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Hello, I'm just recollecting on the mid-to-early 2000's NBA era, and one of the teams that has intrigued me is the Memphis Grizzlies. I'd like to acquire a deeper understanding of the Memphis era when Gasol was there, and past the hyperbole of "Gasol was playing with scrubs" or "Gasol with his own team 0---" etc. The Memphis Grizzlies won 50 games in '04, and finished sixth in the Western Conference, in '05 won 45 games and finished 8th, '06 with 49 wins and a 5th place finish.

From what I watched of the team those days, they seemed like a decent squad, a competitive team, fun to watch. I've read excerpts, game logs, profiles of prospects at the time, and it seemed like that team had depth, and capable players. Not saying or implying that Pau's situation was like LeBron's in Cleveland, but it seems like there's a lil' bit of revisionist history, as far as Gasol not winning a single playoff game as a leader- as to imply that he had a good enough team to win a game (like it really would've mattered, 'cause then it'd be he couldn't make it past the first round, etc). And even the revisionist history that Gasol had no help there, which objectively disagrees with the regular season success during that time.

So my question is, what made this team so successful during those two years/three seasons? Gasol obviously wasn't winning all of those games by himself, so who were the good, or decent players that Pau had there? How much of it was coaching, and what were the issues? Was it rotations, lack of defense, lack of offense, communication, what? Was this team just defensively challenged, or was it offense? And what caused this team's lack of playoff success? The teams Memphis played were GREAT no doubt, and I know the RS is different from the PS, but this team was a good contender, especially bein' a playoff team in the WC.

And what had caused this team to drop to the Western Conference those several years before Randolph's arrival, and Gasol's growth? How much of it was Pau's leadership, among several other factors? (coaching, talent, etc.) Excuse my ignorance if this thread's been done before, I'm just trying to gain a proper perspective of things during this time, and acquire some understanding of Pau's situation. I've always liked Gasol, and I'm not tryna absolve or place blame, just curious. Thanks in advance for any feedback

Let me give you my take on it. We never had a great PG or a great Center in those playoff years. Damon Stoudamire came too late and then when he went down with the eventually career ending knee injury that was really the end of the Pau era, in my mind, in Memphis. That combined with Gasol's broken foot at the 2006 FIBA tournament. That was the swan song.

sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=2576375‎

Sep 6, 2006 - Pau Gasol will have surgery Friday to repair a broken bone in his left foot. ... his left foot last week while playing for Spain during the FIBA world ...

Jason Williams went on to win a Championship with James Posey and the Miami Heat but we know he was just a role role role player with 3 other hall of famers: Mourning, Shaq, Dwade. The Grizzlies had the glue guys, the character guys, the defensive guys, and they had their "star", Pau Gasol but woudln't any NBA student admit that Gasol is at best a second banana on a championship team but despite the Allstar appearances he is really just a "STAR" and not clearly the unanimous ALL NBA power forward even at his peak. In truth he took us as far as he could with a team that was in a small market that couldn't sustain going over the cap for long periods of time and never attracts premeire free agents in the history of the franchise.

The things that made us successful were about team offense, team defense, and a great combination of team players. In that in that era of the NBA that feature "me first" players like TMAC, Allen Iverson, Baron Davis, Steve Francis, Stephon Marbury, Latrell Sprewell, and other wannabees like Al Harrington, MIke Bibby, Zach Randolph (yes he was a me-first guy back then obviously), etc etc. Those Grizzlies were the polar opposite of that. They played a deep rotation and they were fundamentally sound with role players like Brevin Knight, Dhantay Jones, Earl Watson, Brian Cardinal (when he was good), Mike MIller - etc. It won Hubie Brown coach of the year and MIller 6th man of the year. It also got respect around the league for Pau and Kevin Garnett once called him the best power forward in the game ( this was when he was in Minnesota and legitimately the #1 player in the league so it was high praise).

Look how many players from that era on the Grizzlies have championships: Shane Battier (2), Mike Mller (2), James Posey (2), Jason Williams, Brian Cardinal, Pau Gasol (2). Pretty good.

