<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Hearing major shakeup forthcoming in Memphis: Team CEO Jason Levien is poised to resign from club after assistant GM Stu Lash was dismissed</p>— Marc Stein (@ESPNSteinLine) <a href="https://twitter.com/ESPNSteinLine/statuses/468456071552442369">May 19, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Future of MEM coach Dave Joerger & executive VP John Hollinger uncertain after clash between Grizz owner Robert Pera and current management</p>— Marc Stein (@ESPNSteinLine) <a href="https://twitter.com/ESPNSteinLine/statuses/468457289918058499">May 19, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
No idea what's wrong with Memphis ownership. Hollins wins 55 games and gets canned. Joerger, a first year coach win 50 games after losing Gasol for 25 games and took OKC to 7 despite losing Zbo for game 7 to a BS suspension. They got rid of Rudy Gay (good) and picked up Mike Miller on the cheap (good). Hollinger has barely been there more than a couple years, and over all their team has been a solid 50-55 win team in a crazy tough Western Conference. Yet they're still canning people and looking to "shake up" the management team. It really doesn't make a lot of sense. There's at least 20 teams that would love to be in the shoes of the Grizzlies. The NBA is getting crazier and crazier...
ZBo has a player option - he will pick it up. Hollins firing made sense - he talked out of house to the media. He was what-esque with his disdain of the Rudy Gay trade. But Hollinger and Joerger have been good and kept issues in-house. Pera would look foolish if he let them go.
Yeah, owners are getting more and more active on the basketball side of things, it seems. I wonder if it's simply a few owners taking a modern quarterly-obsession model from other business pursuits to the sports realm. If so, it's a terrible model for long-term success (similar to the business world, IMHO).
I have a feeling this is going to be a very interesting off-season. Getting lost in the Kevin Love shuffle so far this off-season is the fact that oh yeah.... Z. Randolph is a free agent, Marc Gasol is an UFA in 2015 also(could he be a sleeper mega trade player?), what happens if Miami gets upset by Indiana, everyone is forgetting about Pau Gasol, Luol Deng, what happens if someone offers Dirk a max deal? etc etc.
It would be hilarious if Hollinger is fired so soon by yet another team just like he was with San Antonio. Also, their coach is an idiot. He wanted an uptempo style with two of the slowest players in the league playing major mins. Maybe the Griz ownership doesn't want to settle for mediocrity. Le$ and the management of the Houston Rockets could learn a lesson or two if these rumors turn out to be true.
Maybe. It might just be a more modern generational thing where the younger generations are becoming increasingly impatient. That's aside from the desire of many of the most successful businessmen being control freaks. It might just be an ego thing too. IE, their ego's don't allow many owners to admit that they're just not anywhere near as smart as the guys that they're hiring when it comes to basketball. I remember reading an interesting commentary a long time ago about top business leaders and politicians. The gist was this... you pretty much HAVE to be an egomaniac to some degree to reach the upper echelons. It takes a special sense of entitlement to think that you're the best option to run a city, state, country, or multi-national corporation that involves the lives of tens of thousands or millions of people. The problem is that the sense of being special and entitled is it becomes easy to overstep your own skill set. Since you view yourself as the smartest guy in the room, the tendency to assume that you're usually right can become a serious achilles heel when you reach for an area beyond your own expertise. Just some thoughts... :grin:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Grizzlies owner Robert Pera announces that executives Jason Levien and Stu Lash have left the organization.</p>— Ken Berger (@KBergCBS) <a href="https://twitter.com/KBergCBS/statuses/468474451474919426">May 19, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>GM Chris Wallace will "assume interim responsibility" for the team's basketball operations, Pera said.</p>— Ken Berger (@KBergCBS) <a href="https://twitter.com/KBergCBS/statuses/468474822088200193">May 19, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Name we may hear shortly in this Grizz saga: David Mincberg. Team's general counsel, long-rumored to want more decision-making power.</p>— Zach Lowe (@ZachLowe_NBA) <a href="https://twitter.com/ZachLowe_NBA/statuses/468474915390107648">May 19, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Grizzlies news is a reminder of how tough the NBA is this time of yr. That said,it is good to hear my friend Chris Wallace is back from Elba</p>— Daryl Morey (@dmorey) <a href="https://twitter.com/dmorey/statuses/468476995169312768">May 19, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Grizz have complex owner structure where 14 different people own at least 3%. Controlling owner Robert Pera has just 25%. Lots of voices.</p>— Brian Windhorst (@WindhorstESPN) <a href="https://twitter.com/WindhorstESPN/statuses/468476390212239363">May 19, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Not to say in any way that he's done a bad job, but that's also the caliber of team he took over -- they won the equivalent of 51 games in the lockout-shortened season before he got there.
From good to great is always the hardest step. It seems like a lot of teams, including the Rox, (and Warriors, and Griz, and so on) are looking at the uncomfy truth in the mirror: good-looking but not drop-dead hawt. ... So they all want to break up with their girlfriends and get a $90 haircut. (Or in our case, some of the fans want to do that at least.)
Memphis with a defensive genius as head coach might be kind of scary. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Hearing that, if the Grizz totally clean house, the Memphis owner will look to trade for Tom Thibodeau + give him an SVG/Pistons-type deal.</p>— Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) <a href="https://twitter.com/BillSimmons/statuses/468481381266636800">May 19, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>PS: Bulls need assets for a run at Kevin Love, an extra 1st round pick would help. They'd hire Fred Hoiberg if Thibs got traded. Stay tuned.</p>— Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) <a href="https://twitter.com/BillSimmons/statuses/468482194025881601">May 19, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
So Pera is just doing what's en vogue right now and that's gunning for Thibs. Defense hasn't been an issue with the Grizzlies for the past few years. Their issue is that they don't have a solid bench and their offense tends to go into droughts at times. Asking Thibs to come in and squeeze more juice out of this team on the defensive end is asking for a bit much in my opinion.
