MVN - Most Valuable Network

Marc Gasol Reportedly to Sign 3-year, $10-million with Memphis

Marty Burns of SI (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/marty_burns/07/01/gasol/) seems to be confirming the rumor that Pau Gasol’s younger brother, Marc, will indeed sign with the Grizzlies, with it reportedly being a 3-year, $10-million deal.

The signing of Marc Gasol will actually give Memphis one of the better center tandems in the league, to go along with Darko Milicic, who played much of last season battling various injuries.

The only question now appears to be who will get the starting nod and the majority of the playing time.

Darko, the incumbent, battled through injuries last season, is still only 23 years old and is heading into the second year of a 3-year deal of his own, this one worth $21-million.  Darko battled through injuries last season, playing in 70 games while putting up averages of 7.2 points, 6.1 rebounds, and 1.6 blocks.  I still would give the nod to a healthy Darko, as he was solid defensively while showing flashes of some offense last season.

Marc Gasol is really a wild card because no one really knows what he can do in the NBA.  Gasol was one of, if not the best young player in the European leagues last year, as he was the MVP of the Spanish League, averaging 16.2 points and 8.3 rebounds.

Grizzlies GM Chris Wallace has publicly said that Gasol would have been a lottery pick in last week’s draft.  Now, while I’m pretty sure that this is a little over-hyped on Wallace’s part, I think Gasol can definitely be a solid center in the NBA, putting up compatible numbers to Darko last season.

Regardless, this is a very solid pick-up for Memphis, as it gives them a couple of legitimate NBA centers, something that most NBA teams can’t say.

It also gives them more ammo to say that the Pau Gasol trade last season wasn’t so bad, as they now have three young, promising players on the team from that trade in Gasol, Javaris Crittenton, and Darrell Arthur.

Love & Greene Out, Mayo & Arthur In

The Memphis Grizzlies and Minnesota Timberwolves have just completed a huge trade, that included their first round picks in tonight’s draft.  Here’s how it breaks down:

Memphis gets:

-(Rights to) G O.J. Mayo (USC)

-PG Marko Jaric

-SG Greg Buckner

-PF Antoine Walker

Minnesota gets:

-(Rights to) PF Kevin Love (UCLA)

-SF Mike Miller

-PF Brian Cardinal

-C Jason Collins

This trade is very interesting and something that I really don’t understand all that much.

Al Jefferson, Minnesota’s star player, played last season out of position at center and the feeling is that he is truly a power forward.  So why they would want Love, who would keep Jefferson at center for a long time, I don’t know?

Meanwhile, it’s been well publicized that the Grizzlies have a gluttony of PGs, and while Mayo is projected to be a combo guard, he is still projected to be more of a PG than a SG, even if he will be a scoring PG.

Honestly, I’m not the biggest fan of O.J. Mayo and thought Kevin Love filled a much more pressing need for the Grizzlies than Mayo did.  I thought picking Love with the 5th overall pick was a little high, but I thought he would be a very solid NBA player.  Mayo, I’m not so sure about, mostly because of the hype and allegations surrounding him.

I find it interesting that a team that’s in the tank with their fan base would take a flyer on a player with such a questionable history as Mayo, with his constant moving around and Greg Oden-like, you’d of thought he would’ve dominated the Pac-10 this year.  Now Mayo averaged 20.7 points in his only season at USC, so it’s not like any slouch, but I just wonder about his personality and attitude.

I mean, Mayo has basically played wherever he’s wanted to since high school, he’s the only player I’ve ever heard of that told a school he was going to play for them.  Now, he gets to spend the next few years playing in Memphis for a rebuilding team, no more ‘I’m bored here, where do I want to play next.’

Another reason I’m not a big fan of this deal is because I don’t like it at all from a Memphis perspective.  You can pretty much cancel out Cardinal, Collins, Buckner, and Walker in the trade because those are basically just bad contracts being traded for other bad contracts.

The only good news is that the Grizzlies are getting back over $13 million-worth in expiring contracts in Walker and Buckner.  Well, sort of at least, as Walker has a Team Option at the end of the upcoming season that surely won’t be exercised (since it’s $21 million over those next 2 years) and Buckner has the possibility for a $1 buyout of the remaining 2 years, $8.3 million of his contract at the end of next season.

Meanwhile, the Grizzlies are getting rid of a $6.2 million expiring contract of Collins, while also unloading the horrible Cardinal contract (over $13 million over 2 years).

That really means it’s down to two things, comparing Mayo/Love and Miller/Jaric.  I think that while Mayo has a little bit more upside, but right now Mayo and Love are similar players, contributions wise to either team.  Having said this, I don’t think Mayo is good enough that you should be willing to completely re-shape your roster, giving up basically two starters for him, while taking on additional, bad contracts.