Now the question I return to is why we never got over the hump? Well like I said it's tough when the only free agents you can get are (undeveloped) James Posey, Brian Cardinal, Damon Stoudamire (too late), Bobby Jackson, Bo Outlaw, and Chucky Atkins. Despite that we made some incredible trades those years with Jerry West GM wheeling and dealing. he really did pull off some great moves those years: trading Shareef Adbul Raheem for Pau Gasol + Lorenzen Wright + Brevin Knight, Drew Gooden and Gordon Giricek for Mike Miller, Wesley Person for Bonzi wells, trade for Jason Williams. Miraculous considering how abysmal our draft history has always been. the Gasol trade we made originally should be listed as one of the most one-sided trades in history. Atlanta never really recovered from that one. We ended up with 3 rookie of the years and so recall it was a young unit growing up and they got bounced easily from the veteran teams they faced against SAN Antonio, Phoenix, and Dallas. Spurs were multiple Champions. Dallas featured an unstoppable Dirk Nowitzki and we had no one on the gym that could compete with 2006 Dirk.

Oh and to return to my first point - yes we had a decent PG in JWILL and Earl, Bobby J, Brevin Knight (actually he was not on the team during playoff run), but we didn't have a "bad ass" like the other big playoff teams of that year and Jason Williams was a wild thing back then and he made bad decisions and was trigger happy, called his own number, hence the trade to Miami for Eddie Jones. And at Center we had a guy that's really a college center at 6'10" and you never saw him play quality minutes for any other team after Memphis. He's a guy fans all love but I tell you he was a weakness. He played adequate D and rebounding but provided zero on the offensive end. Just keep out of the way of Pau. At the time Shaq / Duncan / Ming were dominating. I think it was our achilles heel and we never had a completely competitive roster at all 5 positions in those years like we do now with BIG SPAIN and Mike Conley running the show. It's funny / sad ironic that Lorenzen Wright would actually be a more ideal 5 these days than when he was playing here. That was always my critique back then for why we didn't win and then those guys were blown up for Eddie Jones and Damon Stoudamire and we know they were has-beens and Jones certainly came up short of expectations...

The Grizzlies were a good team, not unlike last year's nuggets. They were built for success in the regular season, but not necessarily post-season success.

They played a deep rotation. The first two playoff years the roster was something like:

PG Jason Williams / Earl Watson
SG Mike Miller / Bonzi Wells
SF James Posey / Shane Battier
PF Pau Gasol / Bo Outlaw
C Lorenzen Wright / Stromile Swift

Everyone played 18+ minutes and I think only Pau Gasol played more than 30mpg on a regular basis. This is a recipe to grind out a lot of wins in the regular season when fatigue plays a significant role. Most teams coast in the regular season, they give up transition buckets, offensive rebounds, etc. A young, hungry, deep team like the Grizz had routinely won those battles, which tipped the scales most nights. But that stuff goes away in the playoffs, when everyone is fresh and focused.

Another factor is that we manufactured offense out of some unskilled players mostly by exploiting the other team's lack of thorough scouting. I remember in '04 post all-star break I think James Posey averaged like 17ppg. He did this with jumpshooting but also with post-scoring - an area in which he only had one move (baseline spin). But it became apparent that well coached teams would disrupt this kind of stuff easily... I recall Ginobili forcing Posey out of bounds the very first time he tried that baseline spin move, and Posey was basically a non-factor afterwards.

The Grizzlies also ran an offense that, at the time, was a little more sophisticated than most teams (although would be simplistic by today's standards). They used a lot of motion to free up Miller for spot ups or Pau and Bonzi for post ups. They were good at moving the ball to open shooters when teams tried to scramble. But again, everything gets tighter in the playoffs. I recall a ton of plays where guys would get open just a sliver but did not feel comfortable because of how fast defenses were closing.

They played a defense that was predicated on applying a lot of pressure on the perimeter. They had a lot of very mobile big men, and they would show a hard hedge on every screen. Again, that worked against most teams back then, but when you face big time p&r PG's or great pick-and-pop big men, that strategy can be exploited. And unfortunately for those Grizzlies, that was all they ever faced (Parker, Nash, Nowitzki).

In the end, they just didn't have enough difference-makers. Pau Gasol was basically the only thing they had. It showed in the playoffs, where guys like Mike Miller, J-Will, James Posey, and Bonzi Wells routinely had disappearing acts, and Pau Gasol was left trying to carry the whole team. Pau actually had some pretty decent performances, but it was overshadowed by lopsided scoreboards and crippling home losses.

yeah like they say on NBA on TNT, "too many Tito's and not enough Michael's". Pau was a great Tito Jackson but no Michael.

I'd also add that I thought Pau was an elite PF when we had him, but he was kind of a strange player as far as skills and mindset. He was one of those guys who had to be in the right situation. I always thought if he played next to a dominant defensive C with a good jumpshot, and a good pick-and-roll PG, he'd be at his very best. Strange to think it, but he'd probably do well if he returned to the Grizzlies even though he's not as good as he once was.

