Memphis Grizzlies NBA Season Preview 2012-13

MEMPHIS GRIZZLIES

Too High Expectations?

The Grizzlies had been the surprise of the previous season, not because of their playoff qualification as that was expected, but because they eliminated the #1 seed Spurs in the first round and only were eventually eliminated by Oklahoma City in the Game 7 of the series.

All of this happened without Rudy Gay on the court, as he was injured and with his return at 100%, the Grizzlies were a popular pick for the Western conference last season.

2011-12 Regular Season numbers:

Advanced Numbers				4 Factors
Overall	#'s	Rank		Offense	#'s	Rank	Defense	#'s	Rank
Pace	89.69	17		eFG% Off	47.4%	24	eFG% Def	48.6%	11
Offense	105.30	20		TO% Off	13.60	15	TO% Def	16.31	1
Defense	103.04	7		Reb% Off	29.82	3	Reb% Def	27.02	18
Rebound	51.40	4		FT% Off	21.47	10	FT% Def	22.97	25

Last season didn’t start very well for Memphis, as they lost 3 of their first 4 games, but it wasn’t a big surprise, as their three losses were against San Antonio, Oklahoma City and Chicago, but their real “loss” was Zach Randolph’s injury in their game against the Bulls.

Memphis had already received bad news when they discovered that their main frontcourt backup Darrell Arthur will be out for the whole season and Randolph’s injury only made their lack of frontcourt depth even more visible. Memphis quickly secured the signing of Marreese Speights from Philadelphia and in the 38 games that Randolph missed, the Grizzlies had a reasonable record of 23-14. With Randolph back on court, Memphis had an even better record if 17-8 in their last 25 regular season games.

Already in the playoffs, Memphis was eliminated by the Clippers in the first round by losing the 7^th game of the series at home and not even the fact that they were playing against an injured Chris Paul and Blake Griffin helped them in getting the decisive win. In fact, the Grizzlies were on a 1-3 hole in that series when they could have won the first four games of the series: in the first game, Memphis wasted a 27 points lead; in the third game, the Grizzlies lost by 1 point; while, in the fourth game, the Grizzlies lost on overtime.

Offseason moves 2012-13:

Memphis’ GM, Chris Wallace, apparently believed in the team’s actual potential and didn’t make big changes for this season. Sooner or later, O.J. Mayo would leave Memphis, but Wallace missed the opportunity to trade him and get something in exchange. Last season, there were talks about trading him to Indiana first and later to Boston, in a trade that would involve Ray Allen, but the truth is that Memphis lost Mayo without getting something for him.

It is expected that Darrell Arthur returns in time of being available for the regular season and therefore, Memphis will have more depth in the frontcourt this season than they had last season.

For the backcourt, the Gilbert Arenas experiment is now in the past and in order to keep following the philosophy created by Chris Wallace over the last few years in the team – invest in an explosive and aggressive backcourt, the Grizzlies drafted Tony Wroten with the 25^th pick and according to some reports, Wroten had the second fastest time ever in the NBA combine and it looks like Memphis made the right choice. The team also signed Jerryd Bayless and Wayne Ellington to have more options for their backcourt.

What Zach Randolph will we have for this season?

With the knee injury he suffered in the fourth game of the past season, it was unrealistic to think that Randolph would return at 100% later in the season. His self-confidence wasn’t certainly the same and his explosiveness is something that will take time to comeback. His numbers revealed exactly that, as Randolph played less minutes per game and had worse numbers in all categories. The most important one was without a doubt his inability to fight for the offensive rebounds and score after getting the offensive board.

Plays - Points Per Possession
	2011-12	2010-11
Isolation	0.72	0.79
Post ups	0.87	0.89
Cuts	1.10	1.22
Off reb	1.07	1.22

For this season, it is expected that Zach Randolph is finally at 100% and with this, the Grizzlies will immediately become a better team than they were last season.

