RIP Memphis Grizzlies?

Best win of the season was tonight. One thing that I am liking about the grizzlies is that Gasol and Mike have both taken their game up a level, which I thought they needed to do (read: internal improvement) for the team to be successful. And if Zach keeps playing the way he's been playing lately, the grizzlies (once that defense kicks into full gear) is going to be a problem for any team in the western conference.

Conley is becoming a superstar point guard and that's without question, and if Marc can add 4 points to his offensive totals (like he's been doing), the grizzlies have a big 3 that rivals any team. It's all about defense at this point now.

 

We are still one athletic wing that can get their own shot away from being real serious and if the frontoffice has confidence that Leur can be the 4th big then Ed Davis might just get us that wing.

 

Slow down there, Conley's a good player, might be top 40 overall, but he's unlikely to ever really going to be a superstar. He's just not the guy the opposition spends time designing defensive strategies to stop.

 

Respectfully, you haven't watched him enough or you are biased in some way, but you don't know what you are talking about. Respectfully.

There is not 1 area of Conley's game that isn't on a star level, and I would love for you to find that area if you think there is.

 

Alright, I gotta ask. This is nothing personal with you, but why do you guys (you, clippy, inbredtom) feel the need to respond to every slight against your team/players? I'm a Heat fan but I could give two ****s if Rockets fans on a Houston Rockets message board want to talk **** about the Heat. I may have responded a few times when drunk, but generally I only take exception to inbredtom. Once again, this is a Houston Rockets message board... we're in their house. Be respectful. Are you this much of an awful guest in real life?

 

Playmaking (Is he Chris Paul, Rajon Rondo level? there's your star playmakers), scoring (Durant? Anthony? Kobe? Bron? Harden? there's the top 5 from last year and there's a lot of people between them and Conley on this front) and shooting (Curry anyone? but I'm not sure even the most homerific would claim this one, he's a good shooter off the catch and shoot, but the great shooters can put up godlike percentages off the c&s, and high percentages off the dribble too)

His defense, I won't touch that, I love Conley's defense.

Conley doesn't look half the player when Gasol isn't on the court, at least not offensively he doesn't, and you can see the analytics impact there because he plays very few minutes without Gasol on the court (to check it wasnt just my eyes, i looked at the VU parsers, and they had him in 1 lineup of about 4 mpg without him).

Heck Houston is seeing the same impact, Harden is hobbling around on 2 bad feet, and his 3 ball has sucked for it, and he's still basically putting up the same numbers as last year because of the attention Dwight gets (and that doesn't even touch how much more the lane has opened up for Lin)

You can't ICE a Gasol P&R because an open Gasol 18 footer is a 1 PPP shot (Marc is one of the main reasons why ICE isn't as common in the west as it is the east), but as I said, teams just aren't gameplanning with Conley in mind. Even that Clippers game, Conley played like well, Conley, but Randolph and then Gasol took turns abusing Griffin.

Honestly on Memphis, Allen to me seems the odd one out in the starting lineup, us and the lakers are really the only 2 teams where it works (not unlike how Asik only really seems useful against Memphis and the Spurs as a starter), Allen is a great defender against everything but the spot up, and every other team is running spot up jump shooters at the 2 (Spurs, Warriors, Clippers, Blazers, Minny, OKC (well its all Sef can do on offense))

 

Translation: when I look at his assist numbers: rondo 10+, Paul at 12+, he must not be a playmaker. Scoring, he doesn't shoot 25 times a game.

I mean you have a thin understanding of Conley, and that's cool.

 

See people, Rockets fans aren't the only ones that overrate their own players, if they hadn't traded Durant 2.0 they would be beasting right. Your opinion on Grizzlie players is dubious, to say the least.

Defensively Conley is a stud, no arguments there. But offensively he is what he is, Mo Williams. He's a good player, really good player. But he will never be one of the tops dogs on a title team.

 

I really don't care about Conley lol..... in the era of point guards

 

Grizzlies would still be outclassed by the execution of the Spurs

 

Conley 23 per. Harden 21 per.
Conely 51% Harden 43%
Conley's defense: elite. Harden's defense: eek.

But Harden's a star and Conley is an average pg.