As a Houston fan who's liked the Grizz since they moved to Memphis, I'd say the problem was simple.
They had a meh PG rotation and a TERRIBLE center rotation.

Stromile Swift was among both the biggest busts at #2 (hi, Darko) and among the dumbest players to ever lace up.
Jason Williams was skilled, but inefficient, and there wasn't enough outside shooting.

It's a shame, because Battier/Posey was a phenomenal defensive combo, and Miller was of course pretty awesome.

For Gasol, you undercredit him too much. IMO, he was easily a top dog on a great team. So what if he only scored <20ppg normally? Not to compare him with Russell, but how often was Bill the leading scorer on the Celts, yet you NEVER hear about "Sam Jones' Celtics". On the recent Lakers championships, I think he was easily the most important player on the team (Bynum in spurts). Bryant, as with Shaq, was the second banana - who just happened to take a LOT more [bad] shots.

At the end of the day, the simple story is that no team is cracking 55 with a PG and C rotation like that.

This has been a "I'm really bored and skimming other forums waiting for the season to start" moment .

Yeh, Gasol was awesome. He had a bunch of trash outside of the wing players in 2006, and they still played great in a deep conference.

Well I hear you but then how do you explain Pau never winning a playoff game in Memphis and the Lakers immense struggles when Kobe is out? He has not really shouldered the load himself for a very long time and not in the post-season (by himself). I think the Lakers are ridiculous anyways but it's always been a great situation for him. He didn't even make the allstar team last year though.

I see no evidence prime Pau failed to help the Lakers win, if you're going off advanced stats he actually does really well there- on win shares, etc.

Pau was unfortunate to play in an era where the playoff seeding system had not been fixed yet, so his team got jobbed with ridiculously tough match ups, where Pau's support cast was woefully overwhelmed.

vanjulio wrote:Well I hear you but then how do you explain Pau never winning a playoff game in Memphis

Winning is a team function and his teams were primarily good through depth. Your 1-4 slots win most games in the playoffs.

vanjulio wrote:and the Lakers immense struggles when Kobe is out?

VORP + age

vanjulio wrote:He didn't even make the allstar team last year though.

Neither did Faried, Chandler, and Dirk and Aldridge made it in terrible years. All star contests are almost strictly about popularity and/or ppg.

I would refer you back to the number of NBA Championships those support cast members have won since those years. I guess I see your point though - we were good because we were solid on the depth and not necessarily could send 5 bad asses out there to play 35+ mpg each night in the playoffs to compete with the likes of Steve Nash, Marion / Dirk, JET, Stackhouse, Duncan / Manu / Parker / Bruce Bowen etc. Pau I believe was still one of the best players on the floor but then 3 or 4 of the worst 5 of on the court at a time were wearing Grizzlies jerseys in all those playoff games.

We had arguably one of the best "teams" in the league so I would think "winning is a team function' would translate to at least a playoff win or 2 but they all disappeared and Pau then took much of the criticism from fans and local media. He disappeared too.

Your 1-4 slots win most games and almost always win the series but it is pretty RARE to get swept from a playoff series. Something that is a curse to memphis as we just witnessed it again in the WCF for many of us in person and with the greatest amount of disappointment since the 2008 NCAA Men's Basketball tournament.

Pau was the only guy who ever threatened opposing defenses. We got most of our offense from hustle, effort, and good outside shooting. But we weren't a dominant defensive team so its hard to beat top teams like that. Besides, lets not forget how good the opposition was in the playoffs: the spurs, suns, and mavs were all elite, experienced teams.

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Those teams were full of good, but not great players that won alot of regular season games with depth - a strategy that didn't translate to the playoffs.

Also, don't forget that Fratello lost control of the team midway through the 06 (or was it 05? I can't remember) playoffs - Bonzi Wells got banned from the team and then a few knuckleheads like Jwill and Stro(??) put Bonzi's number on their sweatbands during the latter games to show support for Bonzi.

The team needed a superstar and needed to make a move to get that superstar. This was Hubieball-- the dreaded (for players)10 man rotation.

It was systematic yet too rigid for the NBA. It worked in the regular season but easy to read/counter in the playoffs.

It did not help that then, "Princess" Pau was that: a princess inside the hardwood. He was never a real NBA superstar as he folded in the big games and more importantly, was never a leader.

Personally, this was the best time being a Jason Williams fan as i met a lot of Grizz fans online (over at grizz.com) even though there were lots of small rifts with the respective player fan-bases

Too bad i don't follow the Grizz as much anymore but i want to thank Memphis for trading JWill to the right team: thanks for the ring