Transcendent Meditation

By Chip Crain

By now most people have read the back and forth comments between Ryan Schwan at Hornets24/7 and our own Josh Coleman about the Grizzlies. I also sent Ryan an email about his comments and he replied with this:

Yeah, I unloaded on your team. Sorry about that. :( I still love your blog!

I actually left out one of the main points I wanted to make about your team - which is that in order to make a quick turnaround from 15-20 wins you have to land that transcendant talent - O'Neal, Duncan, Paul.

I have been thinking about what he wrote and it suddenly dawned on me the problem with the argument about transcendent talent. No we don't appear to possess the transcendental talent yet but in the last three years Memphis has traded Shane Battier for Rudy Gay, acquired Mike Conley with the 4th pick in the draft after Greg Oden, Kevin Durant and Al Horford had already been taken (the Hornets got Chris Paul after Bogut, Marvin Williams and Devin Williams were drafted by the way) and traded Kevin Love and Mike Miller for O J Mayo.

They have been trying to get the transcendental talent he talks about!

Rudy is a near miss but a big step up from Shane Battier right now and is only 22 and starting his 3rd NBA season. Conley, only 20 yrs old, still is looking like the 4th best player taken in the lottery. Consider that after Conley you had Jeff Green, Yi Jianlian, Corey Brewer, Brandon Wright, Joakim Noah, Spencer Hawes, Acie Law, Thaddeus Young, Julian Wright and Al Thornton. Where was the transcendent talent in that list?

No one knows about O J Mayo but there have been some intelligent people who are very impressed with him so far. Memphis hasn't been lucky in the lottery/draft the last few years (unlike New Orleans). As long as the team continues to try and get that transcendent talent they will eventually get lucky.

That is why I am glad the team isn't selling out for players like Zach Randolph and the like. This would only hurt our chances of acquiring the type of talent Memphis won't get in free agency. Maybe Conley will develop to an elite PG. Maybe he will only be average. That still makes him one of the top 15 or so PG's in the world. Rudy Gay is one of the top 50 players in the world right now at any position according to Tom Ziller and he hasn't peaked yet. Mayo is a rookie but no one argued with him being the 3rd pick in last year's draft after Beasley and Rose.

Finally Josh Smith nearly fell into their laps this summer. Sure Atlanta matched immediately but that is what happens with players of that caliber in the NBA. They just aren't available very often and a small market like Memphis has to get lucky and keep shooting for the stars to get that talent. Where would New Orleans be today if Chris Paul had been drafted #1 in that draft and Chicago matched the Hornets offer on Chandler? What if that draft had gone Chris Paul, Deron Williams and Andrew Bogut? Where would New Orleans be today?

The bottom line is that Memphis is trying hard to get the type of player you say they need. New Orleans got lucky and had one fall into their laps at #4. Memphis hasn't been so fortunate yet. Gasol, Hamed, Darko, Warrick and Arthur aren't supposed to be the big name players. Memphis still needs to acquire someone to be the Beast on the Bluff (you don't know how many years I have been waiting for the Grizzlies to get a player worthy of that moniker by the way). It isn't going to be Zach Randolph or anyone else in free agency most likely. Memphis will have to parlay the talent they have to acquire someone in a trade or get lucky in the lottery/draft. But they are only that piece away from being surprisingly good with a ton of cap space to fill in the needs off the bench it may have.

Then again, with guys on the bench like Arthur, Crittenton, Lowry, Haddadi and Gasol maybe there won't be that many more holes to fill either.

Leaping to Contention: The Talent Gap

Some times you get much more than you bargained for when you stay up late watching NBA league pass. Last night I had the chance to watch Chris Paul and the healthy New Orleans Hornets dismantle a pretty good Los Angeles Lakers team that was playing well coming into the game and actually played well during the game. The Lakers lost by 14 on their home court. Seeing Chris Paul slice through the Lakers defense and dishing out a Hornet’s record 21 assists, Peja turn back the hands of time to the 2003-04, and the rest of the supporting cast hit shot after shot while Tyson Chandler controlled the paint late after early foul trouble was a humbling experience for me as a Grizzlies fan.

Although after watching the preseason, I did not think the Grizzlies were a playoff team, watching the Hornets sort of confirmed it for me. The problem for the Grizzlies is that we are stuck in limbo and like Jerry West before him; GM Chris Wallace seems reluctant to cut bait with some members of our roster (see Presti, Sam in Seattle) to improve the long-term future of the franchise. What I mean by limbo is that we are not good enough to be contenders (heck we are not good enough to make the playoffs) and the teams at the bottom of the Western Conference are led by high level young talent that the Grizzlies simply do not have on the roster.

To put this in perspective, Peja Stojakovic is probably the Hornets second best player. At Mike Miller’s age he was 2nd team All NBA, 4th in the MVP voting and averaging 24 points per game. This is the history of the Hornets, a perspective 7th or 8th seeded team, second best player who is still in his prime. He looked like that Peja in his movements vs. the Lakers. The point of this is that Peja has had a more prolific NBA career than our best player and he is the second best player on the Hornets.

Oh, I know this is where you want to chime in and talk about Rudy Gay and his future development. Well, the Hornets have their own Rudy Gay in rookie Julian Wright. An athletic long SF/PF from a big time program that had a disappointing second year that dropped him in the draft. Sound familiar?

The entire point I am making is that there simply is not enough talent on our roster at this point to have any expectation of contending in the near future (within 3 years). I expect we could become what we were if some of our young talent does develop. So if that is the conclusion (and it is a fair one), why was there such a universal declaration of love for our roster by our new GM? How do we take the quantum leap needed to get to contention with midland draft picks, no cap room, and a reservation to trade our players?

Rudy Gay, Mike Conley and Darko Milicic are a good start to putting some talent with Pau Gasol but we need our 5th starter to be an All Star. That is the type of talent level you have to have if you want to compete at the highest level of the NBA. Do you think Mike Miller can reach that level of play? This road trip is going to go a long ways to answering some questions. Was last year a product of playing on a bad team? Can Miller be as aggressive with his shot as he has been on the defensive boards? I will be watching Mike, starting tonight in Seattle.