Lingering Grizzlies Questions following Summer League | Gary Parrish Show

Lingering Grizzlies Questions following Summer League | Gary Parrish Show

Sounds kind of Are we in 1996? I mean, yeah. It’s got that Only Bill for Cuban Links feel to it. Like, it’s good. A bunch of the Wuang guys are on it. Like, it’s great. All right. Um, but yeah, let’s talk about NBA summer league. It’s over finally. We don’t have to sit here and do the pregame, halftime, postgame shows anymore. The Charlotte Hornets won their first title in franchise history. They’ve never won a They’ve never won a mid-season tournament. They’ve never won anything. They finally won something. They won. They won something. Congratulations on the back of uh Khan Canipple. Maybe Khan Canipple can finally make LaMelo Ball a winner. Perhaps if he can’t do it, who can who can? Yeah, I don’t know. We’ll see. They But anyway, they they’ve got the Hornets won the thing. The Grizzlies. We saw them play a bunch of games. They won that last game that we didn’t televise uh against the Clippers. They won that one going away. Um but we saw, I thought, some positive things in general from the Grizzlies. What to you was the most positive uh thing you saw uh coming out of summer league for the Grizzlies? Well, it’s easy. It’s it’s Mhack. Um and I think there’s a real like they’ve had this two-way spot open. Yeah. Like they waved Zion Pulling and signed PJ Hall to that. So they’ve always once they signed Javon, they signed Javon Small to a two-way. So they had Javon Small, Zion Pulling, and then a two-way open because they converted Cam Spencer. So they waved Zion Poland. They signed PJ Hall to the two-way. So that third two-way there is still open. Yeah. If they were just going to put Jamai Mach on that two-way, they should have they would have done it. They would have just done that. Now, it doesn’t mean that he won’t end up on that two-way, but like they could just they could have just done that at the same time they did Javon. I think they’re having a real discussion if they’re going to put him on the main roster, which means somebody would have to come off the main roster, which means there’s a trade you would have to make. And there are things you can do. Yeah. Um you can do two for one. Um and stuff like I know there’s a you can trade if you just say you combine John Kar and Vince Williams Jr. you can bring back up to $15 million in salary. You can bring double plus like $250 grand. So it it comes out to like $15 million worth of salary. I’m not saying they’re going to just saying that’s something they can do. So the one thing is if if they do do that and let’s say they move a couple guys who are, you know, four year veteran, threeear veteran types, contents, whatever, it feels a little bit like you’re doubling down on the youth thing that we saw a couple years ago. I don’t know cuz Vince is young, too. So I mean it’s really like Yeah. I mean, it’s been around though a couple years. Kchar is the one who’s like an older player and you and he’s been he’s a spot. know what you get from you know what you’re getting from rebounds can can give you other things. Yeah. Yeah. No, you know you know what you’re getting from Kchar. But Vince I mean you know Vince hasn’t really done anything here. Um he had played one he had a good gear that gear that everybody was hurt two years ago. Team sucked the same year GG was good for everybody which if you go back and look at numbers. What do you think of GG’s performance in summerly? Um I think the best is that he affected winning. You look at his plus minus and he was always he typically was a positive. Yeah. In there which told me okay the the depth on the summer league team is the issue. It’s not these guys cuz they win when these guys are on the court but you’re not going to play them for 35 40 minutes you know for the full summer league game. So but I think the good thing was that they won when those guys were out there um on the court. It’s going to look summer league is just waiting for the regular season. Like it’s going to come down. Can GG like in the summer league GG got to take the most shots. Like dude, you are not going to get to take the most shots with John Jiren out there. Yeah. And you’re probably not even going to get to take the third most shots or the fourth most shots. Can you take seven shots and affect winning? Like can you do that? You’re going to have to play a role. I forgot which game was but he led the team in assist. You know, he had like the one the game where he was sick where he’s coming off the illness the first game back from the illness game. GG’s