Grizzlies Draft and Trade

Great job, Grizzlies! I love the trade. I don't love Mike Miller leaving, but I understand it had to happen. O.J. Mayo has been supposed to be the next big thing since we first started hearing his name.

I like Mike Heisley's 3-year plan. With Rudy Gay, Mike Conley, and now O.J. Mayo, we have a core of solid young perimeter players. Darrell Arthor was the 11th best guy on the Grizzlies draft board, and I hope he's as good as we're hearing. Marc Gasol I know nothing about, but people that do are saying he's very, very good. And the one thing he has that his brother doesn't is the ability to come in and play without an insane expectation to be THE guy in Memphis.

Most likely, the Grizzlies won't be good again next year, but they don't have to be bad on purpose. As young as they are, the draft pick next year will be another lottery pick. Combine that with the Lakers additional pick from the Pau Gasol trade, and the abundance of Point Guards we have, that's a pretty powerful combination of assets to be able to pull off trades. Throw in the cap room to make the Grizzlies a key player in the free agent market, and this team could be better sooner rather than later.

Considering that Rudy Gay is the "veteran" in this new core of players, they're young, and that could translate in a year-long schooling by NBA teams loaded with veteran players, but what they lack in experience, they make up for in talent. And at the conclusion of Mike Heisley's 3-year plan, our core with have experience and talent and be in a Conference whose dominant teams will all be aging.

I love the trade. I love the Pau trade. I love the position the Grizzlies are in going forward from this draft. And it's no coincidence that all this took place after Jerry West got out of town. You don't have to totally stick it to the other team to make a good trade, and it seems that was Jerry's criteria. If he wasn't "winning" the trade, he wasn't interested. Mr. Wallace came in and made a trade that works for everyone involved. And now this team is in a prime position to be a contender at the end of Mike Heisley's 3-year plan. Thank you, Jerry West for not being here this year to screw this up.