Grizzlies and Zach Randolph agree to 4-year, $71 million

Some posters have this blind love for assett collection. I think they paid a little more than what I thought, but I said yrs ago he's one of the best post players in the game. Some guys mature at a later age and he seems to be one. He's always been productive once he got his chance. He's been beastly in memphis and he works out game after game. I remember him working over dallas in the playoffs as a young guy. His game translates in the playoffs and hollins has been very demanding/fatherly like towards him which is good.

 

I'll agree here. I don't mind the deal in and of itself. I think it's reasonable and I don't expect Zach to just slack off like so many expect. Miracles do happen, I guess. He's not, however, a top 5 PF. I'd still take Dirk, Pau, Amare, Aldridge, and Garnett over him today.

I am just more wtf at what's ridiculous homerism, where a narrow victory against a Spurs team without Manu becomes "San Antonio is scared of us, and we'll sweep them and have a good chance to win the title this year. Oh, and the Thunder really, really suck."

 

Good for Z-Bo, he's earned it.

 

He's only been a head coach for a little over 2 seasons, and many of the teams he's had were rebuilding. Hollins is a guy that got passed over a hundred times for coaching jobs, due to no fault of his own. Perception is everything and Hollins was never the "sexy" pick. So maybe that's why you weren't a fan?

At any rate, hollins has the respect of the team. He gained that respect when he was forced to deal with the signing of Allen Iverson. According to many of the players, they thought that when allen got there, he'd basically run things and get what he wants. But when hollins basically told ai in front of the whole team that his minutes weren't a given and that he'd have to earn them, instantly our young guys respected hollins. They were like, whoa, did he really tell ai THAT. A few days later AI left the team for good.

This is just one example.

So what do I think of hollins? I think that he knows how to win in the nba and our young guys have bought into it. He may not be the mastermind like Phil is or Pop, but he understands effort and he instills that attitude into each and every player. The grizzlies, if you can say one thing about them, they play hard.

 

This is basically like giving Luis Scola the max.
As a fan of the person you want him to get it. As a fan of the team you don't.

Congrats to Randolph, but condolences to the Grizzlies.

 

I don't know why people envy the Grizzlies' position. They've just locked themselves up to a 5-8 seed first round exit for the next 3+ years. And that's if Randolph plays up to his contract. There is absolutely no upside to their team, no real room for improving significantly beyond where they currently are which is the 8 seed.

Gay if he returns to full strength will push Tony Allen out; unfortunately, since Allen has been playing his brains out and is one of the only reasons that defense is like 3x better since the ASB, the upgrade at SF will not be much to get Gay back.

Gasol, Conley, and Mayo have some room to improve, but not transcend who they already are which is probably above average players at their position but never-all-stars (I'm assuming Mayo stays in the 6th man role because he will never be an above average starting SG). I'm giving the Grizz the benefit of the doubt that they can hold onto Gasol here.

So...considering all that, here's the worst part. They are LOCKED into all those guys for the foreseeable future. 3+ years of guys who at their peaks won't make all-star games. Gay has a chance, but not enough media hype surrounding him. And we all know media hype is the #1 factor in both getting favorable calls from refs and drawing other NBA stars to play in your city. This is the part where I would insert a rolly-eyes face behind the sentence, except we all know it's true.

The Rockets on paper are not better than the Grizzlies on paper this year. This also is reflected in the standings, the Sagarin ratings, the paper mache ratings, and even the imaginary unicorn pony rankings. But not the Hollinger ratings, strangely enough. Anyways, the point of the matter is, the Rockets have not tied themselves into ANYONE really who could serve as an anchor 2+ years down the line. The last of those guys expired this year (sorry Yao, tag you're it). We've got financial flexibility, and the only players we have signed longterm (2+ years) are either valuable, KNOWN commodities (Martin, Scola) or absolute steals for their salaries that we would have to be bowled over to trade (Lowry, Patterson). Our worst contract is Brad Miller's, and that expires in exactly two years. Next year, the possible expiring contracts are Thabeet, Jordan Hill, Terrence Williams, Courtney Lee, Goran Dragic, and Chase Budinger. We'll probably extend the rookie contracts of Lee and Budinger, but the rest of the guys are entirely expendable while remaining under our control should they continue to perform well.

Ya'll can correct me because my intention was not to be accurate in talking contracts but to draw the conclusion that WE HAVE A VERY FLEXIBLE TEAM roster-wise right now. We're not good enough, clearly, but we're in a prime position to take advantage of the next great opportunity that comes around to not only acquire a superstar but sculpt our entire team around him. Not many other teams in the league can make that statement.

