The Only Reason We Should Look Up To Them Is Because They Are Taller Than Us.

By Kirk Holland

Now that the dust seems to have settled over "Mary Jane pulled the fire alarm 2008", I have had time to reflect on the situation from a fan's perspective. First off, Darrell Arthur is a young man coming off a rollercoaster of highs spanning from the national championship win over our beloved Memphis Tigers to becoming a first round draft pick (although picked later than he thought). His life has changed tremendously over the past months, and will continue to do so. He has money now, and what do young men with money do? They spend it, have fun, make questionable choices. It's a fact of life.

I know we will most likely never truly know what "really" happened that fateful night in the hotel room, but worst case scenario is that he indulged in some of the Devil's lettuce, and had a lady friend over. I in no way, shape, or form condone using drugs, but in the grand scheme of things, it was not the worst thing. He didn't pull an Eddie Griffin, God rest his soul. He didn't hurt anyone else period. Granted he severely pissed off the commissioner and I'm sure he embarrassed the Grizzlies organization, but this in time shall pass.

Arthur can squash all murmurs and remnants of this situation by simply producing on the court. A productive player makes happy fans who tend to forgive and forget easier. If he can be the type of talent he is projected by experts to become, then will we not only forget about his lapse of judgement, but he will also become the toast (or biscuit), of our beloved city.

Moral of the story folks: don't look down on a kid for making a simple mistake; look up to him, he's taller than you.

Friday Roundup: Links and such

Well it was not quite as quiet a week on the Grizzlies homefront as most people wanted with the news that Darrell Arthur was expelled from the Rookie Transition Camp. While it hasn't been released whether or not Darrell was actually involved in drug use, the women in the room was enough to ban him from the event. While mostly embarrassing it does cause on court issues to come into question such as his reputation for zoning out. Hopefully the financial penalty will be all that is neccessary to remedy this problem but the league can add on a suspension of indeterminate length and the team can impose their own penalties as well.

Chris Herrington is back from vacation and back being one of the best reporters of Grizzlies news in the business this week. Welcome back Chris and we hope you had a pleasant vacation with the family.

TrueHoop is kind enough to link to us from time to time so when Henry Abbott takes the time to write a full article on the Arthur situation I felt it appropriate to link back to him.

Ron Tillery has also been busy on the Edge Blog lately keeping fans informed on the recent trade rumors involving the team. Ron also wrote an insightful article on the Grizzlies in the paper. See Ron, we can write nice things about you too!

Our friend Tom Ziller over at Fanhouse puts his two cents worth in on the Arthur story as well. I really can't argue with his logic (mainly because it agrees with mine). TZ also ranked Rudy Gay at #39 in his ongoing listing of the Top 50 Players in the NBA.

Final word comes from David at David's Memphis Grizzlies Blog who says that players should only be punished for performance enhancing drugs and he would rather have Darrell high than skateboarding or motorcycling.

Lost in the smoke from the Arthur scandal was the fact that both O.J. Mayo and Marc Gasol were at the Rookie Camp too. It is unclear at this time if Hamed Haddadi was also at the camp. Since Haddidi signed right before the camp was scheduled to begin it is understandable if he didn't make it. There is also the question on his being able to understand anything being said there anyway.

Inside Hoops is confirming Ron Tillery's entry that the Grizzlies and Knicks are in discussions about Zack Randolph. This is interesting since Chris Wallace said on Chris Vernon's radio show that very few trades are done in September and October as most teams are focusing on the getting the team ready for the regular season and he fully expects the current roster to be in training camp on September 30th. I guess you can call him a liar if the deal gets done according to Dr. Zack.

The sad news here is that rumor involves Marko Jaric and Darko. Darko isn't a great loss but would leave us very thin at center. Losing Mr. Adriana Lima before the first pre-season game would be heart-breaking! Come on Grizzlies, at least let us have one game with Adriana in the stands before you ship him off!

Matt over at Hardwood Paroxysm must have seen our back to school series last week and has added his touch of Science to the world of Blogging. He rated us with some impressive blogs so I wanted to make sure everyone sees it.

Notes From Memphis has an interesting view of the Hamed Haddidi signing.

Darrell Arthur Tossed From Rookie Transition Camp

Darrell Arthur was tossed out of the NBA Rookie Transition Camp today. Rumor is that it involved an illegal substance in their hotel room but the official comment was that Arthur and former Kansas Jayhawk teammate Mario Chalmers were excused for braking league rules.

The NBA Rookie Transition Camp according to the NBA Players Union contract is a mandatory meeting for rookies only. The 4 day camp is designed to help ease the rookies transition from colleg to the NBA. "The program is designed to teach players techniques to cope with unique stresses inherent in their lives and how to utilize the various resources available to them throughout their careers" according to NBA.com. There is also a mandatory Team Awareness Meeting which covers such issues as substance abuse, HIV awareness and gambling issues.

More on this story as it becomes available.

UPDATE: It now appears that the players were discovered with a lady in their room and this was the official reason for the players being expelled according to the Orlando paper. No comment yet on the veracity of the marijuana charge or if true whether it belonged to the players or not.