The Memphis Grizzlies in the past, present and future
By Ian Levy
As the first quarter of their game against the Cleveland Cavaliers wound down, the Memphis Grizzlies’ Toney Douglas drove baseline, drawing two Cleveland defenders. As his momentum carried him out of bounds, Douglas slipped the ball back to Zach Randolph in the middle of the lane. Randolph, barely leaving he floor, flipped up a soft two-handed shot that hit the back of the iron, bounced off the backboard and then hung in the air just above the rim.
In that moment, past, present, and future, overlapped.
It’s a fascinating tweak of our biology, human beings are only capable of experiencing the past. It takes fractions of a second for the things our we see, touch, and hear to actually reach our brain and be processed. That means the world we interact with has already happened. We live in a lag of microseconds as our nerves receive signals and carry them through our bodies to the control center for them to be assembled into experience. So, as you, me, and Zach Randolph watched his shot hang in the air it had already dropped through the rim. We just couldn’t see it yet.
This is where the Grizzlies live right now — somewhere between past, present, and future.
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It’s likely that Mike Conley will take the floor for the Grizzlies tonight, having missed just nine games in what was supposed to a 6-8 week recovery period from fractures in his vertebrae. Talk about bending space and time? The Grizzlies, improbably, won seven of those games without Conley, starting Andrew Harrison and his 28.6 field goal percentage at point guard. That the Grizzlies are 18-9 with Conley having missed 10 games total, and Chandler Parsons having missed 21, is downright miraculous. They have stayed afloat with a mix of old and new.
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In case you haven’t heard, Marc Gasol is a 3-point shooter now. He’s made 45.6 percent of his 90 3-point attempts this season, after attempting just 66 across the first eight seasons of his career. It’s evolution, baby.
Gasol is also averaging career-bests in block percentage, assist percentage and turnover percentage, but the outside shooting is what sticks out like a sore thumb. The Grizzlies were supposed to be adapting this year. Gritting and grinding for so long had worn this team down to a nub, physically and functionally. The low-post power game they had favored the past few years wasn’t enough for them to break through the Golden ceiling in the Western Conference, at least not without some other tricks up their sleeves.
The adaptation was supposed to be about style and personnel. It was moving Zach Randolph to the bench, trying to add some more shooting to their lineups. It was about the athleticism of James Ennis and JaMychal Green, Wade Baldwin and Deyonta Davis. It was about moving more and pounding less. It was supposed to be Chandler Parsons and small ball, playing with pace. It wasn’t supposed to be Marc Gasol stepping out to 25-feet and burying the hopes and dreams of all-comers.
It’s been more than just Gasol’s shooting that has carried Memphis, with and without Conley. The defense has been a throwback in efficiency — currently the best mark in the league and the second-best mark in franchise history (relative to the league average). Green has been terrific, Vince Carter is sucking down electrolytes and pouring in huge buckets, and Conley, when healthy, has been playing the best basketball of his career. Even Tony Allen seems to have a little extra bounce in his step.
That’s where the magic — the time-traveling, science-defying, expectations-shattering magic. The Grizzlies are pretty much the same team. It’s Randolph, Gasol, Conley, Allen, and some gritty complementary pieces. The roster is a time capsule, just with a few letters moved around at the bottom. This group, their quiet resolve, their scraped knees, hard fouls, and fanatical defensive rotations are a thing of the past; and then Gasol steps back on a pick-and-pop and drains a three, Conley unfurls a little more of his game, pushing at the edge of his potentia,. Davis slams home a put-back dunk, and Baldwin jumps into the passing lanes, starting a fastbreak with a deflection and runout; and all of a sudden, the past bleeds into the future.
It can get murky, watching past and future overlap. It’s easy to lose yourself out there on the unsteady temporal terrain. So try to anchor yourself to the present. Marc Gasol is playing like an MVP. Mike Conley is back. Chandler Parsons will be someday too. The Grizzlies are 18-9 and…maybe…better than ever.
Put that in your time machine and smoke it.