies were 29th in the league and averaged 12,770 fans at each home game. This year, the team is averaging 15,490 in announced attendance, which ranks 21st in the league. When the Grizzlies moved to Memphis, the threshold was set at 14,900, which the team exceeded in 2004-2005, the opening year for FedEx Forum, with average attendance of 16,862. But by 2007 the Grizzlies were last in the league in attendance and in 2008 the Flyer questioned whether Memphis could not cut it in the NBA. And in this follow-up in 2010.

Heisley fielded questions and emphasized that he would like to see the team remain in Memphis indefinitely. But he said he is 75 years old and is going to sell the team eventually. He said the team loses money. His asking price is $350 million.

“There was no threat,” said Kane, who is acting as chairman of the new board. “Everybody knows Memphis is a vulnerable market.”

The Grizzlies hope to duplicate the success of San Antonio and Oklahoma City as winning teams in cities with a single major-league team. The most vulnerable teams, along with Memphis, are considered to be New Orleans, Charlotte, and Sacramento. The richest teams are the Lakers, Knicks, and Heat, which can buy the best players.

“Memphis probably needs the Grizzlies more than the Grizzlies need Memphis,” said Kane. “The Grizzlies are a strategic asset for the region, like FedEx, AutoZone, MLGW, or the airport.”

The board has three goals: Increase season-ticket sales by 3,000 next year; advise the Grizzlies as to what local activities they should be more involved with; and be ready when Heisley sells the team to present either a local ownership group or an out-of-town owner who would keep the team in Memphis.

Board members asked if the Grizzlies can coexist with the University of Memphis Tigers, who sometimes play at FedEx Forum less than 24 hours before or after a Grizzlies came. Kane paraphrased Heisley as saying that John Calipari helped bring the team here and “You will never hear me say University of Memphis is taking away from the Grizzlies.” Board members noted that most of the players don’t live in Memphis but move to the East or West Coast in the offseason. They invoked the name of Shane Battier, the popular player who was not offered a new contract last year. Heisley, Turley said, is a Battier admirer and would gladly have him running one of his companies.

Turley said his takeaway was “what can Memphis do to help the team?” Kane said his takeaway was “We need to be doing better than what we’re doing.”

The board will meet as often as six times a year, Kane said.

Categories
News

Tennessee Pro Sports: A Time for Pride

Frank Murtaugh says it’s a great time to be a Tennessee sports fan.

Categories
News

The Grizzlies’ Playoff Prospects

Chris Herrington lays out all the scenarios and possibilities for the Grizzlies in the upcoming NBA playoffs.