Gratuitous Self-Promotion: An Interview with Kornheiser's Cartel

By Joshua Coleman

On Tuesday, Kornheiser's Cartel posted a column titled Memphis Grisly. As I'm sure you can ascertain from the title, it wasn't full of rainbows and marshmallow goodness for our fair team. But that didn't stop me from acquiesing to an interview when Billynho requested one. After all, I'm all about defending our franchise and setting the record straight whenever the opportunity arises. They asked and I answered, all of which can be found right here. I encourage you to head over there to see the great questions they asked, as well as the answers I gave. They really do run a fantastic blog that I recommend adding to your Favorites List.

They Like Us! They REALLY Like US!

Quick hit:

In a Yahoo Sports countdown of the best Grizz blogs out there by Kelly Dwyer, guess which blog came in FIRST -- ahead of Tillery at The Memphis Edge and Herrington at the Flyer?

1. 3 Shades of Blue — One of the best team blogs in the game, this is such a good daily read that it leaves you wondering just why some of more prominent teams in the league don’t have blogs that are nearly this good.

The crew behind this gem of a website offer daily analysis, news, polls, links (maybe the best blogroll out there); and if "daily analysis, news, polls, links" sounds like just about every other NBA site on the 'net … yeah, this isn’t like every other site. Give it a read, and compare and contrast.

Nice to be noticed, and nice to be part of the blog team. And the Grizz aren't even a winning team (yet)! What's gonna happen when Iavaroni and the Baby Bears roll?

Dining with the Grizzlies

GRIZZLIES TO HOST EIGHTH ANNUAL TIP-OFF LUNCHEON OCTOBER 24

The Memphis Grizzlies are inviting fans across the Mid-South over for lunch, as the team is set to hold their Eighth Annual Tip-Off Luncheon on October 24 at FedExForum.


The boys at 3 Shades of Blue have always been big supporters of this event and this year is no different. We have already reserved a table and are now taking names for people who want to meet the team (and your favorite bloggers). Tickets are $50 for individual seats but because 3 Shades of Blue is so nice we will only charge you $40 a head to sit at one of our tables.

Fans in attendance will get the first chance to rub shoulders with Grizzlies rookies O.J. Mayo and Darrell Arthur, hang out with Rudy Gay and Mike Conley, get to meet the guys from 3 Shades of Blue, get coaching strategy from Marc Iavaroni and learn more about the business of basketball from general manager Chris Wallace. Take part in the silent and live auctions held throughout the event featuring unique memorabilia and one-of-a-kind fan experiences, or simply spend your time getting to know the members of the 2008-09 Memphis Grizzlies team. Doors open at 11 a.m., followed by the event and program from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

The event benefits the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Memphis. Feel free to ask anyone who has attended in the past, this is a great event for a great cause! If you want to reserve a spot send us an email to three_shades_ofblue[at]hotmail.com. Payment will be expected in cash at the event.

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Anniversaries, Milestones and a Marriage of Thoughts

What a week this has been! First Zack earned his doctorate this week and now is officially refered to as Dr. Zack. Second, 3 Shades of Blue is about to celebrate their first anniversary. Well not exactly an anniversary of the site since it was up originally in March of 2007 but an anniversary of when we launched out into the world's attention. On September 14th we posted the blog Class in Session with Chris Wallace. Henry Abbott at TrueHoop actually wrote a blog about our blog meeting Chris Wallace and the rest is internet history so to speak.

Three Shades of Blue also just passed the 250,000 unique hits mark this week. Thanks so much for all of our readers for thier support in reaching this milestone.

and as many people may have already noticed, two of the most respected blogs covering our Memphis Grizzlies have joined forces here at 3 Shades of Blue. Nation of Grizzlam bloggers Kirk, Zac and HPTMatt are now official bloggers at 3 Shades of Blue. This seems to be the perfect marriage of two of the leading blogs on the Memphis Grizzlies. Zac and Kirk will continue to speak for the average fan with their slightly irreverant style. We are not asking or expecting them to change a thing they do. We just are happy to have them doing it here now.

I hope everyone else is excited about this news as we are.

Welcome back to Dunkyland!

When I got the phone call, I was sure that someone was just having some fun at my expense. "Pau Gasol traded to the Los Angeles Lakers for Kwame Brown, Javaris Crittenton and two 1st round draft picks." My initial reaction was "hey -- those salaries don't work" (yeah, I know it is pathetic that I know the salary structures for 80% of the teams in league -- quit laughing), but then I was told that they had resigned Aaron McKie to make it work. "Isn't he with the Sixers now?" Yet another sign of the ridiculousness of this trade. The Lakers traded the Sixers assistant coach to the Grizzlies. You cannot make stuff like that up.

For the next 48 hours I felt.........numb. I couldn't even begin to comprehend what had happened, so I couldn't feel anything about the trade. Well, other than a tremendous feeling of being cursed with the worst timing in the history of blogging. However, in the last two days, I have read two phenomenal viewpoints of the trade that have made me see just what this trade really means for Memphis. The first one was Pete Pranica's post on Grizz Blogs. The second was Hardwood Paroxysm's account of the trade. Slowly, I began to see the sun peeking through the clouds.

So now I am left at a crossroads. On the one hand, the Gasol trade has left the Grizzlies with cap space for the upcoming offseason (estimated $10-15 million), an additional draft pick for a great talent evaluator in Chris Wallace to use and a young player with good potential in Javaris Crittenton. They will be able to rebuild this team from the ground up, using Mike Conley and Rudy Gay as the foundation, with Darko Milicic and Crittenton as key players. Then you factor in two more young players with potential in the draft this summer and the talent level of this team going forward should increase dramatically.

