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Grizzlies About ThisClose To Looking For GMs On Craigslist
By Jay Busbee | June 4, 2007
Has anybody made the “Memphis Grislies” joke yet? ‘Cause man, it’s looking appropriate these days.
We’ve got a soft spot in our hearts for the Grizz. Before their arrival, the Bluff City had wanted a professional sports team for so long, so desperately, it was painful to watch. In its existence, Memphis has been a home for every halfwit sports league from Canadian League Football to Donkey Basketball, with a stunning roster of defunct or departed teams — The Showboats, the RiverKings, the Pharaohs, the Chicks, the Houn’dawgs, the Maniax, the Xplorers, the Blues, the Fire, the Hot Shots, the Tams, the Sounds, the Americans, the Rogues, the Rockers, and on and on and on. The pre-Titan Houston Oilers used Memphis like A-Rod uses handy blondes, popping down I-40 for football games and then scooting back to Nashville the moment the clock reached all zeroes. (Which led to the really embarrassing scene of Memphis standing out on Nashville’s lawn screaming for the Titans to come out, and the Titans telling the kids to go to bed, nothing’s wrong, and Nashville telling the Titans that if they didn’t get that WHORE off the lawn right now, they could just go LIVE with her on Beale Street, and…)
But we digress. When the Vancouver Grizzlies left behind the Great White North, we cheered for Memphis. When the NBA rejected the ownership team’s bid to clothe the team in purple and orange and rename them the Express, we cheered even more. And when Memphis reached the playoffs for three straight years, well, it was like getting word that a beloved cousin was doing well. (We’re still Hawks fans around these parts, after all.) Who cared that they didn’t win a single freaking game during any of those series?
Now, though…now, Memphis is starting to turn into one of those horrific car-wreck teams, the kind of car wreck that shuts down interstates and involves body bags and hosedowns. Even after losing out on the Oden-Durant prize, they still have to hire a new general manager to replace the departing Logo (that would be Jerry West). Their leading candidate wisely decided to stay in Phoenix. Their next choice? Well, as the always-interesting Commercial-Appeal columnist Geoff Calkins notes, Memphis might want to take a closer look at Boston’s Chris Wallace before handing him the keys. During the years between the Pitino and Ainge regimes, Wallace:
…spent first-round picks on Joe Johnson, Kedrick Brown and Joe Forte in the 2001 draft, passing on Tony Parker, Gerald Wallace, Richard Jefferson, Vladimir Radmanovic, Troy Murphy and Gilbert Arenas. He then traded Joe Johnson for Tony Delk and Rogers, and traded Kenny Anderson for Vin Baker and his ridiculous contract.
Eeeeeugh. Good luck there, Memphis. We’d vote for hiring the camels that used to accompany every Memphis Pharaohs arena-football touchdown. At least when they crapped on the floor of the arena, you wouldn’t be stuck with it for seven years, and it wouldn’t count against your salary cap.
Topics: Basketball, Memphis |
June 5th, 2007 at 11:27 am
[…] My favorite part of this post is where Jay goes off the rails and imagines the city of Memphis out in the street shouting “Stella! Stellaaaa!” at the city of Nashville. […]
June 5th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Wow - thanks for reminding me of every terrible minor league team I (temporarily) loved while growing up in Memphis. I still love you Memphis Rockers! We had John Starks!
June 5th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
It’s a list that’s terrifying and yet beautiful…a tsunami of low-rent suckitude.
June 5th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
Go River Kings!!!
Not that I would defend the dude from Boston, but why the hell do people always point out that “so and so passed on Tony Parker…”???
EVERY TEAM PASSED ON TONY PARKER!!! IT DOESN’T MAKE A POINT TO SAY THAT!!!
June 7th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
I like how he acted like the city of Memphis cared about the Titans. If you look at the attendance records from the year they spent in Memphis, you’ll see the majority of Memphians didn’t give a crap. Half the time the stadium was filled with fans of the opposing team. That’s one of the main reasons they headed to Nashville a year early.
June 7th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
Nah, I was just going for a joke there. I know the reality. I remember one day my wife and I were running past the Liberty Bowl when the Oilers were playing the Bengals. There were MAYBE 6,000 people there. I couldn’t believe that this was an actual NFL game, and you couldn’t even hear the crowd from Central Avenue.
Of course, it’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg thing…I remember that guys like Eddie George kept stiffing Memphis for appearances and things like that. If the Oilers had done ANYTHING to show any kind of appreciation for the city, maybe somebody would’ve shown up.
(On the other hand, I saw a GREAT fight in the stands at the Redskins-Oilers game there. A story for another day.)
June 7th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
This is a bad article, not really any solid points. I dont want Wallace as GM but that trade for Rodney Rogers and Tony Delk wasnt that crazy b/c they were trying to make a run in the playoffs that year and not rebuild with youth like Joe Johnson. Oh and with that trade they did make it to the Eastern Conference finals. The Grizzlies will be fine this is just another in a long list of over reactions from one bad season.