The Memphis Grizzlies, Luck And Title Contention

Running the gamut from the mundane to the metaphysical, there is no shortage of clichés to describe teams like the Memphis Grizzlies. The Grizzlies are, in no particular order: old school, blue collar, hard-nosed and smash mouth.

They also wear hardhats and carry lunch pails, though—to thoroughly murder the analogy—they’re most likely empty since the Grizz are presumably dining out with the lunch money they lifted off your team of three-point shooting, milquetoast invertebrates.

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They’ve held the distinction of “team no contender wants to face in the playoffs” for going on five years now, though they’ve yet to record a win in the conference finals.

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The Grizz do not dwell in the lukewarm “basketball purgatory” of those occupying the No. 6 to No. 8 seeds in the playoff bracket, yet they’re also rarely mentioned in the same breath as uber-contenders like the Spurs, Warriors, Thunder and Cavaliers. The Grizzlies seemingly occupy their own quasi-contender tier in the NBA’s playoff hierarchy.

Part of the reason for Memphis’ glass ceiling seemingly lies in their roster construction. True enough, making a conscious choice to zig while the rest of the NBA zags certainly has its pros and cons. On the one hand, having the ageless girth and passing wizardry of Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph to brutalize teams for going small falls decidedly into the “pro” category.

Ranking second-to-last in three-point attempts and in the bottom 10 percentage-wise (last season) in a league that has been placing a steadily increasing value on shots from beyond the arc is a con, and so on.

While it’s hardly a revelation, it’s possible that basic math can explain the Grizzlies seeming inability to breakthrough for a Finals run.

It might really be as simple as three points just being so much more fundamentally valuable than two—it can be a brutal uphill slog to overcome an opponent who takes and converts shots from beyond the arc at even a reasonably high clip when you’re draining the shot clock for the relative pittance of a two-point payoff.

When the Grizzlies are going on one of their patented stop-score, stop-score runs—peppered with plenty of Tony Allen thievery—it seems as if they’re working so much harder than most other elite teams to generate their success.

Their offense last year was a mixed bag of point production. Indeed, in addition to playing at a bottom-five pace, the Grizz ranked 18th in percentage of points generated from fast break opportunities despite ranking in the top-eight in both steals and opponent turnovers generated—missing out on crucial easy opportunities that elite offenses thrive on.

They led the league in points in the paint and got fouled at a decent clip, yet were oddly average at producing points inside of five feet.

The Grizzlies often seemingly had to manufacture buckets, as opposed to simply gathering steam until an inevitable fracture in an opponent’s defense presented itself. When a team like the Warriors or Spurs are raining long-range bombs or unleashing gorgeous pass-pass-pass-pass-score sequences, it gives the appearance of effortlessness—the beautiful game on full display.

How often can you honestly describe a Grizzlies offensive possession as such?

This isn’t to say there’s not a great deal of beauty to the way the Grizzles score. To the contrary, the high-low chemistry of Gasol and Randolph and the playmaking and scoring prowess of Mike Conley often make for some of the purest, more aesthetically pleasing basketball among the NBA’s upper echelon.

Still, it often feels as if a successful Memphis offensive possession is more war of attrition than inexorable downhill onslaught.

The perfect distillation of Memphis’ brand of bully ball railing against the rhymey, sing-song style pushing the rest of the league out beyond the three-point arc (pace and space! splash and dash-probably) occurred in the second round of last season’s playoffs against eventual champion Golden State. When the Grizzlies won, the games were ugly, disjointed affairs.

On the contrary, though Golden State’s victories were still somewhat muddied by Memphis, their four Ws had far more flow and rhythm.

Stever Kerr having Andrew Bogut “guard” Tony Allen was an effective move that got all the headlines, but the series ultimately came down to which team could impose their style on the games. Golden State was the better team, but their pace gaining traction in Games 4, 5 and 6 was a huge factor in them ultimately advancing.

Memphis had a more or less successful offseason after getting eliminated—Marc Gasol is there to stay, Brandan Wright should give Mike Conley the bouncy pick-and-roll partner they’ve lacked in Graceland in recent seasons, and if anyone in the NBA not already on the roster last season fits with the Grizzlies ethos, it’s Matt Barnes.

Barnes also gives them a credible (if inconsistent) three-point shooter. Expecting a bounce-back season from Jeff Green seems reasonable, if not hopelessly repetitive.

Courtney Lee was a revelation from beyond the arc, Russ Smith is intriguing, Tony Allen—you may have heard—is FIRST TEAM ALL-DEFENSE, and Vince Carter continues to show everyone that a superstar’s declining last few years can be more bunny hill than double black diamond.

Beno Udrih will go left until he’s dead in the cold, cold ground, the Grizz will finish in the top-five of defensive efficiency and settle in around the top 12-14 of offensive efficiency. Memphis will win 52-56 games.

We know these things. What we’re less sure about is what exactly has to happen for the Grizzlies to catch enough breaks for them to actually break through and beat—not “make work really hard”, not “put a scare into”, not “bloody the nose of”, but actually win four games out of seven against—the upper crust of the NBA’s playoff bracket in multiple consecutive playoff rounds.

The 2011 Dallas Mavericks are everyone’s favorite comp for any really good team that just needs to hold it together long enough to pounce on the right combination of good fortune, health and matchups, but I’m not so sure they’re a realistic model for a team like the Grizzlies.

For one thing, that year’s Mavs enjoyed the unlikely combination of having championship-caliber talent and the opportunity to seize on a power vacuum unlikely to be duplicated in coming seasons.

The Lakers’ mini-dynasty was a house of cards waiting to be blown over with Kobe Bryant playing on one leg, Pau Gasol in a steep (if ultimately reversible) decline and Phil Jackson’s best work as a coach behind him. The Spurs were ousted in the first round and never stood a chance with a hobbled Manu Ginobili, the Thunder were a year away, and the Heat were still working out the kinks.

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This isn’t to discount Dallas’ title as fluky—that year’s Mavericks team was really freaking good. Not only were they a top-eight team in terms of offensive and defensive efficiency throughout the regular season, they also had the No. 1 offensive rating, net rating and true shooting percentage throughout the playoffs, and it wasn’t particularly close.

They also possessed a generational superstar on a hot streak to end all hot streaks in Dirk Nowitzki. Though it’s a bit of a reductionist argument, the Grizzlies, while immensely talented, don’t currently have a top-10 player on their roster even approaching the highs of Dirk circa 2011.

The Mavericks were a legitimate title contending team all season and even more so once the playoffs began. In spite of a recent history (at that point) of letting big playoff moments slip through their fingers, the 2011 Mavs were not some merely “pretty good” team that bided their time.

They were extremely talented, well coached and lucky—descriptors that apply to almost every championship team ever.

The Memphis Grizzlies are talented and well coached too, and they’re set up to remain stable as an upper-echelon playoff contender for the next several seasons. The question going forward in Memphis will be whether they’re close enough to a title to make luck a factor.

All stats per NBA.com

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