Who Should the Grizzlies Drop?
Damon Stoudemire
Stoudemire is another unlucky break for the Grizzlies caught. Bringing the veteran point guard on two years ago was a good move by West. The Grizzlies looked good with Stoudemire, but one reason why West's strategy of surrounding Gasol with veterans past their prime was a bad strategy is that older players are more injury prone. Stoudemire's injury leaves him too slow to provide what the Grizzlies need. He should move on to an older team where he can provide back-up support. Stoudemire still has a couple of clutch moments in him, which is just what the top teams need.
Chucky Atkins
Atkins did a great service for the Grizzlies. He also helped himself out by demonstrating what he's capable of. Like Stoudemire, Atkins would look good on a team the needs a veteran point guard to help them in the playoffs. How about the Lakers?
Dahntay Jones
Jones has a place in the league, but he gets lost in the shuffle for the Grizz. He is a solid back-up defensive specialist. He'd look good on a team like Phoenix, but there's not room for another athletic guard on the Grizz.
Brian Cardinal
Like Stoudemire, Cardinal's Grizzly career has been hampered by injury. It's time to cut our losses. Cardinal reinforces that the Grizzlies don't need veteran role players, and Cardinal is ridiculously overpaid. It's time to move on...
7 comments:
finally a brief blog from me...
AGREED!
I haven't heard anything from you on the hiring Christopher Wallace. Are we really going to improve by bringing in the GM from a team that has been making bad decision after bad decision? I am also suprised you left stro show of the to drop list. He epitomizes what the grizz used to be, overpayed, unproductive and indifferent to losing.
You'll see in part three that I'm on the fence about Stro. I still think he's a serviceable back-up vet at the 4 & 5 position. And he's not actually paid all that much: ~$5 million for a seven year player.
I'd like him to play more games than the past two seasons, but you'll see in part three that I'm on the fence.
As for Wallace, I hven't had much time to reflect while on vacation.
I think the argument of a #2 worst GM moving to the #1 worst team doesn't hold much water. What were these bad decisions he made? I've heard the story about Joe Johnson. I'm not saying he's the best choice or that he will do a good job. But I have no reason to think that he won't do a good job.
David, read this article from Bill Simmons. He's a huge Celtics fan and knows first hand how bad Wallace screwed the Celtics. Word or warning, he hates the Grizz...
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/070620
Sonny Vaccaro, who may be biased about Wallace, gave him a full endorsement on the Chris Vernon show the other day. And contrary to what Simmons had to say, Vaccaro swore that Wallace wanted to choose Parker, but Red Auerbach wanted to choose Forte instead because of his friendship with Dean Smith. If you go back and look at Simmons' articles prior to this last one, has he ever mentioned Wallace before? Simmons' blame has always been on Ainge and Rivers. It seems like Wallace was just a lame duck there, with Red and later Ainge pulling the strings.
but you have to admit the simmons article was pretty hilarious all around.
Again, I don't think drafting Joe Forte over Tony Parker makes him a bad NBA executive. Statements like that ma attract more readers to your blog, but Tony Parker was the last pick in the first round.
This logic bascally states that if a team picks a player who's not as good as another player selected after him, the executive management for that team is poor.
By this logic we can also deduce that Greg Popovick is terrible NBA excutive for selecting Tony Parker over Gilbert Arenas.
If you look at that draft class, you'll see that many great players were taken later than many duds. Notably, Kwame Brown was taken first. Taking Forte turned out to be a bad move. Wallace may in fact be a bad executive, but you can't judge how well he'll do in Memphis, working in collaboration with Iavaroni, based on a few of his questionable moves in Boston.
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