According to his blog, Conley participated in full contact drills, took a few hits to his shoulder and feels fine. Perhaps we'll see him on the court with the coming of the new year. That would give the fans some hope moving forward, I would think.
Hornets.com conducted an interview with rising star Rudy Gay over the Christmas break.
Hornets.com: Now that you have a year under your belt in the NBA, has it
been easier this season as far as preparation and expectations?
Rudy Gay: I don’t know if it’s been easier, but I feel better prepared for it. There are some great players in the league with a lot of talent, so you’re always going against the best. I think the biggest thing was taking care of myself and getting used to how long the season is.
There weren't any truly deep, searching questions, but it is still nice to see Rudy get some media recognition. I think we all know that if it weren't for his buzzer-beater against the Spurs, he'd still be the most low-profile player who leads his team in scoring across the entire league.
Rudy was also the subject of an interesting read in a Pennsylvania newspaper article that I saw on Hoopsworld.com, titled: Grizzlies' Gay proving critics wrong.
He's been called disinterested about basketball at times, but Memphis Grizzlies swingman Rudy Gay is making a lot of critics eat those words.
With his sophomore campaign looking brighter by each game, Gay has become the lone reason why fans are even paying attention to the Grizzlies during their rebuilding stage.
While I think the writer took a somewhat simplistic approach to this story, given that Rudy's improvement could in fact be a result of having critics -- similar to the impressive rookie season that former UConn teammate Charlie Villanueva had after being blasted by pundits. But, it is still nice to see the media noticing that Rudy is starting to show why most experts had him at the top of the draft boards through his freshman season and most of his sophmore year of college.
In the Commercial Appeal today, Damon Stoudamire had some words for his teammates that could best be described as "tough love", as he said that the team needed to get tough.
"The guys in this locker room have to decide when enough is going to be enough. We, as players, have to get tough. We have to help each other on defense and offense. We have to trust each other. ...When we get after it, we're not that bad."
"We've got to take a stand as a team," Stoudamire said. "We've got to get sick of losing, and string some wins together."
"It comes a time where if you don't get it done, you have to always build each other up," Stoudamire said. "You spend a lot of time convincing guys that the philosophy will work. You're trying to make some guys want to fight, and the season is too young for that. We have to show some fight. It's not on coach. We have to do it in this locker room."
It's nice to see one of the veteran leaders of this team step up and attempt to "right the ship".
Over on The Blog of Mikey, one blogger admits to falling prey to the "previous results" fallacy of predicting success and playoff teams. At least he's a quick enough study to figure that out now, rather than after the All-Star break.
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