It sounds like they won't use their cap space this offseason, given that this isn't a particularly enticing unrestricted free agent crop to pair with a group of young athletic players, preferring to roll it over to the 2009 offseason, where there are a lot of attractive FA's of the "right age". Factor in another 18 months of growth/maturity for Conley/Gay/Darko and this team could improve by leaps and bounds. So there is reason to have hope for the future of this franchise, including a return to the postseason as soon as the 2009/10 season.

On the other hand, this move was obviously business first, basketball a distant second. Even though it is mostly being reported that Chris Wallace pitched the idea to owner Michael Heisley, this one has Heisley grimy little fingerprints all over it. Wallace has been in print and on the radio several times this season saying that he did not want an expiring contract to be the central piece in return for either Gasol or Mike Miller in a trade. Lo and behold, what did he say about the acquisition of Kwame Brown? "He was the biggest expiring deal we could get." Now, I'm familiar with GM speak and know it when I see it. This 180 degree turnaround did not seem like a case of GM speak. Rather, it seems more likely that it was a directive from Heisley to Wallace -- not the other way around.

If that is the case, then this trade was a salary dump, plain and simple. If this is nothing more than a way to lower the outstanding contracts on the team to make it easier for Heisley to either sell the team to an outside group or to force the local group of minority owners to meet his asking price, then Memphis fans have been duped and taken advantage of as pawns. Pawns who shelled out money for a team that they expected to be competitive this year, even if they weren't expecting a return to the playoffs. Now they get to watch a team that has 13 wins so far and probably won't match last year's total of 22 victories. Not only is that a hard pill to swallow, it is an even harder sell for the sales/marketing staff. As Geoff Calkins pointed out in his column Saturday, can you imagine what that sales call will be like? It won't be pretty, I can assure you. This team didn't draw well when they were making the postseason and actively trying to get better. How low will attendance drop now that the rest of this season is a foregone conclusion and next year won't be much better? When does the attendace clause of the team's lease actually go into effect? (Speaking of attendance, Mark Cuban says get off your butt and do something if your attendance sucks.)

So while I would love to go along with the idea that this was a move made with the team's best interests in mind, if I have learned one thing in life, it is that rich, powerful people usually get what they want. Michael Heisley is a billionaire, so he gets what he wants and then takes the rest. If the team resurrects itself over the next two or three seasons, then I'll accept that Heisley is not, in fact, the Anti-Christ. If he uses this move as leverage to sell the team to a group like the Brian Davis-led flunkies who only have enough money to buy the team and nothing more, then I'm starting a blog dedicated to trashing Heisley. Either way, only time will tell what is to come for this team.

Welcome back to Dunkyland!

Links: Previews, Scoop Jackson, Dance Team,

Guess what I got......more previews.

We Rite Goode asked us for our predictions and we answered. Read the Southwest Division Preview today.

AllHipHop.com (self-proclaimed "World's Most Dangerous Site") picks the Grizzlies to finish 10th in the West in their Southwest Division Preview.

"twins15" of Complete Sports has Memphis in the playoffs as the 8th seed.

Mediaverse covers a few Memphis related items in a post entitled "On Darius Washington", including ESPN.com's Scoop Jackson mentioning Pau Gasol and Grizzlies dance team member Noelia Warnette-Jones. Some entertaining commentary about Scoop was included in that post.

FOX Sports has a piece entitled "Here's why your team might win" that covers exactly what you think the title suggests. Randy Hill manages to cover each team in the NBA, although I think this could have been really easy to do by saying "Make sure Tim Duncan misses the playoffs".

Basketbawful has some doubts about how good (or at least how exciting) the Grizzlies will be in his NBA Bestern Conference Preview.

Both of the fine gentlemen at The Basketball Jones have Memphis in the playoffs, one as the 7th seed, the other as the 8th seed.

And the Hits Keep Coming

Just a word of thanks to some more media markets giving out little web page some serious props. Call it a Verno Bow for the self-promotion if you like.

Wages of Wins mentions us as the lead-in for their review/preview of the Grizzlies season. This web site is an excellent source for statistical analysis of players and other interesting information. They were so kind they even added a link to our web site from theirs.

Unfortunately the preview of the upcoming season wasn't as kind. Brutally honest perhaps but not kind. Unfortunately it is difficult to argue with their reasoning either. David Berri believes that it is unlikely that Darko Milicic will progress from a below average performer during his first four years in the league to an above average performer in his fifth. Sure there are exceptions but we are talking about statistics here and if you roll the dice enough you will eventually get them to land on top of each other but I wouldn't want to bet that happens on the next roll.

What makes matters worse is that they accurately predicted last seasons performance. To quote the preview

Does this mean Memphis cannot have a “good” season this year? As we note in the book, whether something is “good” or “bad” depends upon your point of reference. If your reference point is the top teams in the West, Memphis will probably have a “bad” season. If your reference point is the Vancouver Grizzlies, then Memphis will indeed be “great” in 2006-07.

Last season Memphis won 22 games. One fewer than the best season ever in Vancouver.

I hate it when stats don't lie!

The Commercial Appeal also referenced our web site today with the mention of our meeting a Buffalo Wild Wings with Chris Wallace and the subsequent TrueHoop commentary about the rarity of a GM doing something like that. If I might make a suggestion Ron Tillery, before describing the people's reactions at the meeting you may want to interview at least one person in the group who was present. Just a small piece of advice.

These references joined with the kind words from Chris Vernon, Blog-A-Bull and others really has our website feeling some love heading into the season. Even if our beloved Grizzlies aren't getting as much.

Thanks to all of our readers for checking us out. Especially that one reader from Auckland, New Zealand. If you ever get to Memphis we have to get together!!!