{"id":1448,"date":"2016-10-13T12:00:05","date_gmt":"2016-10-13T16:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonprobasketball.com\/?p=1448"},"modified":"2016-10-13T00:16:34","modified_gmt":"2016-10-13T04:16:34","slug":"keys-memphis-grizzlies-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2016\/10\/13\/keys-memphis-grizzlies-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Key Factors to a Successful Memphis Grizzlies Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

During the 2016-17\u00a0NBA<\/strong>\u00a0season, headlines will be dominated by\u00a0<\/em>Kevin Durant<\/a><\/em><\/strong>\u00a0and the\u00a0Golden State Warriors<\/strong>\u00a0on a daily basis. However, having a super-team doesn\u2019t guarantee a championship; just look at the 2012-13\u00a0Los Angeles Lakers<\/strong>. Everything can change and anything can happen in the NBA. A team can implode, the injury bug could strike, or a team simply might not play to its potential. In this\u00a0Last Word On Pro Basketball<\/strong>\u00a0series, we\u2019ll break down which two key factors will determine the fate of each team in the upcoming season.<\/em><\/p>\n

In this edition, we’ll take a look at the\u00a0Memphis Grizzlies<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Two Key Factors to a Successful Memphis Grizzlies Season<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The Memphis Grizzlies have made six straight playoff appearances. That doubles the franchise’s total amount from before the “Grit and Grind” era. They have also notched their only four playoff series wins during this stretch. This has, undoubtedly, been the most successful era\u00a0in franchise history. In comes new head coach\u00a0David Fizdale<\/strong>, who hopes to bring the same success that both Lionel Hollins<\/a><\/strong> and Dave Joerger\u00a0<\/strong>had,\u00a0while\u00a0adding a\u00a0more modern offensive style. This was a team littered with injuries last year, setting an NBA record with 28 players on the roster over\u00a0the course of the 2015-16 season.<\/p>\n

First Key: Staying Healthy<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The injury situation from a year ago has been told time and again. It allowed NBA fans to learn who in the world Xavier Munford<\/a><\/strong> was. We actually got plenty of time\u00a0to see what he could do on the court. If you had told that to Memphis fans going into the season, they would be begging for Nick Calathes<\/a><\/strong> to come back. Mike Conley<\/a><\/strong> and Marc Gasol<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0missed over 25\u00a0games apiece. By the end of the season, this looked more like a D-League<\/strong> team than an NBA squad.<\/p>\n

But 2016-17 is a new year and the injuries won’t be as bad as they were last year. The Grizzlies are already planning to give Gasol days off throughout the season to preserve him come playoff time. Conley enters the season healthy. The Grizzlies are looking like a younger team after an off-season in which they let the likes of\u00a0Matt Barnes<\/a><\/strong> and Courtney Lee<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>walk in free agency. Instead, they brought in younger players such as\u00a0Wade Baldwin<\/a><\/strong>. That brings us to the big off-season acquisition for Memphis:\u00a0Chandler Parsons<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Parsons has been one of the more versatile, creative players in the league…when he has been able to stay healthy. Over the last two seasons with the Dallas Mavericks<\/strong>, Parsons has missed a combined 37 games. That may not seem like an extensive amount, but for a team that just gave him a\u00a0four-year,\u00a0$94 million contract, the Grizzlies have to\u00a0expect him to play in nearly every game.<\/p>\n

For\u00a0a team that lost 12 players to injury for a total of over 300 games last season, health is a major key. The Grizzlies will have to stay healthy\u00a0if they want to remain in contention in a deeper Western Conference<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Second Key: Adapting to the System Change<\/strong><\/h2>\n

After years of grinding games away with scores like 87-83, times are changing in Memphis.\u00a0Zach Randolph<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>begins\u00a0life as a reserve big man (I would not like to be the one who told him that).\u00a0Tony Allen<\/a><\/strong> is nearing the end, and players like JaMychal Green<\/a><\/strong> and Deyonta Davis<\/a><\/strong> are the future. That is radically different from when Lionel Hollins took over in 2010.<\/p>\n

It is now Fizdale’s time, though. He made the decision to move Green into the starting lineup, as Green\u00a0fits the more modern style both offensively and defensively. Fizdale\u00a0plans to\u00a0adjust the Grizzlies in multiple ways\u00a0throughout\u00a0his first season.<\/p>\n

First, Fizdale plans to flip the traditional game plan. When he talked to CBS Sports’ Matt Moore<\/strong><\/a>, he said that he plans\u00a0to give Conley the “first six seconds of every possession” rather than entering the ball into the post to start every possession. Fizdale said, “I want to give Mike the opportunity early on to attack and make plays, and then we’ll get that end of possession post-up for Zach [Randolph] or Marc [Gasol] out of movement where teams can’t just load up on them.”<\/p>\n

Next, the Grizzlies have a weapon that\u00a0they have been seeking out\u00a0for years. They thought that\u00a0Jeff Green<\/a><\/strong> may have been what they were looking for, but as each\u00a0of his teams have\u00a0found out, Green is never the answer. The answer comes in the form of Chandler Parsons. Parsons has\u00a0the\u00a0play-making and shooting ability that might’ve taken Memphis over the top in the 2012-13 season. Parsons’ ability to run a secondary pick-and-roll after a Conley drive will open up looks for everyone. And Parsons’ non-health concerns, mostly on the defensive end, are perfectly masked by Tony Allen’s strengths. That’s without\u00a0mentioning that\u00a0Parsons can\u00a0play the four alongside Gasol in small-ball units. A lineup of Conley, Baldwin, Allen, Parsons, and Gasol would provide a level of play-making and shot creation that Memphis has lacked for years, while the team was still strong defensively.<\/p>\n

Finally, Fizdale should be able to get young players such as Baldwin and Davis to play early. Memphis hasn’t\u00a0had too much young talent in the pipelines, but grabbing Baldwin and having Davis fall into its\u00a0lap should begin to develop the next era of Grizzlies basketball. This Memphis team does have some depth concerns. If they are able to plug-and-play two rookies, that’d be a big help for the present and the future.<\/p>\n

Final Outlook<\/strong><\/h4>\n

The Grizzlies appear\u00a0to be a team that will battle\u00a0in the bottom half of the playoff race. Health, system adaption, and depth will be key,\u00a0because\u00a0this team does have the top-end talent to compete come playoff time. Ultimately, that is what ownership hopes Fizdale can do, in order to take the franchise to a\u00a0level that Hollins and Joerger weren’t able to.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Main photo:<\/p>\n

February 8, 2014: Marc Gasol (33) of the Memphis Grizzlies defended by Elton Brand (42) of the Atlanta Hawks during the NBA match-up between the Atlanta Hawks and the Memphis Grizzlies at Philips Arena in Atlanta, Georgia. The Grizzlies won the game 79-76. (Photo by Andrew Snook\/Icon SMI\/Corbis via Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Will this Memphis Grizzlies season see them take the next step under David Fizdale, or will the team miss the playoffs due to injuries and a system change?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":1496,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32,62],"tags":[65,160,441,451,442,207,208,96,452],"class_list":["post-1448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-grizzlies","category-nba","tag-basketball","tag-chandler-parsons","tag-david-fizdale","tag-jamychal-green","tag-marc-gasol","tag-memphis-grizzlies","tag-mike-conley","tag-nba","tag-wade-baldwin"],"modified_by":"Lior Kozai (Managing Editor)","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}