Amigos' NBA Previews: Memphis Grizzlies

Recent Past They had Pau (and Hubie), Hubie left, then Pau left, and then they sucked a lot. But they traded Shane Battier for Rudy Gay, so that was good.

Offseason They brought in AI and Zach Randolph, and drafted Hasheem Thabeet. That may be the weirdest sentence ever written about basketball.

Probable lineup Mike Conley, O.J. Mayo, Rudy Gay, Zach Randolph, and Marc Gasol in the starting five. Marko Jaric, Allen Iverson, Darrell Arthur, and Hasheem Thabeet as key subs. Or, you know, something.

General Overview What a bizarre mishmash of players this team is. I mean, it's so very 2002. I sort of expect them to get the six seed in the East, as a matter of fact. And they may or may not be coached by Lenny Wilkens.

I'm not really sure how it's supposed to work, and so I sort of assume it's not going to. Mike Conley's a nice, steady point guard, but nothing too spectacular. Mayo was pretty inefficient in his first season, and I'm not really too big on him, or expecting him to improve too dramatically. Gay seems like he'd be a really nice team on a upper echelon team, but as a star he's not so great to build around. Zbo will do what he does, and so as long as they just keep him around for a little while and let him win them a couple extra games as a non-playoff team, I guess that's..fine, if not exactly a particularly optimistic signing. Marc Gasol is quite awesome. Well, alright, he's a quite nice center who, if he improves, is another guy I think could be very good for a contender.

The AI signing is sort of like a guard version of the Zbo deal, and so we sort of get an idea of what this team is aiming for: not to suck too badly. That may seem to be a bit of a pessimistic way of looking at things, but it's true. In the West, is there any real way this team makes the playoffs? No. And is there anyway AI will contribute when they're ready to make the playoffs? No. So, he'll help them out a bit occasionally, put some asses in seats, and make the team less boring. Which is, in a way, sort of considerate of the Grizzlies' front office. I guess. And Thabeet, it's sort of not worth even providing an outlook for him, as I think we all know exactly how his career will go: solid to alright, and never spectacular. But, you know, he's big, and that's a thing.

If they were a hip hop act Hieroglyphics. Like the Oakland collective spearheaded by Del, the Grizzlies are only sort of a team(/group), and their existence is pretty fucking strange.

Guessing how they'll do 30 wins or so, but safe in the knowledge that they'll definitely be better than the Kings, and won't be as awful as last season.