
It hurts.
I know, Boston Celtics, they've sure had it rough, blah blah blah.
I'm sorry, they won like 16 titles in 30 years at one point.
So its been a rough decade or two.
I feel ya, really.
But we've got it worse.
And on top of that the top 2 picks are going to the Western Conference.
This might have been it. This draft lottery, the bounce of these balls, the 25%. The 46.5%. The 35.7%.
It hurts.
What's the future of the team in Memphis now? Who's gonna coach us? Who's gonna be the GM?
Yi? Al? Corey? Mike?
They could be good basketball players. They could be great basketball players. You never know. But they won't fix things tomorrow. Or June 28. Or November 1. Or next April.
Greg, Kevin, totally could have gotten that done.
Its a tough time for Grizzles Fans. Its a tough time for the Grizzlies Organization. Now the Grizzlies, and the Fans have to ask for patience from the city. See, its one thing to get upset with the team when they make a mistake. Its easy to quit on a team when the coach is slowing things down and making the games boring. Its easy to quit on a team when they trade the wrong parts of their team for something they didn't really need.
This is not the teams fault. This one just went the other way. Karma. Fortune. Fate. Luck. Chance. It is what it is, but its not the teams fault.
We've still got a lot of good things going on here. Gasol has started to get the respect he deserves around the league, and from the press. Now he just needs to get it from the people of Memphis.
Rudy Gay showed great promise throughout the season. He started to put it together down the stretch, and he has every ounce of the potential he had a year ago.
Mike Miller has just started to come into his own the last two seasons, and he's ready to go places.
We've got the most cap room of any team in the NBA this summer (or close to it) and can go out and pick up the free agent point guard or center we need.
Did you forget how exciting it was to watch Kyle Lowry play the first 10 games?
And we still have a number 4 pick.
Yi is a seven-footer who has drawn comparisons to Dirk Nowitzki. He already speaks english, and he's got a huge following in China. You want to turn the City of Memphis around? Add 1.5 billion grizzlies fans to the tourism bottom line. That'd be nice.
Al Horford, not as exciting, but he is NBA ready. He's a good defensive player, but raw offensively. And he's a six-foot-nine power forward/center. We've got about 4 of those on our team don't we? (
see also, Lawrence Roberts, Hakim Warrick, Alexander Johnson, Stromile Swift).
Mike Conley, Jr. could be a star, but 4 seems a bit high to take him.
There are other options. You think that Pau Gasol couldn't bring a talented PG and a first round pick or two? If you're going to draft a
Yi, he easily replaces Pau Gasol at the power forward position.
If you do draft Yi, the question is do you play Pau at the 5 where he seems uninterested in rebounding, shot blocking, or defending the post. You'd like to think that a starting five of
Free Agent PG (Billups?), Mike Miller, Rudy Gay, Yi Jianlain, and Pau Gasol could be productive.
I don't know.
I don't know what will happen to this team. Its a mess. We're going to need some luck, and we're going to need some faith from the locals, and we're going to need some more time.
But there are still a lot of good things going on here, and we'll get it together.
But its still the 4th pick.
Not the 1st.
Not the 2nd.
Not even the 3rd.
Also not the 9th.
Here are some links for your reading pleasure:
The Current Memphis Grizzlies RosterNBADraft.net Mock DraftNBA Draft Machine - Do It Yourself DraftHoopsHype.com Mock DraftCoverage by The Commercial AppealStay Tuned...