It's Title or Bust for Memphis Grizzlies in 2014-15
While the 2014-15 NBA season is still very much in its infancy, swaddled in diapers as supposed contenders attempt to learn how to play winning basketball, the Memphis Grizzlies are already in prime position to make a serious run at the franchise's first title.
It's a good thing they are, because another chance like this one might not emerge for quite some time for the organization that has experienced only limited success since joining the Association as an expansion team in 1995.
Not only are the Grizz establishing themselves as a dominant squad during the early going, using a ferocious defense to break the spirits of opponents while boasting an improved offense, but the league hasn't seen too many sustainable contenders rise to the top of the pack. Teams like the San Antonio Spurs and Cleveland Cavaliers will surely make their way up the totem pole as the year progresses, but wire-to-wire dominance is no longer possible.
It is for the Grizzlies.
A Rip-Roaring Start
Nine games. Eight victories.
Heading into the third weekend of the 2014-15 season, no team in the NBA has posted a better win percentage, though the Houston Rockets could admittedly match Memphis' feat once they've played the same amount of contests. The impressive nature of some of the victories only makes the accomplishment more impressive.
Excluding an inexplicable loss to the surprisingly competent Milwaukee Bucks, the Grizzlies have taken advantage of everyone they've played. The opponents might not be of a particularly high caliber—though it's time to view beating the Sacramento Kings as a high-quality win—but five of the contests have come on the road. Plus, only six teams in the league have had a larger margin of victory during this early stage of the NBA calendar.
"There's not a lot [of] words. That's a fantastic effort to get back in that game to be down like we were," Mike Conley explained to the press after his team clawed its way back into the game against Sacramento from a 26-point deficit and won on a Courtney Lee buzzer-beating reverse layup. "It looked grim to be honest."
Those are the kinds of games that a tough team is going to win occasionally, and the Grizzlies have formed their entire identity around the concept of being tough.
"It definitely is heartbreaking," Rudy Gay said after his team squandered that huge margin. "That's the difference in a battle-tested playoff team and us."
These Grizzlies have been in a contending position before, advancing to the playoffs during each of the last few seasons and even making one injury-aided run to the Western Conference Finals. They have the experience, the talent and the drive. But most importantly, they have a clear-cut identity, and it's one that comes on the defensive end of the floor.
Through nine games, Memphis has allowed only 100.4 points per 100 possessions, via Basketball-Reference.com. Only the Golden State Warriors, Houston Rockets and those Bucks have posted a better defensive rating thus far, and none of the three have the same pedigree as Dave Joerger's squad. After all, Memphis finished second in defensive rating to the Chicago Bulls the last time Marc Gasol was fully healthy (2012-13), and the big man just happened to win Defensive Player of the Year.
Even if the Grizz don't elevate to the very top of the leaderboard, they're coupling a dominant defense that forces turnovers without fouling and contests virtually every shot with an adequate offense that should only improve as the year progresses and Joerger's system becomes even more familiar. Plus, the defense is likely to improve when the team's defensive rebounding stabilizes.
Thus far, Memphis has collected only 70.8 percent of the missed shots it forces, giving it a defensive rebounding percentage that's better than just two squads throughout the entire NBA. Last season, Memphis finished No. 7 in the category with a roster that's almost identical to this one, so some upward trending is to be expected as the team regresses to the mean. And when that happens, the Grizz will limit second-chance opportunities and start to look even better.
"Memphis is in marvelous shape: alone atop the wild Western Conference, with a top-five defense, a pair of fantastic bigs (i.e. Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph) and a surprisingly deep store of shooters off the bench," Bleacher Report's Josh Martin wrote while ranking the team in question at No. 2 in his latest set of power rankings.
At this point, it's already become clear that any conversation about title-contending squads that doesn't prominently feature the Grizzlies isn't a conversation worth having. And that's a good thing for Memphis, as it's running out of opportunities to take home the coveted Larry O'Brien Trophy—at least with this particular collection of talent.
An Old Roster
By NBA standards, the Grizzlies are ancient.
Of their five starters, Mike Conley is the youngest, and he's in his age-27 season (as determined by a player's age on Feb. 1). He's typically joined by Courtney Lee (29), Gasol (30), Tony Allen (33) and Zach Randolph (33), and the group gets even older when 35-year-old Tayshaun Prince steps onto the floor for the opening tip.
And it's not as though Memphis is particularly young off the bench, either. Among the non-starters who have logged at least 100 minutes thus far, Kosta Koufos (25), Jon Leuer (25) and Quincy Pondexter (26) are the youngest players. Beyond them, we have Beno Udrih (32) and Vince Carter (38).
Heading into the season, I calculated the projected real age of each team in the NBA, weighting each player by how many minutes per game he was expected to play so that an end-of-bench guy on the roster didn't factor in as much as a heavy-minutes starter.
