Memphis Grisly

Cover your eyes Chris Wallace fans; this critique is going to burn!

Hey, no one is... covering... their eyes? Oh, there you are Chad Ford! I don't believe anything you say, though, so I'm gonna go ahead and begin.

Now let's take a look... Mike Conley Jr., good. Javaris Crittenton, nice potential. Kyle Lowry, solid. OJ Mayo, could be special. Marko Jaric, bad contract, worse game. Greg Buckner, pretty morbid.

Hang on... That can't be right... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Seriously? Five point/combo guards? (And Greg Buckner!) Damnet Chris.

Small forward... Rudy Gay. Freak. No depth, but he'll go 40 minutes a game.

Power forward... Hakim Warrick, Antoine Walker, Darrell Arthur. Can't board, can't diet, can blaze.

Center... Darko Milicic, Marc Gasol, Hamed Haddadi. Vintage Mr. Wallace. Well done.

Grizzlies fans, your team sucks. You've got a lot of potential in the backcourt and on the wings, but North Carolina has a better frontcourt; in fact, if Rudy Gay were to get hurt, it might not be hyperbole to say the Tar Heels would be superior to Memphis.

Luckily, after your team wins 15 games this season, your owner will likely cede to a fan intervention and fire Chris Wallace, and a rehab can begin.

And the next GM will have a nice framework to build on. Conley, Mayo, and Gay are a spectactular, exciting, marketable young trio. All three could be future All Stars. Cap room is plentiful, and Darko, Jaric, and Buckner all come off the cap in the next two years to boot. Plus, two more years of poor showing should position the Grizzlies near the top of the draft.

I'm optimistic that the team could see a quick turnaround and end up picking at the bottom of the draft pretty easily as soon as 2010.

For one thing, they'll have mega cap dollars to spend the next two offseasons. It's unfortunate that the Atlanta Hawks matched the offer sheet Josh Smith signed with the Grizzlies because he would have been a dynamic young addition at a position of need, and it was good value. Looking at the 2009 free agent class, the Grizzlies could offer Carlos Boozer a maximum contract and sign Lamar Odom for about $10 million per year.

Suppose Memphis ends 2009 with the worst record in the NBA, BJ Mullens pans out at Ohio State, and a hypothetitypical draft lottery occurs with Memphis ending up with the third pick in the 2009 NBA Draft (all very possible). Some mix of Crittenton, Warrick, Arthur and Darko's expiring contract combined with their pick should add up to enough to move up to number one overall (assuming they don't win it outright).

I think it's reasonable and facile to foresee a world where Memphis, just one year from now, begins the 2009-2010 season with a depth chart of:
PG: Conley, Crittenton
SG: Mayo, Lowry
SF: Gay, Grant Hill (?)
PF: Boozer, Odom
C: Mullens, Gasol

Extremely young, but dare I say a championship contender from day one? I dare.

Of course, none of the above could occur with hapless Chris Wallace at the helm. So fans, grab your pitchforks and torches en masse!

___________________________________________________________________

Realistic? Batshit crazy? Let me know what you think in the comments.