Grizzlies - The Greatest Worst Assembled Team In History

Ask Gregg Popovich the secrets to the San Antonio Spurs sustained success on any given day and youre likely to get one of two answers. On most days Popovich will simply flash that condescending gaze, staring daggers into your soul until you find yourself apologizing for wasting his time with such a stupid question.

Find Popovich in a good mood, however, and he will likely admit that everything he and general manager R.C. Buford have built comes down to two important thingsluck, and not screwing things up.
Gregg Popovich.

It was luck to have landed the top pick in the right draft and selecting Tim Duncan. There was luck in finding some pieces around them, and beyond that, its been a matter of simply not screwing things up (harder than it sounds). For an example of just how difficult it can be, you can read Andrew Sharps article on Grantland today.

On Sunday, Popovich and the Spurs will square off against their polar opposites. If the San Antonio Spurs are the NBAs model franchise, the Memphis Grizzlies are the greatest worst assembled team in NBA history.

The Memphis Grizzlies are, perhaps, the luckiest team in the NBA right now, which fits perfectly into the first part of Popovichs formula to success. Its the dont screw up part that the Grizzlies astonishingly seem to ignore with almost no negative repercussions. The Memphis Grizzlies have screwed up, regularly, repeatedly, and royally.

And yet no one can deny how fun and legitimately imposing these Grizzlies are as we get ready for the Western Conference Finals.

To start with, the Grizzlies core of Mike Conley, Tony Allen, Zach Randolph, and Marc Gasol was created from a series of inexplicably horrible-to-laughable moves that, somehow, ALL MANAGED TO WORK OUT FOR THE BEST DESPITE LOGIC AND EVERYONES BELIEFS TO THE CONTRARY!!!

Even one of their earliest terrible trades, sending a pick to Detroit that would become the no. 2 overall pick in what would eventually be known as the Miami Heat draft, worked out in that it saved the Grizzlies the pain of drafting Darko Milicic.

(The Grizzlies would eventually trade Darko to the Knicks for Quentin Richardson, who they then flipped for Zach Randolph, meaning.EVEN SOMETHING AS HORRIBLE AS ACQUIRING DARKO MILIC WORKED OUT FOR THE GRIZZLIES!)

From 2008 through today the Grizzlies have made some of the more puzzling moves in the NBA, and yet every single one of them has led them here, to the Western Conference Finals.

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elcheato said:

They could use him but his salary would elevate them above the luxury tax and their owner is too cheap to even pay it for one year

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Papa Pugz said:

theyll never be superstars though.

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BwareDWare94 said:

 
Not in the traditional sense, but there will come a day when a team doesn't need an all-out dog to win a title, and it might be this year.

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bosoxlover12 said:

This team is very 04 Pistons-esque

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