Now it comes down to the Miller- Jaric comparison, which Miller wins hands down.  Miller averaged 16.4 points, 6.6 rebounds, and 3.4 assists last season with Memphis, where he started all 70 games he played in and was Memphis’ legitimate scoring threat behind Rudy Gay last season after Pau Gasol was traded.  He also is owed a decent $18.75 million over the next two seasons.

Meanwhile, Jaric averaged 8.3 points, 4.2 assists, and 3 rebounds in just over 29 minutes of game action last season and has just about as bad a contract (3 years, $21+ million) as any of the aforementioned huge contracts…I mean players.  Honestly, the best thing  going for Marko Jaric is off the court, as he is dating supermodel Adriana Lima.  Add this to the fact that he is ANOTHER PG (albeit the world’s tallest at 6′7″).

Honestly, I think that the Grizzlies just got fleeced by the T-Wolves and their GM Kevin McHale, which automatically makes Chris Wallace the NBA’s worst GM.  It seems teams knew that Memphis didn’t want to settle for Love and were just waiting until Memphis finally saw at least a decent offer they liked.  Now, while this isn’t as bad as some of the proposed trades for Beasley (Miller, Conley/Lowry, and 5th pick for Beasley) it still is not a good trade for the Grizzlies.

Arthur In, Greene Out: The Grizzlies have also traded their other draft pick, as they’ve traded the rights to Syracuse F Donte Greene AND a 2009 2nd round pick to the Trail Blazers for the rights to Kansas PF Darrell Arthur.

Honestly, I think this trade sickens me the most because we basically traded a 2nd round pick in next year’s draft, in all likelihood a top-40 pick, to get a player who went the spot before us.  Is getting the guy who went 27th overall really worth trading away the 28th AND a top 40 pick in next year’s draft.

Haven’t we learned that trading future 2nd round picks for either late 1st round picks or 2nd round picks in that year’s draft is a bad idea.  Just think about what we could’ve had if Memphis would’ve had their 2nd rounder this year: Memphis G Chris Douglas-Roberts or Texas A&M C DeAndre Jordan.  If you combine either of them with Love and Greene and you have the potential to pick up three lottery-projected players in one draft.

Now we’ve traded away next year’s 2nd round pick for a guy with kidney problems who was sinking like the Titanic at the draft.  I mean, Arthur was projected to go about the same place as Greene, both slipped, so it’s not like trading a player who slipped for a player that had less value, they both had pretty much equal value.

But, with Memphis moving Love that left a gaping hole at PF that needed to be addressed, giving Portland the upper hand, thus giving them the opportunity for Chris Wallace to be taken in another trade.

Grizzlies Choose Love, Greene

So far in the draft there haven’t been very many surprises, and the Grizzlies followed suit, choosing UCLA PF Kevin Love with the 5th overall pick, which was pretty much roundly assumed to be the pick.

Love fills a need at the PF position for the Grizzlies, and he’s really a solid, safe choice here. The only questions surrounding him are really about his athleticism, but he brings interior scoring and rebounding, which are two things the Grizzlies desperately need and lacked last season.

What you hear the most about Love is his high ‘basketball IQ’ and the fact that he knows how to play the game. Probably the main thing associated with this are his outlet passes that help start fast breaks. I’ve never heard so much raving about the outlet passes of a player, and people are saying he’s the best outlet passer since Bill Walton, so that’s quite a complement. But these outlet passes could be very useful, especially if Marc Iavaroni decides to speed things up a little bit. Overall, Love’s passing and vision are two of his biggest pros, and Love could be great at finding an open Mike Miller around the perimeter, or a slashing Rudy Gay.

Now, having said this, I do think that selecting Love 5th overall is a little bit of a reach at the 5-spot, but the Grizzlies really put themselves in a tough position with their glutton of guards, especially point guards. That meant that pretty much half of the top players in the draft (O.J. Mayo, Russell Westbrook, Eric Gordon, D.J. Augustin, Jerryd Bayless) really didn’t make sense for them, especially since none of them really projected to be a pure pure shooting guard, which IS something the Grizzlies need.

Now, saying this, I like Love better than Stanford C Brook Lopez, who had similar athleticism questions to Love, and whose best asset was that he was a 7-footer who had some game. Besides that, the Grizzlies have more depth at the center spot, with Darko Milicic under contract for the next two years. Add this to the fact that Marc Gasol announced that he will be coming over to play in the NBA this upcoming season and the center position could be Memphis’ second strongest position (depth-wise) entering the season.