 

Okay, everyone close your eyes and imagine having a PF who averages 20-12 while shooting 50 percent from the field and plays some defense. Now ask yourself what is he worth? Don't include the personal issues because those haven't been an issue for quite a while. Z-Bo is most certainly worth the contract and his play left Memphis with little to no choice, you can't expect to let him walk and have Arthur just pick up the slack next season.

 

Congrats to him. He's been great the last couple years, especially on finishing around the basket and offensive rebounding. The price seems a bit steep for a 30-year-old, but if he keeps up this level of production, he'll be worth it.

 

Spacemoth above made a very good post, lol Randoplh a beast?! Gimme a break, if they were beasting so much why'd it take a clutch 3 pointer from the Shaner to close out a broken down old Spurs squad without Manu Ginobili?

Even more ridiculous that same roster with the defensive 7 foot C, a so-called 20-10 low post beast AND a max smallforward eked out around the same amount of wins we did. The only difference is that they're capped out, while we actually have some flexibility.

Z-bo being worth 17.5M is about the same as Gay being worth 20M a year and Conley JR being worth 9M a year...overrated.

 

Don't even try to reason with them. According to them, the grizzlies are just lucky.

First, the grizzlies screwed up when they signed conley to a long term deal, then gay and now zbo. A few weeks ago the grizzlies were going to go 0-3 against the celtics, bulls and spurs, they actually went 2-1 and if not for a rose hero moment would have went 3-0. Then it was, well boston and the spurs are coasting. Next the grizzlies are going to get swept. Now it is well ginobli was out, or shane helped them make the playoffs or it won't last.

We'll take it.

 

Two questions I'll then pose to what:

1. What do you think you'll do with Battier? I'll admit, I wonder about how the minutes will be split up between Gay, Mayo, Battier, Allen, and Young - and you have Henry there, though from what I can tell, has completely sucked this year.

2. You mentioned Iverson. I remember that Grizzlies fans claimed at the end of the 2010 season that if it hadn't been for them messing around with him for the first few games, they would have had a better record. If that's true, that means you guys have gone from say, 42 or 43 if you hadn't had an Iverson experiment......... to 46.
Where's the next jump to actually become a 52+ game winning team going to from if you're this awesome contending team?

 

Z-bo is too old to be with this crew, he's 29 and going to be 30 years old next season. That's right, Z-bo is only a year younger than old man Scola.

The only reason they even had a chance was because RA became infatuated with Brooks and the Spurs for some reason peaked in the regular season and got broken down in the playoffs. Since when was a number 1 seed this weak?

 

Tell me, who on your team is going to make the All-star game next year? Is Gay finally going to break through now that Carmelo is gone? Maybe he'll be the 11th or 12th man. Or maybe it'll be Randolph. That's not the point.

The point is that neither the Grizzlies nor the Rockets have a transcendant superstar player that gives us a chance to win the championship at the moment. The Grizzlies now have a much lower chance to acquire one than the Rockets due to their financial inflexibility, longterm commitments, and abject lack of draft picks or trade exceptions. The Rockets have financial flexibility, a similar record with much players being paid significantly less (when you subtract Yao's salary), and draft picks and trade exceptions up the wazoo.

Honestly, good luck this year in the playoffs. I'm rooting for Shane, I still have my Duke and Rockets jerseys of his. But let's be real, this is the NBA. Miracles don't happen here. David Stern, Nike, Las Vegas, Jordan Brand, Lebron and Kobe and Dwight and Wade and Chuck's mama on Chuck's Fave Five--that's what the NBA is about. And if you can't get a piece of that meal ticket then you're on the outside looking in.

 

In 2007

 

The man is a beast and has earned every cent of this extension.

 

I think he was primarily traded for his expiring contract. Get rid off Thabeet's future salary to make room for Gasol.

 

According to our gm and owner, we are going to try to sign battier. Thing is, battier can take any offer from any team that he likes, so who knows? Basically I am saying that it is not up to US what battier does, it's up to battier himself. I do feel that battier will end up signing a contract with up, because, after all, he started his career here and I think he likes the team we have around him. But a lot will depend on his wife and what THEY decide.

In reference to our record, the grizzlies, for whatever reason, they were not playing well to begin last year or this year. Our players are young and you also have to remember that the grizzlies had a lot of injuries to deal with. Besides Gay, Marc got hurt in the opening game and many of suspected that he was dealing with that lingering injury for longer than he made out. Marc is a tough guy and he isn't going to out and out say he's injured. Also, Randolph got hurt and it took a while for him to get himself back into game shape once he came back. He had timing issues for a long while. Darrell missed time as well, and obviously gay's absent was huge. Couple that with having to integrate tony allen into the lineup, and all of this contributed to a slow start.