Vegas flu game. I was the Hawks or who who they played. Yeah, it was the Hawks. Yeah, he had the other game where he got the block shot, ran down the court. You know the that was one of the first games cuz that OKC or Philly OKC or Philly Philly I think it was cuz it was in I think it was the first Utah was it in Utah. It was so we played OKC Utah then Philly in summer league and that in that or in the Utah summer league and Philly we didn’t play anybody that final game. It was the second night of the back toback. Yeah. Gigi was able to do do things and help out. Uh, I like seeing Gigi like go to the rim. Like we, you know, I think for Gigi, it’s always the easiest thing to do for any player is to stand there and fire up three-pointers. Yeah. But we saw him a lot driving to the basket, getting getting fouls, going to the free throw line, all that stuff. If he can play like that, I think he can find a spot. You’re talking about can he, you know, score a lot of points. I mean, he’s probably not going to be on the floor when Jon and Jiren are out there that much, right? Like I think in a perfect world, you bring him off the bench and he’s in a lineup with Santi and whoever else ends up kind of on that second team. Uh and maybe that’s maybe that’s where you know Gigi can be one of your main scorers. Yeah. But I think if he wants to be in that first five guys like he’s got to figure out what he can do to stay on the floor. Okay. Well, let’s just let’s just take this real quick. Let’s let’s let’s go ahead and let’s rank guys on this team. Um let’s to where where does GG fall in this pecking order? You have Jaw, you have Jiren. Who do we go after that? When you’re talking scoring, shooting the ball. Uh, Santi. Yeah, maybe Santi. That’s my Santi. Santi can Dude, look, I’ve been I’ve been hard on Santi. Dude, Santi can average 15. What did Santi average last year? No, when we were rolling when we were rolling the first half of last season, like people like he was mentioned as potential six man of the year. He can fill it up. Yes. Yes. Like I’ Yeah. Like I’ve given Santi crap like Santi that is a real hit in the NBA draft. Santi has been really good yet is a rotation eightman rotation. I love him being three in the pecking order. I don’t know about that but but right now I don’t know how you can sh Tai Jerome. That’s what I was going to say. I mean there’s no way. I mean you got to see it like it’s not like well Edy would be in here but he’s obviously gonna be I still wouldn’t put him ahead of those guys as far as like scoring. Well, you got to feed Edy the ball. You have to. I like Dude, that’s just been Ed’s Scotty Pippen Jr. Who would you say is fourth? Scotty, I would say you would say Scotty over Todd Jerome or KCP. Definitely over KCP. Brandon Clark. No. No way. Brandon don’t take enough shots. He Yeah, Scotty’s going to get the shots. I have thought about this with Brandon, though. Brandon makes $12.5 million a year and it has been like that’s a good contract to like trade, but Brandon’s had two injuries now in Achilles and another knee injury now. Brandon is way more valuable to us than he is to other teams. And when his contract is up in two years, dude, he is not getting 12 a.5 million again. We’re probably going to be able to get him for a big big discount. He’s especially valuable with with Edy being out too, right? Value and he’s great with Jiren and their best friends and their best friends. Okay. So, Jar and Santi, who is fourth? I’ll say Scotty just because he’s You say SPJ. We’re trying to find out where GG ranks. I’m gonna go Tai Jerome. Who? You. Okay. So, SPJ, I think that’s four or five. Either way, that’s four, five. Okay. So, we’re at five guys now before we have GG. Do you put Jaylen ahead of Gigi? I just think you have to because you know Jaylen’s getting the minutes, right? We don’t know. And also Jaylen affects the game defensively more than GG does, right? KCP is gonna play more than GG. Yes. Yeah. All right. And then Edy whenever he’s back, he’s going to play more than GG. I mean, we’ll see with Cedric Coward, right? Like, we don’t know. Yeah, Coward’s the question. Who plays more? Coward or GG? Coward because they spent they moved up to get him in the draft. Like, they’re investing. