Pete Pranica

The Memphis Grizzlies held their annual open practice Monday afternoon at FedExForum. Fans filled one side of the lower bowl between the baselines and were treated to a conversation between myself and head coach Dave Jorger that touched on subjects from training camp to the addition of Jeff Bzdelik to the coaching staff to the new technologies that are being applied to the Grizzlies’ monitoring of player performance.

Once the players had properly warmed up and our conversation finished, the Grizzlies showed off their usual start of practice and stretching routine. After running a layup line to get loose, the Grizzlies did some three-man full-court weaves and then settled into 5 on 0 run throughs of their most basic sets installed during camp in San Diego. In-arena host Joey Thorsen and I chatted about the importance of committing these sets to mind and muscle memory.

The highlight of the afternoon (other than Vince Carter gleefully launching t-shirts into the audience) was a three-point shootout with eight of the 20 players currently on the roster participating. The shootout was played according to the rules of the 3-point contest during All Star Weekend: five shots from five spots with the last ball at each spot counting double.

Courtney Lee and Vince Carter finished as the top 2 shooters in the preliminary round, although Marc Gasol made a decent run at the finals. When Lee and Carter finished tied in their finals shootout, Joerger declared that the winner would be the one to first make a half court shot. Carter went first and his effort was on line, but failed to fall. In his first attempt, Lee calmly swished a 47-footer for the win.

After about an hour on the floor, the team exited by assisting the Claw Crew with airborne t-shirt distribution and headed to the practice facility to put the finishing touches on their Monday workout.

The Grizzlies host the Atlanta Hawks Friday night at 7 pm in their first home pre-season game and third overall after games in Green Bay (against the Bucks) and in Houston.

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Grizzlies host annual Open Practice

While  the Memphis Grizzlies pushed through their only practice on Day 3 of their  training camp, six gleaming F-18 jets painted in the distinctive livery of the  U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels carved up the cloudless San Diego sky.

The  precision flight team was practicing for their headliner performance in the  Miramar Air Show this weekend. As anyone who’s seen the Blues perform will tell  you, their precision is the product of discipline and leadership.

Without  leadership and a strong guiding force, a basketball team can become a  disjointed mess littered with isolation and “me-first” one-on-one play. Coaches  can only do so much as leaders. They can game-plan and yell and cajole and  motivate, but the on-court leadership within a team is every bit as important,  if not more so.

For  many teams, there is one unquestioned leader. Anyone want to dispute that Chris  Paul runs the Clippers or that Kobe Bryant is the Lakers’ alpha male? But what  of the Grizzlies?

Coach  Dave Joerger told a small gathering of reporters today that the leadership  comes from Mike Conley, Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph – three widely disparate  personalities that will somehow have to ensure that the Grizzlies locker room  remains fixed on the ultimate prize.

Conley  is soft-spoken and the least likely to kick over a garbage can in a locker room  tirade. He is, however, gracious and clear-headed and able to bridge gaps and  mend fences as needed. Gasol is the most outwardly passionate of the three, for  whom losing a pickup game requires punting the ball into the far reaches of the  court. His emotions run hot and he demands perfection of himself and his  teammates, a quality that is at once endearing and maddening, especially when he  is critical after a win. Randolph somehow vacillates between the Conley-Gasol  poles. He’s soft spoken and prefers to lead by example until he’s pushed and  then can erupt with Gasol-like intensity.

This  leadership triumvirate is unique, but according to Joerger, effective. “Because  it’s not just one guy saying something,” he said, “it’s all three of them.” The  implication is that when you have three leaders of varying styles and stripes,  their concurrence on important issues will carry the day as effectively as a  single Kobe Bryant.

That  style of leadership sounds fine in principle so long as all three remain on the  same page, which isn’t always easy. There’s the juggling of the perpetually  shifting emotions that accompany hot streaks and slumps during the marathon  season along with the unseen peripheral issues – family, friends, contract  status and the like. It doesn’t figure to be a turbulence-free journey, but the  continuity of the Mike-Marc-Zach trio is one reason for optimism in Memphis  this season.

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Pete's Perspective: Training Camp - Day 3

The Memphis Grizzlies gathered for Media Day on Monday morning inside FedExForum and, as is the custom on Media Day, there were a lot of smiles. It’s easy to smile on Media Day (and in, fact, players do a lot of smiling since their official headshots are taken at the session). Smiles abound because players are back doing what they love to do and no one has turned an ankle, suffered through a shooting slump or missed a shot with the game on the line.

In other words, if you’re not smiling on Media Day, you might want to find another profession. Quickly.

But the smiles affixed to the boys in Beale Street Blue carried more depth than the usual Media Day grins. This is a team that knows it is a very good basketball team and one that knows that its window for grabbing the national stage is open now. Look behind the smiles and you see the hard jawlines of a team that is determined to get back to the Western Conference Finals at the very least.

It’s a tall order when you consider that despite a migration of talent from Western Conference to Eastern (fare thee well, Kevin Love), the West remains absolutely, positively stacked. The Grizzlies though, aren’t concerned with what other teams have done. They’re most concerned with their own teammates and how the 2014-15 edition of the Grizzlies will fit together: What will Vince Carter bring to the table at the ripe, old (NBA-wise) age of 37? And what of Quincy Pondexter, lost for virtually all of last season? Will the talent of Michael Beasley finally cut through the clutter and rise to the surface to provide the Grizzlies with another weapon?

These are some of the compelling questions on the table. What is beyond questioning is that the Grizzlies are returning an experienced and savvy core with Mike Conley leading the way from the point. As good as Marc Gasol (one All Star selection and Defensive POY Award) and Zach Randolph (two All Star selections) are, Conley is the heart and soul of the Grizzlies. Talk to Mike and ask him how the Grizzlies will be and he’ll look you straight in the eye and tell you “we’re going to be good,” drawing out the last word for emphasis, leaving absolutely no doubt.

This is not a “we could/should/might be good if things break right” situation. Far from it.

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Pete's Perspective: 2014 Media Day

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