Larry Kuzniewski
Z-Bo was one of five Griz players who sat out last night’s game against the Thunder.
I don’t know how many of you have seen the Mike Judge classic Office Space, but if you haven’t, I’m going to lose you for a second (or at least until you watch this clip). I couldn’t watch the Grizzlies’ game against the suddenly Durant-less Thunder last night because I was at a concert, but I’ve looked at the box score and I read back through my Twitter timeline, so I’m ready to share some things I/we learned about the Grizzlies last night:
- Clearly Courtney Lee and Quincy Pondexter will be the starters at the shooting guard and small forward spots—coach Dave Joerger started them last night instead of Tony Allen and Tayshaun Prince.
- Jordan Adams is clearly not the guy the Grizzlies should have drafted, since he only put up 13–6–2 in 24 minutes against a Thunder team playing without Durant, Ibaka, Perkins, Collison, and Reggie Jackson.
- If the Grizzlies keep losing preseason games, the team is going to be sold back to Vancouver in a few years because they’re “struggling”.
- Steven Adams is 22% as good as Wilt Chamberlain, because he scored 22 points.
- Earl Clark, Hassan Whiteside, Kalin Lucas, and Patrick Christopher are probably not going to be Grizzlies by the time the season begins (didn’t learn this last night, and this one is actually not sarcastic).
- The only Grizzlies with a positive +/- were Clark, Lucas, and Vince Carter, and Jordan Adams had a 0. Everyone else should be cut/waived/traded to the Lakers for Javaris Crittenton, Aaron McKie, and two first rounders.
…okay. Seriously, though, I didn’t even watch this game but I can tell (since a total of 13 players on both teams sat out) that it was a typical preseason “throw the bench guys out there and figure stuff out” game. Not really worth getting worked up over, certainly not to the point of having all the conversations about Rodney Hood I saw in my timeline this morning. Things are going to be fine.
If we get to the last couple of games and the starters are playing heavy minutes and the Grizzlies are still losing and/or looking bad, then we can worry about it and we can analyze the games and try to draw meaningful conclusions. Last night’s Thunder game was a scrimmage between two 2nd and 3rd units. A very “preseasony” preseason game. Here’s hoping Friday’s home game against Brazil’s Flamengo is just as uneventful, and that the starting lineups stats to get tweaked after that so that the starters are in a rhythm once the season starts.
