Memphis Fans Deserve Better (9/10/09)
Sep 10, 2009 Blog
It looks like Allen Iverson is going to join Zach Randolph in Memphis in what should set Memphis basketball back a couple of years in development. When we add this latest move to the Mayo/Love trade, the Pau Gasol trade, the Mike Miller trade, the Darko Milicic trade and others, it becomes really clear what demographic the Grizzlies management is aiming for and what their intention is for making money. Management has their demograhic studies and they know what kind of players put fans in the seats in Memphis and also what kind of players put fans in the seats in Minnesota. Let’s bring in Zach Randolph and Allen Iverson. Yeah, that should help hit our target audience even more and let us make a couple of dollars. I realize it’s a business, but come on do you want a circus act or do you want a winning basketball team? Kind of reminds me of the famous quote from Woody Harrelson in ‘White Men Can’t Jump’. Memphis, do you want to look good or do you want to win?
Conley, Mayo, Gay, Gasol and Thabeet should all be concerned with the message this sends to them as young developing players. It seems Memphis management has been exposed as shortsighted and desperate to put people in the seats rather than having a long term concern about developing a strong, winning young core for the future. Sad thing is, there is NO FUTURE in Memphis. I think it sends the message that no matter how good you young guys get, we as management know we can’t afford to keep you. We also know that we can’t make much money as we develop you, so let’s bring in some circus barkers to at least draw some fans. When you do finally develop, we’ll cut you up piece by piece and sell you off for peanuts like we did with Pau Gasol.
And what happens when Iverson and Randolph grow tired of losing in Memphis? What happens when trouble finds Randolph like it always seems to do? Somtime soon you will have two big holes fill with new players and management will wish they would have skipped the Randolph/Iverson gimmick and instead focused on developing talent to fill those holes. Yeah, maybe Iverson and Randolph offer a few tips to the young guys, but do you actually see either of those guys giving up their free time and effort to really make much of a difference with the young guys? Maybe Randolph can teach them about Memphis, I hear they have some really nice strip clubs.
Memphis fans deserved better than this latest gimmick by management.