The Memphis Grizzlies have been granted something few teams in today’s hyperactive NBA are allowed to have: time to grow together.
Just look at their roster. Yes, the Grizzlies have made plenty of moves to supplement their team over the past few years — the latest was bringing in Jeff Green from the Celtics in exchange for Tayshaun Prince, Quincy Pondexter and a protected first-round pick. But the core group in Memphis — Marc Gasol, Zach Randolph and Mike Conley — have played together since the start of the 2009-10 season, while defensive ace Tony Allen has been there since 2010 and coach Dave Joerger has been around since 2007, though he only became head coach prior to last season.
There are few teams in the league — dominated by player and coach movement — that can boast that kind of stability.
“Those guys were puppies,” Nets coach Lionel Hollins, who coached the Grizzlies for four-plus seasons from 2008 through 2013, said Wednesday after watching them beat his Nets in Brooklyn, “and now they’re men.”
The Grizzlies are certainly all grown up now, having made the Western Conference Finals in 2013 in their final season under Hollins before losing to the Thunder in seven games in the first round last season. But with Memphis sitting third in the loaded Western Conference and having addressed their biggest need — a creator and scoring option on the wing at small forward — Conley has his sights set on a much bigger prize: the franchise’s first championship.
“I do believe that,” Conley said, when asked if the Grizzlies have what it takes to escape from the West. “I think with us adding a guy like [Jeff] … but even before him, I thought we had a chance. But now with him, I feel it gives us that much more of a boost, that extra confidence that we belong, we can really do it now for sure.”
If Memphis does so, it will in a way that’s radically different from almost every other contender. The Grizzlies aren’t exactly in line with a lot of the hot trends in the sport. While the 3-point shot has become a critical weapon for most teams as analytics have taken over the sport, the Grizzlies rank near the bottom of the league in makes and attempts per game. While many teams have shifted toward using a floor-spacing power forward, the Grizzlies start a pair of bruising big men in Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol who are most effective near the basket.
But it’s exactly that different kind of style that’s made Memphis into an absolute nightmare matchup. When you face the Grizzlies, you know exactly what you’re going to get: a physical, imposing game at both ends of the floor. Memphis tries to pound its opponents into submission on the glass and then creates turnovers to get easy baskets.
It’s all based around Conley, Randolph and Gasol, who have grown and developed into one of the NBA’s best trios despite Conley initially being considered a potential bust as a No. 3 overall pick, Randolph having been traded multiple times before winding up in Memphis and Gasol being a throw-in as part of the trade that sent his brother Pau to Los Angeles back in 2008.
Still, in past years the Grizzlies did not have enough offense to be a legitimate title contender. That is not the case this season. After adding small, but significant, pieces the past couple seasons such as Courtney Lee, Kosta Koufos and Vince Carter, Memphis swung the trade for Green this week, giving them the kind of dynamic wing presence they haven’t had since trading Rudy Gay in 2013.
“I just look back at when we had Rudy Gay,” Allen said. “He had that big frame, that one guy who could create off the dribble, that one guy who could knock down the 3, that one guy who in the 5-4-3-2-1 [shot-clock] situation, you know he’s that extra option.
“I think he gives us that. With the addition, with him being alongside Mike Conley, Marc Gasol, Zach Randolph, I think he’s a potential All-Star when he’s playing his best basketball. I don’t know. I just like the addition, man. It gives us a lot of depth.”
It also fills the one hole in an otherwise stacked starting five. Conley and Lee give Memphis a pair of quick defenders and capable shooters in the backcourt, and Randolph and Gasol do their thing in the frontcourt.
Combine that with Green, and all of a sudden you can make a case for Memphis having the best starting five in the league. Green has his detractors, but being the fourth option is the perfect role for his laid-back personality.
“It’s great,” Green said. “It’s exciting. It’s like a breath of fresh air to be with a team that’s competing and with great players who compete every night. I’m excited for the challenge I have ahead of me in terms of studying the craft and getting along with them and just trying to get on the same page with them.”
Then there’s the ongoing saga of whether Gasol will move on from Memphis at the end of the season as an unrestricted free agent. Assuming LeBron James isn’t going anywhere, he will be the top target for every team with money to spend.
But if you think Gasol is thinking much about free agency — or, frankly, playing anywhere but the town where he went to high school and has spent his entire professional career — then you should read the following quote.
“I like having success as a team, I’ll tell you that,” Gasol said with a smile. “Everything makes more sense. It’s easier to go through the grind when you’re winning.
“Every time we go to a different city, I get asked a lot, but it’s part of it. It’s part of it, and you have to deal with it whether you like it or not you have to deal with it and keep your mind on the game that night and the next practice, the things that are really important right now.”
That doesn’t exactly sound like someone itching to leave, does it?
But the Grizzlies’ path to the NBA Finals is clouded by the abundance of Western Conference contenders in go-for-it mode.
“I think [getting Green] was the one thing we look at, where if we can get better, this is the one way we can leap forward and try to keep up,” Gasol said.
“You see all the trades and all the pickups, and you just can’t stand still in this league anymore. For us to get that kind of acquisition, it’ll help.”
And it’ll make the task of beating them that much harder.
A nice aside about Conley: In the second quarter of Memphis’ win over the Nets, he fell onto a cameraman right in front of the press table on the baseline. After making sure the cameraman was all right, Conley got up and limped away.
At halftime, he came back over, said hello to the man and asked him if he was all right. It was a little thing, but it just reinforced how Conley is one of the better guys in the league, an easy guy to root for.
Conley is hoping to make his first All-Star team this season, but he’s one of many deserving candidates in the Western Conference.
“I can say it doesn’t matter, but it’s one of those things in the back of your mind that would be a huge honor,” he said. “Especially considering my career and how I’ve had to battle through some things and some ups and downs to get to where I’m even being talked about it is something that’s thrilling for me, so it’d be great.”
As there was last year when the Nets played there, the talk of there being a permanent NBA team in Europe came up during this week’s annual trip to London, where the Bucks became the latest team to beat the Knicks.
Commissioner Adam Silver said the only way to make it happen is to have a full division of teams based on the other side of the pond. It’s going to be incredibly difficult, if not impossible. Unless air travel is sped up to the point where it doesn’t take basically an entire day to fly from New York to London — let alone from Western Conference cities — it’s difficult to justify having teams half a world away.
Unlike the NFL, which has games once a week to better accommodate such a demanding travel distance, the NBA’s schedule would make it very, very hard for teams to reasonably make the trip to play in Europe – and vice versa.
What seems more likely is an increased number of regular-season games there in the future and a European city hosting an All-Star Game — almost certainly London — before long.