Grizzly 52 Pick-Up

1. Darko, pick up an anger management book. Learn to harness your temper, unlike the Serbia-Greece postgame incident, and put it towards your play on the court.
2. Coach, pick up your pride after last season. Don't listen to those who blasted you, you're a rookie head coach. I've got the faith. There is no I in team, but I want I on the sidelines.
3. Conley, pick up the weights. I heard you have, but pick them up again. And again. Repeat.
4. Hakim, pick up the weights. Ditto the rest of numero tres for you.
5. Lowry, pick up the fact that when you drive through the lane, you need to be a bit more controlled. I love your bulldog-like tenacity, but a little more controlled chaos would be beneficial to the team's overall game.
6. Rudy, pick up a scouting report on yourself. You are a STUD, my man. Teams adjust their gameplans to YOU. Put this team on your shoulders and become the star I believe you can be, the star some have already annointed you, and the star some think you can never be.
7. 'Toine, pick up a health and fitness book, report to camp in shape, and hopefully you can get some playing time. I mean, you do have a ring that isn't breaded with an onion inside of it, so I believe you've still got game. Let's see it, because I don't want us to have to spend our "capspace" bolstering our bench...so you can sit on it without breaking it.
8. OJ, pick up some more bowties for press conferences and post-game reports. GQ.
9. Marc, pick up a mirror. Then you will realize you look like the spawn of Mike Miller and your brother. Of course, if you have a hybrid game of Mike Miller and your brother, then you are going to be worth every bit of your money and then another of your salary on top of that.
10. Marko, pick up a nice dress for Adriana to wear for opening night. That can be your contribution to the team and the fans.
11. Greg, pick up a clipboard. You're going to be a player-coach this season anyway. maybe occasionally spelling Rudy at the 3.
12. Darrell, pick up a head full of steam and barrel through the post using your speed at the 4. I'd like to see you start at the 4, but you will likely have to back up Hakim, so make your minutes count. Use your advantages.
13. Hakim, pick up your dribble after having the ball for a few seconds, then pass. I hate watching you dribble almost as much as I hated watching OJ Mayo play PG in Summer League.
14. Marc, pick up rebounds. That IS why we signed you, or it should have been. We never can seem to rebound worth spit.
15. Kevin O'Neill, pick up Darko's anger management book after he is finished reading it. Turn that book into your Bible.
16. Michael Heisley, pick up the tab on some players, please. Capspace, Shmapspace. You want a winner, let's build one.
17. OJ, pick up games with high profile players = good thing. It gets your name out there, gets the word around that you are the real deal, makes you better, which in turn makes us look good as well.
18. People in the Advertising Dept, pick up on the fact that some of this just isn't cutting it. The "Hello Mayo" poster? Absolutely gorgeous. Where are our billboards, our bus signs, our commercials...something with pizzazz, flash, flair..."just like what the Grizz are going to bring this season."
19. Casey, pick up my car from valet out front. It's the Crossfire, black. Here's three dollars. The first three you made all night.
20. Critt, pick up the ball when youre open from the 3 point line, and jack it like a TV from a New Orleans store display. You, along with Toine, Rudy, Mayo and maybe Jaric are our only credible three-point shooters. Man, losing Mike in that aspect hurts.
21. Coach, pick up your clipboard and draw up some plays this season. Please, no more high-post handoff predictability.
22. Conley, pick up the speed more, if possible. Not because you're doing anything wrong, but because I'd just like to see how fast you really are. Top 5 in the L, in my personal opinion.
23. Kevin O'Neill, pick up some throat lozenges for after the game. I have a feeling you will need them.
24. Rudy, pick up the other team's players (and possibly our own) jaws after you blow past them for a rim-rattling, earth-shattering, mind-altering dunk.
25. Hakim, pick up a pair of clippers and shave that soul patch if you aren't going to go full beard on us. It's all-in or fold, buddy.
26. Darko, pick up your head if you don't make the first shot. It's not the end of the world, get your head back in the game. I'm tired of seeing your first shot not fall and then watch you get your confidence down the rest of the game and it affect your play. Go hard every minute.
27. Darrell, pick up a new hairstyle or something, anything but a headband. If Hak takes my advice and shaves the soul patch, I will have no chance of distinguishing you two lanky post players with headbands and no facial hair from all the way up in my section. Wait...you're the one who can play defense, right?
