Saturday, February 3, 2018

J-Speaks: Grizzlies' Guard Mike Conley Out Remainder of This Season


Coming into the 2017-18 NBA season, the Memphis Grizzlies chances of returning the playoffs was very small, especially with the departures in free agency of Zach Randolph, Tony Allen, and Vince Carter. That is even with their two best players still in toe of lead guard Mike Conley and starting center Marc Gasol. Through the first 12 games of this season, the Grizzlies got off to an okay start at 7-6. However, when Conley went down with a left heel injury, the bottom fell out, and the Grizzlies season was lost. There was some hope that Conley would get healthy, and get back on the court, but after several treatment options to get his injury right, it came time for a drastic approach.
On Tuesday, the Grizzlies (18-32) and Conley agreed on season-ending surgery to repair his left heel. 
Grizzlies general manager Chris Wallace made the announcement in an e-mail last Saturday to the team’s season-ticket holders, that read, “Mike has been extremely diligent as we pursued multiple different approaches to alleviate the pain before deciding surgery was the best solution.”
Conley, who is in the second-year of a five-year $153 million deal he signed back on July 14, 2016 played in just 12 games this season, with his last appearance on Nov. 13, 2017 where he scored just seven points, going a dismal 2 for 12 from the field, and just two assists in the Grizzlies 110-103 loss at the Milwaukee Bucks (27-22). He averaged 17.1 points, and 4.1 assists in those contests, on just 38.1 percent from the field, and 31.2 percent from three-point range.
The 11-year veteran, who the Grizzlies took with the No. 4 overall pick in the 2007 draft had made some progress earlier in January in 3-on-3 scrimmages. The pain, and soreness in that heel continued to persist. 
This discomfort is something that Conley said earlier this week that he has been dealing with for years, and that it reached a point that surgery was the only option left. 
“We literally did every, single thing the last three years to alleviate the pain,” Conley told the Commercial Appeal. “I did a decent job last year, but this year seemed to be too much for me. I didn’t want to have to continue this cycle. Hopefully this is the answer.” 
Conley, according to a tweet from NBA.com’s Mike Wallace @MyMikeCheck, was as hopeful as anyone in the Grizzlies organization that he would return at some point this season, but he cautioned them that his progress was slow, saying, “Time is the only thing that can kind of heal this kind of thing.” Wallace also mentioned in that tweet that Conley said earlier in January, “And it seems like it’s taking forever.” 
In another tweet by Wallace, Conley mentioned that he had felt some discomfort in his heel in the Grizzlies’ second game of this season, where he had just 10 points, and seven assists, on just 3 for 14 from the floor, including 1 for 6 from three-point range. The former Ohio State standout spent nearly the rest of November 2017 trying to manage the soreness in his heel until he said, “it I knew I wasn’t helping the team.” 
Conley is expected to make a full recovery, and be ready for training camp, and the 2018-19 season. 
The question is what will be left of the Grizzlies when he does return next season. Other than Marc Gasol, the team is basically full of young players who are being thrown into the fire to see if they will be part of the team going forward next season, and beyond. 
That cast consists of rookie Dillon Brooks, Deyonta Davis, JaMychal Green, Jarell Martin, Ivan Rabb, Andrew Harrison, and Ben McLemore. 
One player, who has made his mark in the absence of Conley is Tyreke Evans, who has resurrected himself with a scoring average of 19.5 points, his highest since scoring 17.8 points per game in his second season with the Sacramento Kings. He is also averaging five boards, and five assists per game, while hitting 45.8 percent of his field goal attempts, equaling his average from the floor that he shot on his way to winning Rookie of the Year in 2010. 
What has allowed Evans to flourish with the Grizzlies, unlike the past 4 ½ seasons with the Pelicans, is that he is healthy playing in 46 of the team’s 50 games this season, and that has given the team a serious asset to use to acquire draft picks as the trade deadline approaches on Feb. 8. 
The other order of business the Grizzlies will need to take care of at season’s end is at head coach. Assistant coach J.B. Bickerstaff is the leader on the Grizzlies’ sidelines since they fired David Fizdale after a 98-88 loss versus the Brooklyn Nets (19-33) on Nov. 26, 2017, the team’s sixth loss in a row. 
This is on the heels of Fizdale leading the Grizzlies into the playoffs and giving the No. 2 Seeded San Antonio Spurs a tough series, that they eventually lost in six games. Conley, and Gasol had career seasons, and gave the Grizzlies a fighting chance to make their eighth straight playoff appearance in 2017-18. The injury to Conley, and Fizdale’s ouster put a serious monkey wrench into those plans, as the team has gone 11-20 under Bickerstaff’s direction. 
The reality going forward for the Grizzlies is that Conley, and Gasol because of their salaries will be hard to trade, and that their best path back to winning will be through the draft, and some of their previously mentioned players on the roster developing into role players that will make an impact and become fixtures of this team going forward.
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