Memphis Grizzlies: Will Tony Wroten Help Them Next Year?

Tony Wroten could become a valuable contributor to the Memphis Grizzlies in his second season. Photo Credit: Mark Runyon, Basketball Schedule, Flickr.com

For teams like the Memphis Grizzlies, the NBA Summer League just isn’t all that exciting. This is a team that has most of their needs figured out, which means that for the most part, the players taking the floor in Grizzlies practice jerseys in Las Vegas right now are essentially fighting for the right to be one of the last two or three guys on the bench. No matter what Jon Leuer and Matt Howard are able to do over the next few games, neither one of them is going to be taking any playing time away from Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol. Really, neither one even has a shot at taking playing time away from Ed Davis and Kosta Koufos. The big pieces of this team have already been figured out and, for the most part, the Grizzlies are just using the Summer League to figure out the small details. One player, however, could be extremely important to the success of next year’s Grizzlies: Tony Wroten.

In his rookie season, Wroten displayed flashes of potential in limited playing time. Fans saw his great athleticism on some impressive drives to the basket and it was hard to watch him without thinking he had the potential to become a quality NBA player. With that said, he never became a consistent presence in the Grizzlies lineup. When the playoffs came around, the Grizzlies didn’t trust Wroten to handle backup point guard duties, so they brought in Keyon Dooling. This year, however, Wroten will likely be the second-string point guard (assuming Jerryd Bayless continues to be used as a 2-guard) and whether or not he’s up to the challenge will be an important in determining how far the Grizzlies go this season.

The lack of a proper backup point guard has dogged the Grizzlies in each of the last two seasons. Ever since they traded Greivis Vasquez to the New Orleans Hornets, they’ve plugged numerous players into this spot with limited success. Into 2011-12, Jeremy Pargo and Josh Selby were both brought in for this job and neither one had much success. At the very end of that year, an ultra washed-up Gilbert Arenas was brought in for this role and it did not go well particularly well, with Arenas not doing much more then attempting 3s that rarely went in.

Last season, Bayless was going to be the backup at the point, but he struggled at the position for the first half of the year and didn’t start to pick up his game until the Grizzlies began using him as a shooting guard. Within the context off the Grizzlies offense, Bayless appears to be more effective at the 2 than the 1. That means the backup point guard spot is essentially Wroten’s to lose. The Grizzlies are hoping that with a full year of experience under his belt, Wroten has polished his game and shaken off the unfortunate rookie mistakes that kept him from being a consistent presence in the rotation last year. If he is able to make the necessary improvements and harness the power of his athleticism, the Grizzlies will have one more valuable player in their fold and they’ll be able to fix their biggest hole.