Identity Problems in the team?

In my opinion, this potential problem didn’t happen just last season. Sometimes the Grizzlies lost their identity as a team and in the way they play their games. Mike Conley got a bigger role in the team over the last few seasons and with Rudy Gay, we are talking about players that need the ball on their hands and Memphis tends to transform almost into a jump shooting team at times. The problem is that the Grizzlies have two excellent frontcourt players in Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph, who also need the ball in their hands to take advantage from their superior physical ability over their opponents.

This lack of balance between playing in the paint or shooting in the perimeter has been the problem that coach Lionel Hollins is yet to find a final solution for it.

Is Marc Gasol the team’s best player?

When Memphis was 1-3 against the Clippers in the playoffs, they were able to come back and tie the series at 3-3 by heavily “feeding” Marc Gasol in the interior game. Gasol ended these two games by being Memphis’ top scorer with 23 points in both games, while shooting 8-14 and 9-16 FG, with Zach Randolph also grabbing 10 and 16 rebounds. If the Grizzlies had played like this throughout the whole series against the Clippers, we wouldn’t be talking about a first round elimination for the Grizzlies right now.

According to John Hollinger’s PER stars, Marc Gasol was the most valuable player for the Grizzlies last season and he actually went to the All Star game. Gasol managed for the second season in a row to keep himself healthy throughout the whole season and even though he didn’t manage to have a %FG as good as in the previous season (48.2% vs 52.7% FG), he had in average more points per game last season due to a higher volume of shots.

Player	Usage Rate	FGA/game
Gay	25.11	16.4
Mayo	23.88	11.2
Randolph	22.35	10.2
Speights	20.56	8.1
Gasol	19.14	11.4
Allen	18.35	7.7
Conley	18.31	11.0

Still, it seems clear to me that Gasol “deserves” to get a higher volume of offensive plays, given his position on the court and the consequent advantages he can get from his superiority over his opponents.

Final Thoughts:

Memphis has an unique style in the NBA. Their aggressiveness in both ends of the floor is unmatchable. For the second season in a row, Memphis was the team that most turnovers forced to their opponents, while having two players in the top 5 in steals: Mike Conley was #1 with 2.53 steals/game, while Tony Allen was #5 with 1.79 steals/game.

Tony Allen is one of the best perimeter defenders in the league and he consolidated his spot on the team as the clear starting SG of the team and I can even say that he is one of the team’s leaders right now.

In a way, the same thing happened with Mike Conley. There were some doubts that Conley didn’t deserve the contract he had signed, but right now the team is very identified with his playing style. Conley has remained healthy for the last four seasons and last season he managed to highly improve his FT% to 86.1%. He has been improving a lot on defense, while on offense, he still needs to understand that the team benefits more from him when he is the team’s ball manager – he had his best A/TO ratio of his career last season!

Assuming that Randolph will have this season similar numbers to the 2010-11 season, the Grizzlies will certainly be a team with nobody will want to face in the playoffs. Their offensive inconsistency will hurt them in some close games, but Memphis can definitely assume themselves as an outsider for the Western conference, right behind the main contenders Oklahoma City, LA Lakers and San Antonio.
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Atlantic Division                                                      Northwest Division

Boston Celtics                                                         Denver Nuggets
Brooklyn Nets                                                          Minnesota Timberwolves
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Philadelphia 76ers                                                  Portland Trailblazers
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Atlanta Hawks                                                        Dallas Mavericks
Charlotte Bobcats                                                  Houston Rockets
Miami Heat                                                            Memphis Grizzlies
Orlando Magic                                                       New Orleans Hornets
Washington Wizards                                              San Antonio Spurs


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Chicago Bulls                                                          Golden State Warriors
Cleveland Cavaliers                                                Los Angeles Clippers
Detroit Pistons                                                         Los Angeles Lakers
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Milwaukee Bucks                                                    Sacramento Kings