<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Grizzlies president of basketball operations Jerry West addressed the Memphis media this morning for the beginning of what could be a long and messy post-mortem on the Grizzlies? 05-06 season. West had plenty of fascinating things to say. I?ll throw out some of the more telling comments and try to read between the lines: ?I think Hakim Warrick could be a great player if he played. Maybe I?m wrong. I didn?t coach him. I think Lawrence Roberts would rebound the ball, if he played.? ?I?m not the one to answer that.? Ouch! The first answer was in response to a question about the team?s upside going forward. The second answer came when ESPN Radio?s John Madani, who wasn?t in Memphis last season, pointed out Bonzi Wells? great play for Sacramento in the playoffs and asked bluntly, ?Why couldn?t he play here?? The real meaning of these quotes seems pretty obvious to me: West is hanging coach Mike Fratello out to dry. Fratello is under contract for next season, but clearly the relationship between West and Fratello isn?t great right now. After these comments, it has to be 50-50 at best that Fratello returns next season. ?They kicked our asses. Period.? In response to the Dallas series. A colorful grasp of the obvious. ?Somewhere along the way, we disconnected from our fans.? An interesting and somewhat surprising admission. ?Our two problems are rebounding and free-throw shooting.? Those were definitely big problems for this year?s team, but I?m not sure they were more damaging than the team?s lack of athletic scorers on the perimeter, a problem that got totally exposed by the Mavericks. Of course, to acknowledge that problem would be to implicate the moves West made over the offseason to acquire older guards. ?Somewhere along the way, you have to find a player other players would follow.? An obvious dig at Pau Gasol?s leadership ability. ?He?s not a superstar. He?s an all-star, and there?s a major difference. About Gasol, obviously, and inarguably true. I will say that I dislike terms like ?superstar? and ?all-star? when talking about basketball players because the meaning is imprecise. I see it like this: The best players in the league can be divided into three tiers. First Tier: Perennial all-stars and MVP candidates. (Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, Dirk Nowitzki, etc.) Second Tier: Solid all-star types, who put up those kinds of numbers and have that kind of impact year-in, year-out, regardless of whether they make the team. (Michael Redd, Shawn Marion, Elton Brand, etc.) Third Tier: Quality starters who could be all-star candidates at their best but generally fall a little short of that. (Tayshaun Prince, Jason Terry, Lamar Odom) Everyone else is just a role player to one degree or another. Pau Gasol became a second-tier guy this season but played like a third-tier guy against Dallas. (By contrast, Lamar Odom has always been a third-tier guy with first-tier talent who?s playing like a second-tier guy against the Suns.) Unfortunately, no other player on the Grizzlies? roster belongs on any of those tiers. This was a team with one second-tier player and a bunch of role players. ?He plays more like a center now than a forward.? Also about Gasol, and a perceptive comment. (This is Jerry West, after all.) I wonder if this means that, in the never-ending pursuit to find a rebounder to start next to Gasol, the team will be unconcerned about whether that player is a stereotypical 7?0?, 300-pound center or just a frontcourt player of whatever height that complements Gasol?s game. ?The amount of money that?s being spent and the losses this team is experiencing? We can?t keep doing that. Maybe we need to start over, though I wouldn?t recommend doing that.? Starting over "wouldn?t be acceptable to fans.? West didn?t want to get into specifics about the off-season, so reading the tea leaves here is tricky. But here?s what I get out of it. I don?t think they?re going to go the obvious quick-fix route of trading Eddie Jones? expiring contract for the best veteran star they can find because I don?t think they want to add significant long-term salary. When I asked West specifically about the role of creating or preserving cap room in 2007 when it comes to moves this offseason, he deflected the question, but did refer back his previous comments about the team not being as free-spending. On the other hand, it doesn?t seem as though they?re willing to be so bold as to blow it up in order to gather young players, draft picks, and cap-room-creating expiring contracts in a multi-year rebuilding plan. So, if you don?t want to spend enough to go to one extreme and you don?t think the fan base would accept the other extreme that suggests the team will once again tinker. My best guess based on what West said: The team makes a coaching change and makes one or two minor deals or signings (most likely: trading Mike Miller). Eddie Jones, Shane Battier, Pau Gasol, and Damon Stoudamire return as the core. Hakim Warrick and Lawrence Roberts move up the depth chart. Bobby Jackson and Lorenzen Wright exit in free agency. Despite what West said, I don?t buy that the fan-base would accept that kind of tinkering more than a two-year rebuilding plan that might mean a 35-win team next season but would also change the style of play and give a sense of hope going forward. ?I know what wins in this league. Stars. We need one great star.? West?s insistence on the big-star theory depresses me, especially since, at the same time he insists you have to have that one player to win, he acknowledges that those players are really difficult to acquire. Detroit won a title two years ago and got back to the Finals last season without a single First Tier player. Maybe you?d put Chauncey Billups on the top tier now, but if so, he?s made that leap only this season. Detroit won their title with depth of talent: Second or Third Tier players at every position. That kind of team is easier to build with smart management than the Role Players Orbiting a Transcendent Star theory West seems to be clinging to. </div> Source
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting playmaker15:</div><div class="quote_post">speaking of jerry west, that guy was a good poster around here, what happened to him.</div> He'll be back, he went on vacation.
<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">“I think Hakim Warrick could be a great player if he played. Maybe I’m wrong. I didn’t coach him. I think Lawrence Roberts would rebound the ball, if he played.” </div> I don't understand this quote. He's supposed to be in charge of this organization, and yet he's letting Fratello make coaching decisions that he strongly disagrees with? That's more than a little backwards. While I agree that Roberts could have been a really effective rebounding presence off the bench, it sounds like West is just trying to blame everyone but himself. He needs to take total responsibility for the franchise. As for a coaching change, I'd love it. Fratello's statistically the franchise's best coach of all-time, but that's not exactly saying much. I don't mind Fratello's slow-down offense, but his rotations definitely have to go. Who would we bring in to replace him though? Some names I'd suggest are Doug Collins, Eric Musselman (current assistant coach), or maybe even Steve Kerr.
