Memphis Live

Rob Babcock checks in from Memphis with a team update, to share that Randy Foye and Sebastian Telfair won't play due to minor injuries and more.

From Buckingham Palace to Graceland. From Picadilly Circus and the Beatles to Beale Street and BB King. From The Thames River to the Mississippi River. From shepard's pie to gumbo. We are back from Europe and ready to continue our exhibition games with the Memphis Grizzlies.

Our trip to Europe was a great experience for everyone. We had the opportunity to spend significant time in two of the greatest cities in the world. We met a lot of good people, learned a lot of history and culture and most importantly got off to a good start with our young team. Our veteran players have really stepped up and shown some leadership and our young players are extremely competitive and though they have much to learn, they are displaying a "never give up" attitude and this is crucial to the success our team.

Going into this season, I had real hope for the future of this team and our trip to Europe only reinforced my feelings. We are very young and because of that we will look lost at times, but these guys work hard and are team players and they will steadily improve. Our coaches are very well prepared and we have very coachable players, so barring injury, there is no way that we won't improve as the season progresses.

Tonight will be a challenge for our team in that two of our point guards (Randy Foye and Sebastian Telfair) are out with minor injuries. That leaves Marko Jaric as the only point guard. This also gives us an opportunity to see who else on our team can step up and fill the "point guard" role in an emergency.

Exhibition games are about developing your team and evaluating your players and the games this week will give us a good look at what our players can and can't do. Coach Wittman can try different things during exhibition games to see if they will work with our team. Some of them will work and some won't. It's better to find out now what won't work with your team (rather than during the regular season when wins and losses count).

I am looking forward to seeing the Grizzlies with their new coach and new players. Marc Iavaroni is a bright young coach and this is his first opportunity as a head coach. It will be interesting to see what philosophies he will instill with his team. They have three key new players on their team, Mike Conley, the star point guard drafted out of Ohio State, Darko Milicic, who they signed as a free agent from Orlando and Juan Carlos Navarro, another free agent who last played professionally in Spain. Conley is a classic point guard who has great speed and can really run the fast break and should fit well with Coach Iavaroni. Milicic is a center who has tremendous potential and is still only 22-years old. Navarro plays both guard spots and was a key factor on Spain's World Championship team in 2006.

I've talked over the last week about many of our staff members and I would like to finish today by mentioning Mike "Porkchop" Lindahl, our video coordinator. Mike is responsible for preparing all game tape for the coaching staff. We still call it tape, but all we use now is DVD's. Mike will prepare edits on the opponent's offense, defense, special situations and players. He also is our "IT" man on the road. We are all ex-jocks, so you can imagine the problems that come up when you give us laptops. You may be wondering how Mike got his nickname. All I will say is this, Memphis is not a place to let a guy loose with the nickname "Porkchop". There is a great BBQ place on every corner. Mike does a great job and is a crucial part of our game preparation.

Our schedule this week takes us from Memphis tonight to Atlanta tomorrow. We are then at Indiana on Friday and Milwaukee on Saturday. One week from now we will know a whole lot more about our team than we do right now.