Corbin Explains: What makes the Memphis Grizzlies?

In the Grit-and-Grind days, the Grizz were just the best team to watch, a group of dudes who lived life to embarrass their fancy pants enemies, embarrass them with outdated slow pace, stupidly locked-down defense, hideous post-up after hideous post-up, a diamond slowly driving into a cinder block, taking it apart piece by piece.

The Grizz are, unfortunately, not good enough to live like this anymore. The time has come for that approach to just seem slow, outmoded, unnecessarily grimy in a league that had given itself away heart and soul to the twin demons of speed and overwhelming stardom, a team time just kind of left behind. It happens. There were amazing moments, and a Conference Finals appearance. It is probably time to become something else.

But the Grizz, in their roster construction, have embraced a vision of themselves that is more heroic than that. They refuse to give up, coded to the past. Chris Wallace slams his fist on the table, chomps a giant cigar, and screams at his scouts: BIGGER! SLOWER! MORE DELIBERATE! GET ME GUYS WHO ARE MAKING BLACK HOLES OUT THERE, SO HEAVY THEY’RE PIERCING THE STRUCTURE OF SPACETIME!

The number of outmoded slow dudes floating around on this roster is, frankly, amazing. Marc Gasol, of course, at the front, is a skilled center who loves posting up and flicking beautiful mid-rangers over the tiny men who deign to guard him. Kyle Anderson has maybe never done exercise outside of playing basketball, and plays the wing like a fussy artBoy, a 90’s Euro player operating under a 70’s conditioning paradigm. MarShon Brooks is on the Grizz. MarShon! The guy who drifted from team to team, country to county, just because he absolutely refused to play not-like-Michael-Jordan! Heck, Conley is like, the last excellent-underrated-non scoring-half court point guard, the only kind of player who played the position until 2009! THE GRIZZ THEMSELVES play in the kind of market a pro sports league would NEVER pursue nowadays!

It’s just… it’s beautiful. But… is it enough? Are the Grizzlies doing enough to conjure the ghosts of the past? There are so many players and teams chasing the future, but shouldn’t preserving and celebrating the past be JUST as important? Shouldn’t the Grizz continue to devote themselves to this life? SHOULN’T THEY DRAFT AND SIGN: THE ULTIMATE 1998 PLAYER?

Beautiful. The ultimate Grizzly, the man out of time for the team out of time. Beautiful.