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 eight. We’re at nine guys right now. So, what you’re telling me is we’re not really depending on GG that much this year. Yeah, that’s what you’re telling me. Yeah, but see, I don’t like But the thing is is I like that nine that we just listed. I don’t like that. Like I don’t I don’t want it to be like that. No, like I want GI to be in like the top four, right? Like that’s that’s what I hope. I think in a perfect world he would be, but he has not gotten there yet. And we I mean we saw in summer league flashes of that, right? We saw the moments where you’re like, “Oh, wow. This this this is awesome. Can he do? And now it’s just about being sustainable cuz he’s maybe look he’s going to have his chance in training camp because I look Jaylen Wells I know like he did not shoot the ball well at all in summer league. He had the first game and then after that dude he did not shoot he shot like 36% 35 36% from the field in summer league and 35% from three which is exactly what he shot last year. And I tweeted that out and I was like yo the small forward job is going to be wide open in training camp. And so I got push back from people. Like I’m not saying Jaylen’s not going to be the starting small forward. I’m just saying it ain’t a given because guess what? We would have gone in last year. We never would have thought last year totally that going into the season Jaylen Wells was going to be the starting small forward for the team and he won that job in training camp as a second round pick. So why couldn’t Cedric Coward or GG win that job in training camp? They absolutely could. Michael Cole put it out a couple weeks ago that he thinks that they want Jaylen to be the starting two because think about it like what was one of the reasons that you moved on from Desmond Bane? Obviously, you had a money issue, right? But this like was Jaw and Dez ever going to be a championship caliber backcourt because of their size, right? They’re both smaller and and put we’ve seen like defenders. Yeah. It’s not like it’s not like one of them’s Caruso or Drew Holiday back there and Jaylen is a big too. So it in theory makes sense. Um now same thing with uh with uh KCP, right? Make the same argu starting two, right? Yeah, I would think so. I mean, whatever. Probably interchangeable those two guys are. I mean, do you think Ty Drum definitely is coming off the bench? Is he Is he a candidate for the two? I think he’s I Man, you go see. Yeah. You start thinking about it and you’re like, well, I don’t know. How tall is Ty Jerome? 65. Six. I think that’s cap. Yeah, he’s probably six. They list him at 6’5. I don’t buy it. I’ve seen him. He don’t look 6’5. They list that’s that’s listing Desmond Bane at 6’5. Desmond Bane was not 6’5. Right. If you stretch him out the arms, you stretch him out. Well, we decompress. We taking them to uh Memphis Spine and Sport down the street. They’ve got one of those machines that’ll like slowly decompresses your spine. The rack they used in the medieval times. Dude, that thing is awesome machine. If you’ve never had your spine decompressed, I do think this is an interesting case study that you’re doing here because in theory, thank you for calling it a case study. Yes. Uh well because in theory like this is going to be the best opportunity GG’s ever had, right? I mean we listed that off and it’s he’s also healthy and he’s also healthy, right? Coming in last year, he missed, you know, all of a sudden he’s not able to be part of training camp and he has to like catch up when he gets healthy in December. So yeah, if he’s not able to grab a a big role with this team this year, it won’t be for lack of opportunity. He’s going to have the opportunity. And I also don’t think that that means say he doesn’t say GI doesn’t have a good let’s just say he doesn’t have a good year. Say it’s similar to what happened this past year or maybe it’s a little bit better but it’s not you know I don’t think that means you move on from him either like he’s like really young and on a cheap contract. Still the youngest guy on our summer team really young. Yes. He was the youngest freaking guy on our summer league team and it’s his third year in the league. Like that’s crazy how young he is. doesn’t mean that you give up on him. Like some of these guys they’re going to take, you’re not going to really see what they are until they’re 25 years old, you know? Yeah, it it 24 years old like it may take time with him. Um but no, I just thought that was interesting. Like we talking about GG and we were obviously impressed with what he did in summer league, but then you start going through the roster and it’s well I mean how much are you really going to rely on him? Well, I mean like so like hopefully right this team’s only going to go as far as Jiren and Jaw take us. Jaw really. I mean Jiren’s been dependable. Jiren has been and he’s going to miss obviously maybe the first two weeks of the season it seems like. But