Chris Herrington 9y

Are the Grizzlies better than ever?

While much of the NBA’s offseason fracas centered around free agents and player movement, down in Memphis, Tennessee, the Grizzlies are recovering from a third consecutive summer of front-office tumult.

It started in 2012, when tech-fueled tyro Robert Pera replaced industrial tycoon Michael Heisley as owner and installed a new management team. That was followed a year later by an unconventional coaching swap, with Pera-appointed CEO Jason Levien cutting ties with Lionel Hollins after a franchise-record 57 wins and a franchise-first trip to the Western Conference finals. And winds of change blew down Beale Street yet again this past summer, as Pera abruptly dismissed Levien and nearly let head coach Dave Joerger leave, yielding an arranged marriage of old school (returned-from-exile GM Chris Wallace) and new school (ESPN stat head turned VP John Hollinger) in the front office.

And, yet, despite all of this upstairs upheaval, down on the court the Grizzlies stand as one of the league’s most stable franchises. As decision-makers have come and gone and come back, the core of Marc Gasol, Mike Conley, Zach Randolph and Tony Allen has weathered it all, and they are now set to begin their fifth season together.

Since this foursome has been together, the Grizzlies are one of only five teams to make the playoffs each season and compile at least 20 postseason wins. Two of the others (the Heat and Pacers) lost their top players this summer (LeBron James, to the Cavs; Paul George, to injury), which leaves Memphis trailing only Western Conference favorites San Antonio and Oklahoma City when it comes to competitive continuity.

In the 15 seasons before their core four arrived, the Grizzlies had never won a playoff game. In their four seasons together, Conley, Gasol, Randolph and Allen have won 21. It’s the most productive and durable local quartet since an earlier “Memphis group,” Stax Records house band and instrumental hit makers Booker T. & the MGs.

But these players mean more to Memphis than their individual or even collective on-court accomplishments would demand. Once one of the most forlorn franchises in all of professional sports, the Grizzlies have finished first(!) and fourth in ESPN The Magazine’s “Ultimate Standings” franchise rankings the past two years, spurred in large part by No. 2 and No. 6 finishes in “player likability.”

Given their arrival together at a time when a record three playoff sweeps had been bracketed by long periods of ineptitude, is it going too far to say that the new MGs -- Memphis Grizzlies, natch -- saved professional basketball in Memphis?

But because time is forever tight, threats of a band breakup are ever-lurking. Allen appeared in serious trade rumors last season. Randolph threatened to leave in free agency this summer before signing a three-year extension. And Gasol’s looming free agency will cast a shadow over this entire season.

And because time is merciless, incompatible career trajectories have perhaps doomed this quartet’s ideal moment to never materialize. Conley and Gasol have grown into terrific two-way players at key positions, anchoring the team on both ends of the floor. But to maximize their gifts, both seem to need an alpha dog scorer to play off. Randolph has that demeanor, but no longer has that game. At least not every night. Not against every matchup.

When Randolph was having 30-point playoff performances in this group’s first postseason run, Gasol and Conley were still putting their games together. Now that they’re cresting, Randolph has turned the corner into a so-far-soft decline.

And yet even with that bittersweet undercurrent of limitation and missed opportunity, the practical best could, just maybe, still be yet to come.

A return to elite defense after last season’s injury-provoked slippage is a prerequisite. The Grizzlies fell from second in points allowed per possession in 2012-13 to eighth last season, when three reigning all-defense honorees (including Gasol, the 2012-13 Defensive Player of the Year) combined to miss 59 games.

With better health from that trio and offseason import Vince Carter (fourth among shooting guards in defensive real plus-minus last season) replacing Mike Miller (71st among small forwards) on the wing, the Grizzlies' defense should have sharper claws this season. That’s provided Carter recovers fully from offseason ankle surgery that has slowed him down in preseason.

The other end prompts bigger questions. Even a league-best defense won’t yield a contender if Joerger can’t squeeze an above-average offense from a team that hasn’t finished in the top half of the league in points per possession since Hubie Brown patrolled the sidelines. And doing so will take more than strong play from Gasol, Conley and Randolph.

The four-man core that established the Grizzlies’ “grit and grind” identity was mostly assembled by Wallace. (Conley was technically Jerry West’s final pick, or maybe Marc Iavaroni’s first, but Wallace gave him an extension when many still had doubts.) But given the apparent emphasis on 3-point shooting this season, it appears Hollinger’s fingerprints are all over trying to forge a more modern approach on offense.

There’s Carter, not quite as pure a shooter as Miller, but more prolific, hoisting 138 more 3s last season in similar playing time. There’s Jon Leuer, who cracked the top 30 in made 3s among power forwards as a part-timer last season and has a chance this season to triple his long-distance workload as the franchise’s first rotation stretch-4 since Brian Cardinal. And there’s stat-fave rookie Jordan Adams literally waiting in the wings to boost the team’s offense with a free throws-and-3s style at the first opportunity.

The NBA is still a superstar’s league, and the Grizzlies don’t really have one. But they were the equivalent of a 58-win team last season in games in which Conley and Gasol shared the floor. If the core stays healthy and a hopefully positive new balance in the front office is mirrored by a new balance on the floor, this could still be the best Grizzlies team yet.

Chris Herrington is an entertainment editor and NBA contributor for the Memphis Commercial Appeal. Follow him, @HerringtonNBA.

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