Checking in with a real age of 29.58 years, the Grizzlies were the oldest in the league. And now that we have actual numbers to use rather than estimates, we can calculate the team's true real age during this early portion of the year.
It's gone up to 30.35 years in Memphis.
This is by no means a death knell for the 2014-15 season. A team that's this old from top to bottom can certainly win a title, even if the age might well be the squad's biggest concern when we hit the closing stretch of the season. It's more problematic for the future, as it indicates the title window is shutting quite quickly.
This roster has been together for quite some time now and has steadily remained one of the better teams in the Western Conference. Chances are the Grizzlies will make their fifth playoff appearance in a row when the current regular season draws to a conclusion, and it's not as though the starting five now is too different from the group that played together in 2010-11.
Gay and O.J. Mayo were on the roster back then, but so too were Randolph, Gasol, Conley and Allen, part of the core that's found so much success—albeit limited success—over the last half-decade.
Each year, it gets harder for the members of this core to drag themselves up and down the court while maintaining the defensive identity that's become so crucial to Memphis' good fortune. Each campaign, it gets harder to stay healthy throughout the regular season and an ensuing deep playoff run, thanks to the cruel grip of Father Time.
The championship window may be open now, but that doesn't mean it won't slam shut during the next offseason. Especially if not all goes according to plan.
The Marc Gasol Conundrum
When the summer of 2015 rolls around, Nick Calathes will hit the open market as a restricted free agent. Koufos, Prince and and Udrih (if he declines his player option) will join him, though they'll all be free agents of the unrestricted variety.
Memphis can overcome losing any combination of those role players. However, Gasol is also going to be taking meetings with suitors, as he's an unrestricted free agent too.
And the Grizzlies can't afford for him to get away.
As Matt Moore of CBS Sports writes, this is going to be a big topic of conversation throughout the year:
"It's not going to be the Dwightmare. It won't be the MeloDrama or the LoveBoat. And it certainly won't be the Decision 2.0. But the reality is this: Marc Gasol is a legit star in this league, even if few casual fans know who he is. He's a major impact player who can instantly transform your team on both sides of the ball. And he's a free agent in 2015.
So you're about to hear a lot about Marc Gasol over the next 10 months. It's going to be a running conversation. The Grizzlies won't be extending Gasol under any reasonable circumstances, because the last CBA limited the number of years a player can sign an extension for. Gasol stands to benefit in a big way from reaching free agency and then signing a new deal, whether with Memphis or elsewhere.
"
Here's the good news for Memphis: Gasol has gone on the record as saying he considers Memphis home.
"I've always said Memphis is my home away from home," the big man said, per Ronald Tillery of The Commercial Appeal. "Robert [Pera, Grizzlies owner] knows that. I know that. My teammates know that and that's all that matters. I live day-to-day but I don't see myself anywhere else. Only time will time. But I don't see a reason to change right now. Why would I change right now?"
The bad news: There's plenty of time between "right now" and the free-agency period that will kick off after a new champion is crowned.
Already, we have two suitors emerging, and more—like the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics—will surely come out of the woodwork in the coming months.
"It's a personal decision," Pau Gasol said about his sibling's free-agency ventures, via ESPN New York's Ian Begley. "I talked to my brother enough about Phil [Jackson] that he knows what he brings to the table. I don't know how much he's involved with the team, really. He's in an upstairs position, management position. He's not on the court every day, so it's something that [Marc] will consider when he gets to that point."
So the New York Knicks could have an offer on the table, presenting Gasol with a perfect chance to use his versatile skills in the triangle offense, which would very much maximize his talents. The San Antonio Spurs might present one as well, offering the center a chance to follow in Tim Duncan's footsteps when the legendary big man eventually retires.
"The Spurs have big plans for this summer, among them the idea of replacing Duncan with a free agent such as Marc Gasol if 'The Big Fundamental' retires as expected," USA Today's Sam Amick reported earlier this month.
That's an offer that would be tough for Gasol to pass up. Chances are there will be other potential contracts that fall into the same category.
The Spanish 7-footer could render all this moot by recommitting to the Grizzlies, but until that happens, there at least exists the possibility that he will skip town. After all, the roster around him is aging, and a postseason failure in 2015 could leave the impression—however valid—that it has a limited ceiling. Plus, the young talents aren't guaranteed to be difference-makers by any stretch of the imagination.
That's why this year is so important.
What better pitch to make to Gasol than bringing the Larry O'Brien Trophy into a meeting? What better way to convince him he should stay than pointing to his own success with the franchise and promising more in the future?
It's not necessarily a now-or-never situation for the Grizzlies, but it might as well be. A title this season solves everything, but coming up short allows plenty of uncertainty to enter into the equation.
While it may not literally be true in Memphis, this season is basically a title-or-bust endeavor. And fortunately for those involved, with the team looking healthy and the schemes working, a championship is finally a legitimate possibility.
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