Prior to each season, NBA.com surveys all 30 NBA general managers over a variety of topics ranging from who will win the NBA Finals to which team had the best offseason to which active player will make the best head coach someday.
The Memphis Grizzlies were well-represented last season, and one would think that after an offseason that saw the Grizzlies sign the best free agent in franchise history as well as keep their franchise point guard for another five seasons that they would be well represented again this season.
But that isn’t the case.
As I read through the 48 questions answered by some of the smartest basketball minds on the planet, I focused on certain topics that I thought would contain Grizzlies players.
The first one had to do with which teams will finish in the top four in the Western Conference. The Grizzlies finished seventh with 3.3 percent predicting them to finish third and 7.1 percent to finish fourth. I don’t have much to quibble with here because it has Memphis in the playoffs, and it’s anyone’s guess where they finish.
I quickly scanned over the topics listing the league’s best point guards, shooting guards, small forwards and power forwards and, predictably, there were no Grizzlies listed.
But then I came to the centers.
In 2015, Marc Gasol was voted the best center in the NBA with an overwhelming 65.5 percent of the vote.
However, this season, one has to scroll all the way to fourth to find Gasol’s name, receiving just 13.3 percent of the vote – good enough for fourth. I expected some drop off for Gasol who’s coming off a serious foot injury, but it’s the players who are above Gasol that I have an issue with.
In third place, receiving 16.7 percent of the vote is Anthony Davis. My issue with Davis being ahead of Gasol is rooted in the fact that Davis was also voted as the league’s best power forward. Pick one.
Demarcus Cousins came in second with 26.7 percent of the vote, and I don’t have an issue with this. In fact, this is who my vote would have gone to if I was an NBA GM. But in first was DeAndre Jordan with 33.3 percent of the vote. Karl-Anthony Towns and Draymond Green came in fifth and sixth, and I would have taken any of the other five players over Jordan.
The next set of categories had to do with offseason moves, and after the kind of offseason the Grizzlies had, I knew they would be very well represented in this category. Maybe they wouldn’t win too many with the other moves that happened around the NBA this offseason, but they’d at least get mentioned.
Nope.
There was not a single mention of the Grizzlies or any of their moves in the offseason categories which included which team had the best offseason, which one-player acquisition will have the biggest impact and which team will be most improved in 2016-17.
For the better part of six years now, national media pundits have been clamoring for the Grizzlies to get more shooting and get more playmaking on the wing. Well, they did that, but apparently GMs didn’t think it was good enough.
I guess Chandler Parsons’ injury concerns are too risky in some GMs’ eyes, but Derrick Rose, who hasn’t been healthy since his MVP season in 2010-11, got votes, so who knows?
I came across another category that Gasol dominated last year with 62.1 percent of the vote, and that’s the best international player in the NBA. This year, Gasol finished second to Giannis Antetokounmpo, and while I’m a fan of the Greek freak, Gasol is the best international player until further notice.
Tony Allen finished third in the best perimeter defender category, and that’s hard to argue with considering he finished behind Kwahi Leonard and Avery Bradley who are both much younger and have much less an injury history than Allen.
Gasol finished fourth in the best interior defender category, and I think if we re-did this survey at the end of the season, assuming he remains relatively healthy, he’d be first or second.
Six teams were listed in the best defensive team category, and the Grizzlies were not one of them. I don’t have much of a problem with this, either. I think the Grizzlies will hover around 10th in defensive efficiency this season just due to age regression and playing guys like Parsons and Troy Daniels on the wing who aren’t defensive stalwarts by any stretch.
David Fizdale was not mentioned among the new or relocated coaches who will make the biggest impact this season, which is understandable. Tom Thibodeau, Frank Vogel, Mike D’Antoni and Luke Walton were the four listed, and it’s hard to argue with any of those choices for obvious reasons.
Grizzlies assistant coach J.B. Bickerstaff was listed among the league’s top assistants by GMs, proving what a win for Fizdale it was in getting him.
Zach Randolph appeared on the survey under the category what bench player makes the biggest impact when he enters the game. Rest in peace to opposing backup power forwards.
Finally, for the second consecutive season, Tony Allen was named the NBA’s toughest player.
Hey, at least we know they got one thing right.
