Early Season Optimism

Here's a little food for thought.

The Memphis Grizzlies will have a pretty solid lineup this year.  Mike Conley was really starting to play well at the end of last season, OJ Mayo had a great rookie year and is underrated as a person, Rudy Gay is one of the best small forwards in the NBA, Zach Randolph is a 20-10 guy, and Thabeet/Marc Gasol form a pretty good defense/offense tandem at the pivot.

Who is their coach?  I don't know.  He's somehow been their coach three times but has less than 70 total games under his belt.  Is it a questionable mix of personalities?  Probably.   However, Mayo gets a bad rap for the famous highlight of him throwing the ball into the stands in his last high school game and for taking dolla bills to play for USC.  I don't think he's actually that selfish or a team cancer.  Randolph's history is indefensible, but aside from him, there are no character problems with the other guys (unless you count inability to shoot as a character problem).

Memphis plays in the best division in the NBA and the road to the playoffs for them will be extremely difficult.  However, I believe that this team is capable of 40 wins this season, a marked improvement for one of the worst franchises of the last couple of years.  You heard it here.