Like I said, maybe in past years you could say that Conley wasn't a star, but not this year. And you keep thinking it's a fluke, but people that have followed Conley's career knows that he has made steady improvements year after year. The front office and pretty much everybody realized that Rudy Gay was a detriment to Conley's game and after Gay was traded, the last step in Conley's evolution was to be more offensive minded, which he has.

I told yall before the season that Conley's offensive numbers were going to make a big jump and they have. The scary thing is: conley's doing this and he still doesn't get out of control in games. He's playing within himself.

 

The greatest strength of the Grizzlies is probably, that they are a team. They play really well together - that shows in their defense, which is top notch, but also in their offense. They play really well with each other.

But calling Conley a rising star "without question" is a bit homerism. He is a great player, a player every team would like to have because he basically does everything great and some things even elite. But he is still far away from the likes like CP3, Rose, Parker, Irving, Curry, Westbrook and in his better days Deron Williams or Rondo. That`s 8 players that are all probably generally considered to be better. And several people might argue PGs like Holiday, Lin, Lowry, Bledsoe, Lillard and Lawson are equal or better as well. So just of the top of my head I listed 14 PGs that are either clearly better, on par or just a little worse than Conley...

We just have very many great PGs in the league right now. Conley is one of them, but he is not in a class of his own. He is probably a tier 2 PG.

The biggest distinction between being a star and a great player is probably the ability to take over games and score or create when the team desperately needs to. I haven`t seen Conley take over a game the way a LeBron, Kobe, CP3, Parker or even Harden does.

 

but harden and his 21 per is the best shooting guard alive.

only cp3 is clearly better than conley at this point.

 

When I see you rating players, all I see is rudy gay rudy gay rudy gay rudy gay rudy gay rudy gay rudy gay rudy gay rudy gay rudy gay rudy gay.

 

PER is not everything. And yes, if Kobe can`t get back to his old self Harden is the best shooting guard - because the league doesn`t have that many great shooting guards. This might be some homerism, but outside of Kobe and Wade, who is there you could argue is better? Harden can score at will, take over games and be really efficient about it. His numbers are off because his 3pt shot isn`t falling and he has been playing hurt (not driving to the basket, low box score numbers). I would bet you 100$ that he finishes the season with a better PER than Conley.

And saying only CP3 is clearly better at this point is a little premature. Rose is coming back off a nasty injury, so is Westbrook. Curry is playing great. Bledsoe is having a real breakout year, Lawson is playing awesome - and we have a very small sample size so far.

Also, Conley is not the main focal point for opposing teams. They try to stop the two big men first and foremost.

Like I said, no disrespect to Conley he is a really great player - but there is still something left for him to be considered a star.

 

That's the thing that alot of posters are missing is that Gay is not strictly an offensive player, he's also pretty good defender, I'd even say he's better defensively than he is on offense.

This is where metrics doesn't give you the whole story. For the sake of the argument and even in reality, I concede that Rudy Gay is a very inefficient shooter. We've gotten past that point, but at the same time who do you think most teams will expend more defensive effort and strategies against a player, like Bayless or Gay. I'm just saying he provides a greater threat for defenses than alot of posters are disregarding, he's definitely not someone you can leave open or throw your weakest backcourt defender.

Of course, Rudy Gay is overpaid, but the talent that came in for him doesn't even make up a fraction of what he's worth.

Funny that you mentioned how the Grizzlies were contenders without Rudy Gay. Don't get me wrong I think they are and were, but look at what happened in WCF... they lost that serious more or less, because they didn't have any real scoring options in the back-court to keep the Spurs, honest. You saw Gasol and Randolph get doubled and tripled teamed at times, because the wings couldn't create off the dribble, score, or even hit their open shots. Prince, Allen Conley, Poindexter, Bayless and the other Grizzlies' wing players just doesn't create any advantages on offense against the other team. As I said earlier, if they still had Vazquez and Mayo, it would've been a different story, since it would've been the similar team that defeated the Spurs 3 seasons ago. My whole contention is that Rudy Gay move was "somewhat" more advantageous than "being complete" upgrade.

 

I'm sure Conley's the best thing since God invented pre-greezed rubbers, and I'd love to have him on the Rockets, but please don't be yet another Harden hater.

"21 PER" + playing on bad feet = prooooooooobably a better player than you're giving him credit for.

As good as Conley is, I'll take a healthy Harden over him anyday.