Can Memphis Contend in the Loaded West?

From left to right: Zach Randolph, Marc Gasol and Mike Conley hope to play together more next season.

By Bennett Corcoran (@CorcoranNBA)

After achieving significant playoff success under former coach Lionel Hollins, the Memphis Grizzlies took a step back in 2014 under new coach David Joerger. While many expected them to duplicate their previous performance as a middle of the pack, fringe-contender, the Grizz were instead fighting for a playoff spot in the last week of the season.

Memphis started just 10-15 to begin the season, as the team struggled to adjust to a slightly different defensive system under Joerger. Much of this stretch can be attributed to the loss of Marc Gasol, who sprained the MCL in his left knee just 13 games into the season. Without their former Defensive Player of the Year anchoring the middle, the Grizzlies were exposed, left to learn a new system without a defining piece of the puzzle. Kosta Koufos is a serviceable big man, but the Grizz lean heavily on their front line, making the loss of Gasol difficult to overcome.

After Gasol finally returned in mid-January, point guard Mike Conley tweaked his ankle just a few weeks later. The injury forced Conley to sit the first seven games in February.

Because of this untimely string of injuries, the foundational players did not share nearly as much time together on the floor last season. The trio of Conley-Gasol-Randolph logged just under 1,200 minutes together last season, about 550 minutes less than in 2013.

The Expendable All-Stars

Expendable All-Star Luol Deng launches a jump shot. Sylvester Stallone not pictured. (flickr)

By Jeremy Conlin  @jeremy_conlin

Under the new Collective Bargaining Agreement, teams around the league seem to be tightening their belts. Even the best, most profitable teams in the league – Miami amnestied Mike Miller, the Lakers amnestied Metta World Peace, Oklahoma City let Kevin Martin walk in free agency, etc. It’s basically everyone but Brooklyn.

Teams are generally more afraid of the luxury tax than they ever have been before. For one, the tax is more punitive starting this upcoming season – what used to be a dollar-for-dollar tax is now a $1.50-per-dollar tax at a minimum, and can escalate to as high as $3.75-per-dollar, depending on how far above the tax a team is. More importantly, perhaps, is the “repeater” tax rate that will go into effect for the 2014-2015 season. If a team has paid the tax in each of the last three seasons, the minimum tax rate jumps from $1.50-per-dollar to $2.50-per-dollar and the maximum tax rate jumps from $3.75-per-dollar to $4.75 per-dollar.

In layman’s terms – a team $20 million over the tax line in 2013 would have paid a $20 million tax. A team $20 million over the tax line in 2014 would pay a tax of $45 million. In 2015, if they had paid the tax in each of the previous three seasons (and thus qualified for the “repeater” tax rate), they would pay a tax of (gulp) $65 million.