28. Hak, pick up a defensive scheme once in a while. Wait...no dont...then it would go back to you two being undistinguishable again...noooo....
29. Conley, pick up a Ja Rule cd cover. It's going to be like looking into a mirror for you, seriously.
30. Anyone, pick up a Downtowner magazine or an RSVP Memphis mag so we can stuff it down Phil Jackson's throat the next time he wants to say our downtown looks like Dresden.
31. Marc, pick up a laptop or anything with internet access and read the things that Memphis fans have said about your brother. Learn from it. Play the exact opposite.
32. Lowry, pick up some Air Jordans or some Nikes with heels. 6'0 my left foot. I'm 6 foot tall, and I was taller than you. Can you imagine Lowry with height on him? Man. Those "Trade Conley" advocates might get a vote from this "independent" on that front.
33. Rudy, pick up your teammates when they get down, and get on em when they mess up. That's what a leader of a team does.
34. Michael Heisley, pick up this team and move it, and you will have an entire city chasing you up to Chicago. You don't want that. Crime is already bad enough in Chicago this year without adding angry Memphians in the mix.
35. To Whom It May Concern, pick up the initiative I propose for opening night. The National Anthem shouldnt be done in person, we should all stand while the video of Isaac Hayes singing the Anthem at a Grizzlies game plays over the jumbotron, followed by a moment of silence for a Memphis Soul Icon. It'd be a classy move.
36. Coach, pick up your players and shake them from time to time. Don't make O'Neill do it every time. You can still be the nice guy...you can be the nice father with a stern hand.
37. Critt, pick up your speed. If we do trade Conley, or Lowry, you become the backup PG. If we are going to in fact be a running system, we're going to need speed. If we lose Conley the Ferarri, or Lowry the bulldog, we need speed and toughness at the point. You can be J-Critt the Challenger R/T. Speed and muscle. Speaking of that...
38. Critt, pick up the weights after Conley and Hak are done with them.
39. Darrell, I'll say it again, pick up a distinguishable characteristic. You are similar to the generic "Create-a-Player" on NBA Live 09. Grow some braids, dye your hair like the Rodman Rainbow, change your name to "Cero Cero" a la Chad Johnson...something.
40. Lowry, pick up the foul that ISNT an offensive one when you run into the post.
41. OJ, pick up a local newspaper. There is a buzz for you being here in the M. Take that, seize it, and you and Rudy become a two-headed monster. Maybe one day, the two of you will be ranked on a Dynamic Duo list.
42. Marc, pick up and absorb everything you learned from FIBA, the Olympics, and even at Lausanne. Apply it on the court here, and you will begin to step out of your brother's shadow. Not here, of course. You can drive through Memphis and see tomatoes and arrows thrown at the ground because a shadow that looked like Pau was there at one time.
43. Marko, pick up a GQ magazine, flip past that "Mayo Brings Back the Bowtie" article and find you some fashion tips. That way you can look fly on the bench. I kid, I kid. Not every game.
44. 'Toine, pick up the guts to say No to the Paula Deen Buffet. I know its right past the state line, but resist...RESIST!
45. Michael Heisley, pick up the WSJ and see if we have a trade embargo with Iran. Maybe if we dont, we can explore trade options for Hadadi and expiring contracts for, you know, capspace.
46. Hak, pick up some fattening food. I should have listed that first, but eat Eat EAT before you pick up the weights. Otherwise you will turn into a human strand of sinew, muscle and bone from working out. Sorry for not clarifying. Eat, then work out.
47. Darko, pick up the English language better. That way, if you do go into another tirade, I will be able to understand it without subtitles, and it will give me great entertainment.
48. Scouting team, pick up a report on Blake Griffin. If we have a terrible season, and we still have no answer at the 4 spot, tell the appropriate people to do everything they can to ensure that we get him.
49. Sportswriters and Analysts, pick up on the fact that the Grizzlies ARE NOT GOING ANYWHERE. You can stop with your X-Files conspiracy theories. It isn't going to happen. Las Vegas doesn't have grizzlies, and they aren't going to have ours either.
50. OJ, pick up Rudy before one of your pickup games. Do a little two on two. It will establish chemistry with our duo, and get both of you some great experience in the process. The only thing better than it helping you, is if it helps both of you.
51. Fans, pick up your tickets for the entire season or just a game, whatever you can do. Support the NBA in Memphis.
52. And lastly, Anyone, pick up the habit of being a Grizzly fan.