Memphis’ selection of Love could also be another sign that the younger Gasol will be playing for the Grizzlies next season.

Overall, I’m happy with the selection and I think (other than trading down a few spots and filling a few other holes) it was the best overall choice.

28th pick: Syracuse F Donte Greene

Surprisingly, there were multiple quality players that slipped to the Grizzlies at the 28th overall pick, including Greene, Texas A&M C DeAndre Jordan, and a hometown pick in Memphis SG Chris Douglas-Roberts.

It would have been easy for GM Chris Wallace to make the ‘hometown pick’ in choosing Douglas-Roberts.  It would have been the best PR the Grizzlies have gotten since the hiring of Marc Iavaroni last season and possibly help mend some fences burnt in the Pau Gasol trade, along with the possibly of putting some extra fannies in the seats, something the Grizzlies also desperately need.

Instead they chose Greene, who has been compared to the Grizzlies Hakim Warrick, another Syracuse forward who has been labeled as a ‘tweener’ who doesn’t really have a position and is said to play no defense.

But I applaud Wallace for not taking the easy way out and choosing Greene because, honestly, Greene has more potential than Douglas-Roberts and is better value at this point, as many projections had Greene going in the teens.

Greene also fills a need at the SF position for Memphis, and brings great athleticism and length to the Grizzlies.  His real upside is offensively, as he averaged 17.7 points and 7.2 rebounds in his freshman season at Syracuse.

The only problem is that he does tend to settle for jump shots, especially 3-pointers a lot, which is not something that the Grizzlies need.  Also, the questions about his defense are also something a team with one of the worst defenses in the league last year don’t need.

I still like the pick though, as even though it really centers around Greene’s potential, the fact that he is lottery talent is too hard to pass up on at this point, even for a hometown pick in Douglas-Roberts.

I think that Greene shouldered the load offensively on a pretty mediocre Syracuse team, which could have led to his poor shot selection.  I think that if Greene is the type of player who needed to go to a veteran team and learn from the veterans how to play in the league.  While the Grizzlies aren’t exactly a veteran team, they do have a veteran F in Mike Miller who could be a good mentor to Greene.

I know this pick will take a lot of heat in Memphis, but I like it because even though both Greene and Douglas-Roberts filled a need for the Grizzlies, Greene has more upside.

Marc Gasol to NBA

Marc Gasol called a press conference Monday in Spain to announce that he would be leaving Spain to play in the NBA next season.

The interesting thing all along has been that Gasol has never mentioned the Grizzlies specifically when discussing the fact that he wants to come over and play in the NBA.

Now, whether this is just posturing because the Grizzlies can’t officially sign Gasol until July or something more I don’t know.

What I do know is that Gasol’s announcement that he is coming to play in the NBA would greatly increase any trade value he would have if Memphis were looking to make any sort of trade.

I honestly really don’t know what to think, as honestly, when Juan Carlos Navarro bolted back to Spain, I thought it greatly hampered Memphis’ chances of getting the younger Gasol to cover over and play.

This along with the fact that he would basically be seen as replacing his older brother, in a city where his brother was not all that popular lead me to believe that it might be better for Marc to start his NBA career elsewhere. Add this to the fact that he, along with Javaris Crittenton and whomever the 28th overall pick will be, will face pressure to perform because of the fact that they were apart of that lopsided trade push the agenda that Gasol will face a tough start in Memphis even more likely.

But Gasol went to high school in Memphis and is familiar with the area, so I can see why it would look attractive for Marc to come over and start his NBA career with a city and franchise that he is familiar with.

Either way, it appears Gasol will be playing the the NBA next season, with or against the Grizzlies.

Grizzlies looking to dump Cardinal’s salary?: We all know the answer to this question is yes, but it appears they may be willing to deal the 5th overall pick to whomever will take on the final two years of Cardinal’s $13 million contract.

The teams mentioned are the Knicks, Trail Blazers, and Suns, with the only package being mentioned is the Knicks sending Fs David Lee and Malik Rose (expiring contract) to the Grizzlies for the 5th overall pick and Cardinal.

Honestly, if the Grizzlies make this move, I don’t see how they are going to stay in Memphis, as this would kill absolutely any interest in the team, showing the owner Michael Heisley is more interested in making a profit then putting a winning team on the court.

This would be a PR disaster for Memphis on the level of the Gasol trade, as it would offer more steam that they are just looking to cut costs left and right, assuming the fans won’t show up.

The only trade I would like to see the Grizzlies do is to trade down, with the Nets being the most likely option, as Memphis would ideally get both the 10th and 21st overall picks, allowing them to address the multiple needs this roster has.