Memphis Grizzlies: Why Continuity, Identity Prevail

The Memphis Grizzlies don’t need to act like other NBA franchises. They are defense-minded, pound the ball inside and value togetherness.

The Grizzlies have made five straight playoff appearances with top-10 defenses and three-point field-goal percentages ranked 19th or lower.

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The core trio of Marc Gasol, Zach Randolph and Mike Conley is mostly geared toward inside scoring. Last season, Randolph took 69.1 percent of his attempts inside 10 feet. Gasol attacked that range 52.2 percent of the time, a 3.4 percent increase from 2013-14, as he rushed to a career-best 17.4 points per game.

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 8/5/2015.

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Conley took a career-high 31.4 percent of his shots from downtown—partly in reaction to nagging injuries—but still has an impulse for attacking the rim.

Incremental shifts by Conley and periodic acquisitions of complementary wing players like Courtney Lee, Vince Carter and Jeff Green don’t substantively change the offensive dynamic.

As long as Memphis maintains this core, along with a non-shooting perimeter defender in Tony Allen, they’re an old muscle car in the era of high-fuel-efficiency sports cars.

General manager Chris Wallace is the car owner installing a catalytic converter to appease environmental regulations while souping up the engine.

Lee’s three-point shooting, as well as that of Conley, figured highly in the Grizzlies’ strong offensive first half last year as he shot 48.6 percent from downtown in his first 37 games. But Lee’s regression, caused mostly by a sprained knuckle in his right hand, allowed the Grizzlies to fall back on their inside tendency.

Green and Carter didn’t help add dimension. Green was inconsistent from downtown. Even though he shot 36.2 from long-range for Memphis after being acquired from the Boston Celtics on Jan. 12, he made more than a third of his threes in 16 of 45 games.

Carter, a 37.4 percent career three-point shooter, seemed like an ideal fix when the Grizzlies signed him last year, capable of injecting just enough balance from long-range. But after he drained just 29.7 percent from the field in 2014-15, the 38-year-old may only give them a modest lift at best.

Grantland’s Kirk Goldsberry inferred that the Grizzlies couldn’t set Carter up the way the Dallas Mavericks did during the two previous years.

Noting an end-of-season conversation with Carter, Lipe said in a pair of tweets Carter said he was essentially a decoy.

Carter’s comment highlights the Grizzlies’ hesitance to create true balance.

Consider how Memphis stays focused on roster continuity. The Grizzlies have maintained the core trio of Gasol, Randolph and Conley since 2009-10. Only the San Antonio Spurs, which have held Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker for 14 seasons, have kept a core trio longer.

(Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and Nick Collision are entering their eighth year, but the operational core of Durant, Westbrook and Serge Ibaka began in 2009-10 when Ibaka joined the Oklahoma City Thunder.)

Differing levels of success separate the two franchises. The Grizzlies’ one Western Conference Finals appearance pales in comparison to the Spurs’ four titles with Duncan, Ginobili and Parker.

Other franchises, like the Utah Jazz in 2013 after finding Paul Millsap and Al Jefferson didn’t take them far, and the Los Angeles Lakers following the failed 2012-13 combination of Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, Steve Nash and Dwight Howard (neither of which delivered more than first-round exits), rebuilt when their cores didn’t deliver.

Some are moderate, as seen with the Dallas Mavericks constantly retooling in search of a championship-winning group.

Theoretically, the Grizzlies could have decided to move towards a more perimeter-focused offense when their frontcourt duo entered free agency, but they remained committed. Randolph re-signed at the beginning of free agency last year with any competition from other teams and Gasol re-upped in July while giving no thought of leaving, per the Associated Press via ESPN.com.

No style change comes without altering the core. Now that Gasol has locked in for five years, the Grizzlies aren’t turning back from their bruising style.

Bleacher Report’s Ethan Skolnick called the re-signing and the acquisition of Matt Barnes from the Charlotte Hornets on June 25 a doubling-down on “grit ‘n’ grind.”

Because of the scoring limitations of the Grizzlies’ core trio, which combined for 49.3 points per game in 2014-15 and doesn’t portend a significant increase unless Gasol becomes a scoring terror for a full season, they’re perennially forced to fill in on the perimeter. In May, head coach Dave Joerger told The Commercial Appeal’s Ron Tillery they simply needed to tweak in this area.

Grabbing Barnes, an average three-point shooter at 33.8 percent for his career, was very much a marginal move in this respect, although he injects defensive intensity for the bench unit.

The Grizzlies forever stand as dark-horse title contenders. Leaping to a championship requires everything to go right, from health to Gasol’s scoring desire to three-point shooting. For the near future, Memphis hangs its hopes on a core that doesn’t follow the current three-point trend.

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