like he missed the first two games of the season last year. Um and then made every other game until he sprained his made every game until he sprained his ankle like towards you know the end of the season. But like Jiren has been you know what you hope with Jaws which what happened with Jiren? Jiren’s first like two, three years in this league were injury riddled like and he had the knack of Jiren Jackson Jr. is an injury-prone player. Yeah. You know, it was Jiren doesn’t rebound and he gets hurt. Well, fast forward now like five years later after that it’s well, he’s not injuryprone anymore. Still doesn’t rebound, but but he’s not injuryprone anymore. And you hope that all this stuff passes Jaw and that the injury stuff is over with him and that you get stronger, you get more stronger, you get older, you get Steph Curry used to be injuryprone, right? Steph Curry that’s why the Warriors had Curry on like a fouryear $44 million deal and they were able to end up getting Kevin Durant when the cap spiked cuz Curry was on that deal because he had ankle problems. Yeah. Leading up to uh that entire contract that he signed. So, um, if Jaw can play 65 games, dude, this team’s going to win games. Him and Jar out there like they’re going circling back to me. They still get to play the East. My my take away on, you know, I mean, it’s just true. They still get to play the East. And the one thing this team was last year, dude, they were good against bad teams, which told you they played hard. They didn’t slip up against crappy teams. They were really bad against good teams. They were really, really bad against good teams. The thing about Mhach, my last takeaway on this is is just, and we talked about this coming out of the finals, watching the Pacers and the Thunder, all these guys who were wing guys who, you know, knock down threes, play defense, like I think Mhack, that’s that’s his ceiling, right? Is a Lud Door type player. Okay. So, maybe even better offensively. So I so I thought I I was thinking something similar too when I first saw Mhack play cuz you know there’s the Tony Allen comps but it’s like bro Tony Allen was Big 12 player of the year like that’s the level of player Tony Allen was TA was in college like he was not just a role guy in college won Big 12 player of the year. Tony will point out he averaged 20 a game in college. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right. Tony loves pointing that out. And he’ll put some barbecue sauce on it too. put a little extra barbecue sauce on it. But so I thought the Lou Dort thing too, dude. Lou Dort averaged like 17 a game at Arizona State and was awesome. So it’s like Matak wasn’t that at Tennessee. But what about Caruso? Yes. I like the Caruso thing because dude, I saw what was what did Caruso to me Caruso and Dort are sort of interchangeable and when you think about the Thunder, right? They’re both these guys who they play the wing, they play hard defense, they shoot threes, whatever SGA kind of has left over and kicks out. Okay, it’s Caruso. Caruso averaged the most Caruso ever averaged in college was 9.1 points per game. His his junior year at Texas A&M. I remember seeing him with the South Bay Lakers in the GLeague and I was like, who the hell is this guy? Like he and he was on a two-way and it was like I I don’t he just looks like a guy. But one thing I’ve learned about the Gly when you look at these guys, you have to look at you can see these guys that can score the ball. Like there’s a guy we just played for the Clippers, Jordan Miller. And I said this on Chris’s show. I was like that we’re going to play the Clippers. I said, “Watch Jordan Miller. This guy can score the ball. Not a great shooter, but he can score the ball.” But like the Clippers don’t need Jordan Miller to score the ball. Like they got guys that can score. They got James Harden. They got Kawhi Leonard. Like they had Norman P. But they they’ve got guys who can score the ball. um like you need how who are these guys in the G- League that can fill roles. That’s what I have learned. Who can play role players and that’s what Alex Caruso, you know, ended up totally becoming um on that Lakers title team. Um and yeah, like I I think May Shack could absolutely Yeah, it’s early though. We’ll see.

Summer League is over, but questions remain around the Memphis Grizzlies. What do they do with the open 2-way spot? Can GG Jackson take the next step this season? Where do the Grizzlies envision Jahmai Mashack fitting in on their plans.

Lang Whitaker and Jon Roser dive into these questions and more.
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