Note: Casey's blog is under development and will begin very soon. Until then, here's his first post from Málaga, Spain.
October 5, 2007
I’d like to welcome everybody to the first chapter of my player blog this year on grizzlies.com. For those of you who don’t know who I am (and I’m sure there are many who don’t), my name is Casey Jacobsen. This will be my 4th year in the NBA, though I haven’t played in the NBA since the 2004-05 season.
I was born and raised in Los Angeles, California and spent my college years at Stanford University. I was drafted in 2002 by the Phoenix Suns where I played there for close to 3 seasons before being traded to the New Orleans Hornets where I finished out the 2005 season. After 2 seasons in Europe (Spain in 2005-06, Germany in 2006-07), I find myself here in Memphis ready to resume my NBA career. I am looking forward to this year both on and off the court.
I will be updating this blog weekly, so look for that. My journalism skills leave much to be desired, but I will do my best to entertain you all. Please excuse my grammatical errors, also (though I will be submitting these entries to someone smarter than I before you read the “final cut”).
Today, I am writing from Málaga, Spain where we are now conducting the second part of our training camp. The Memphis Grizzlies are one of four teams (Boston, Toronto, and Minnesota) in the NBA that are participating in “NBA Europe Live” in an effort to spread the NBA worldwide. We will play two of our preseason games against two teams from the Spanish League, Unicaja and Estudiantes. We will spend 9 days out here trying to improve our basketball team, eat some good food, and for the single guys… meet some chicas bonitas! (I’ll update you guys on that last one later in the week).
I think coming to Spain will be a blessing to this team. We have a lot of new players, an entirely new coaching staff, and GM. Being in an environment where all we have to do is play ball and hang out with one another will only expedite the cohesiveness (didn’t think I knew those big words, did you?) of our team. We have a great mixture of young and veteran players (note: “veteran” is the accepted term in the NBA for “old”… just ask Damon Stoudamire).
I believe the keys to our success this year will be:
- Remaining injury free (see history of 2006-07 Memphis Grizzlies)
- Playing unselfish basketball
- Playing HARD every night, especially on DEFENSE (Memphis was 2nd to last in points allowed in 2007)
- Give Casey Jacobsen the ball as much as possible!!!! (a guy can dream, can’t he?)
All of these things I’ve listed are simple things. Stanford Engineers didn’t invent them, but these basketball principles can be difficult to maintain over an 82-game season against the likes of the San Antonio Spurs, Phoenix Suns, Boston Celtics, and the Dallas Mavericks. However, I have always been a positive thinker and I think we can do it.
Not a lot of people/media share these same sentiments, however, and we are not picked to be a playoff team by anyone. (source: see ANY legitimate basketball magazine/newspaper). That’s OK with our team. We don’t mind being under the radar right now. As long as we have our fans in Memphis supporting us, that’s all that we need. Was that too corny? If it was… I apologize. I'm just excited about the season sometimes and I can’t control myself!
We will continue to work hard out here in Spain and enjoy the process of becoming a team. This is my 6th year of playing professional basketball. I have been on all kinds of different teams: teams that won a lot of games and teams who couldn’t win even when we played well, underrated teams and overrated teams, teams with great chemistry and teams who couldn’t stand to look at each other, teams who played unselfishly and teams who only looked out for themselves…. What have I learned from all this? I’m not exactly sure, but I do know that it is a lot more fun to be on a team that wins a lot of games!
Basketball is funny to me because it is a simple game, but because it is a team game it requires a unified commitment from all of the players/coaches/staff to make it successful. Even one guy who has a bad attitude can ruin a would-be successful group. I believe that every guy on our roster wants to win this season. I know what you all are thinking, “It takes more than wanting to win to actually do it.” We understand that, but wanting to win is our first positive step this year. We are working hard in practice to do the right things that mirror our desire. From what I’ve seen from my teammates in practice, I believe we will win a lot of games this year. And very soon… we’ll see if I’m right.
Hasta luego,
Casey J.