The Memphis Grizzlies have drawn their line in the sand

Marc Gasol has long been a player who fans and media tie as a trade target to teams with assets looking to make a splash, but the sequence of events leading Gasol himself to open that door Sunday night was nevertheless surprising. By Monday night things had gone beyond just surprising and turned downright wild with the news that Memphis had fired head coach David Fizdale.

The situation started with Memphis falling on tough times, losing eight straight games. The most recent loss, on Sunday night to the Brooklyn Nets, led Fizdale to start experimenting in the fourth quarter, keeping backups in for the entire period. He told reporters postgame, “We were struggling, so I was just seeing if that group could keep the momentum going, but it didn’t work. Not much has been working, so I took a gamble on it.”

It’s difficult to see how any successful gamble wouldn’t include Gasol, who is the Grizzlies’ best frontcourt player, if not their most valuable overall, especially with Mike Conley nursing an injury. Gasol has been an All-Star candidate during almost his entire Memphis career and last year began the work of moving his game to the perimeter to become more versatile and valuable within Fizdale’s system.

Gasol said after the game that if he is not on the floor, he doesn’t feel valued: “I’m sure [the coaching staff] knew that would hurt me the most.” By firing Fizdale, management sent a firm message to those within the organization: don’t cross our stars. The Grizzlies have to hope that the decision was enough to satiate Gasol because Fizdale seems to be regarded highly around the league and was seemingly thought of as an up-and-comer.

The irreconcilable problem for the franchise is that they face inherent rebuilding disadvantages based on their position within the NBA. From the time Memphis joined the league in 1995 (then in Vancouver) until 2011, the Grizzlies franchise had never made it past the first round of the playoffs. Before their second-round loss to Oklahoma City in 2011, they hadn’t even made the playoffs in four seasons. Now, the Grizzlies face the possibility of their first losing season in nearly a decade.

Firing the coach does not solve injury and age concerns, nor does it exemplify organizational harmony. If Gasol remains unhappy and Memphis does move him, their chances to jump back into the race for another Conley or Gasol is accelerated.

By bringing Conley along more slowly than his usual superhuman recovery time and moving Gasol, Memphis could get from their current 7-12 into the top of the lottery. There are also other desirable pieces on this roster, from Tyreke Evans to Brandan Wright. The Grizzlies could bottom out quickly, even if they kept Conley.

The draft is also deep with big man talent, so Memphis could draft a potential Gasol replacement as soon as next season. But sitting on Chandler Parsons’s immovable contract and with no history at all — even during their peak — of luring other top free agents, what hope is there to add talent? If the whole plan is to use the draft to become a championship contender, Memphis would be betting on becoming one of the only teams in recent history ever to do that, as it becomes more and more difficult to build rosters around stars on their second and third deals.

Staying competitive takes on an added importance when there have already been cries for Memphis to lose its team. Those will become louder in years three, four, five of a rebuild. Deyonta Davis and Dillon Brooks aren’t selling tickets. Conley will, but the best way to deconstruct and rebuild is to eventually move him as well.

The past seven years were probably the best in Memphis sports history. The Grizzlies became a cultural focal point for the entire city, legitimized themselves as a playoff powerhouse within the NBA and forged a recognizable identity and brand. By beginning to tear down the foundation of those great teams, you’re exiting that phase and entering a new one that is unknown.

Sixers-style rebuilding makes sense for a handful of teams, most of them in major markets; the Grizzlies stand out as one of the best examples for which it makes almost no sense at all. If the team loses 200 games over the next four years (far from worst-case), would the remaining fan and media support be enough to sustain the franchise? The infrastructure they’ve developed during this stretch is strong enough that you’d assume so, but that type of question points toward the stakes of such a decision in Memphis.

For now, Memphis will hope that interim coach J.B. Bickerstaff soothes tensions within the locker room and makes changes which help Gasol return to form. A coaching decision will now be the priority over trade possibilities for either star. Those guys are clearly the priority as things stand today.

We’ll hear about how Boston, Cleveland, and San Antonio could be made better by a Gasol trade. The truth is that every team in the league would — he’s as big a trade asset as many of the stars who have changed teams in 2017, the type of guy you change the trajectory of your team for. He would also be the first big man since DeMarcus Cousins to become available, meaning he would draw interest from different teams than the ones who shopped around Kyrie Irving or Paul George.

Next: The impacts of moving up a position

In the short term, Grizzlies management has to look hard at the game they’re playing with Gasol, one of the league’s most loyal and consistent stars, even after firing Fizdale. They’ll get Conley back in a few weeks, as well as Wright and rotation guard Wayne Selden. But the bottom line until then is now clear: Gasol should be playing, and the Grizzlies have drawn their line in the sand.