(10-20-2016 04:26 PM)salukiblue Wrote: Even with Conley, they were forced into that pick. They would have jumped at Al Horford, but Atlanta got to him. They would have take Yi Jianlian, but he made it clear he wouldn't sign with Memphis.
They weren't "forced" into Conley. Wallace supposedly liked Brandan Wright. Joakim Noah was available. Much like the Thabeet situation, we drafted a player at a position where we had a young person who would evolve into an NBA all-star. So despite us having a helluva lot of potential in Kyle Lowry, Marc Iavaroni wanted his "Lambragini" in Mike Conley. That year, the coach hired first had more leverage in making the pick than the general manager (or the Barones).
Quote:We had Rudy, so we would pass on Jeff Green. Jo Noah was the only other guy out there, but they weren't going to take him at four.
Brandan Wright, who Chris Wallace liked and Noah who was at one time projected to be the #1 pick. That's not to mention Corey Brewer who could have possibly have been converted to shooting guard, which the Grizz needed at that time. We had Kyle Lowry and it was obvious in his rookie year he was something special in the few games he played.
Quote:Of course, the crazy thing was Memphis had drafted Kyle Lowry the year before, but he was viewed as a backup-type PG at best.
Memphis ended up trading Kyle to Houston (in a 3 team trade) and got back Adonal Foyle, Mike Wilks (?), and Orlando's 1st round pick, which ended up being Demare Carrol.
That was just to get the draft pick. The other guys were cutting salary for the other team. In fact, the grizz were probably paid cash considerations as well. Not only did they want to give the keys to Mike Conley; Kyle Lowry was the ringleader of a Big East clique with Rudy and Hakim Warrick that the team was worried was negatively affecting the development of emerging star Gay.
Quote:Foyle ended up playing 1 game for Memphis, Wilks played zero. Carrol played 78 games in parts of two seasons and averaged 10 minutes a game.
Foyle and Wilks were to cut salary; Carroll was traded with Thabust and eventually developed into a quality NBA starter.
The lesson is the Grizz gave up on Lowry too early. They gave up on Carroll too early. They spent a pick on Conley when they didn't really need to, but lucked into the third best player in that draft (when the fourth best player would have been fine). They spent a pick on Thabeet when they didn't really need to, but *ucked into one of the worst #2 picks in history when two hall-of-famers were drafted after the bust, plus the Tiger alum rookie-of-the-year and a regular all-star (That's not mentioning the starter quality player that Calkins was willing to destroy the franchise for). What makes that worse is that the GM wanted James Harden and the coach wanted Steph Curry. In addition to getting guidance from Tony Barone Sr. and Jerry West, Mike Heisley might have been trying to protect the player he acquired the year before in the draft in OJ Mayo (plus who knows if he knew at the draft if he would be able to sign Allen Iverson). In revisionist history, we don't make the trade to get OJ, Kevin Love has a decent rookie year, Iavroni still gets fired/Hollins hired, we still get the #2 pick, we don't fear Thabeet going to OKC, we draft Harden. We make a deal with Washington, trade them Mike Miller and the #27/36 picks, and we get the #5 pick and draft Steph Curry (with the idea he'll play both shooting guard and point guard with Conley and Harden).
So we have a team with Gasol, Love, Gay, Harden, Conley with Curry off the bench. The question is do we still trade Darko for Zbo if we have Love. My guess is yes because it's a talent upgrade for a young team. Do we still sign TA? If we did what I suggested, probably not.
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Projected Grizzlies 2016-17 Final Roster
