Grizz 09-10 Pre-Season Presser

[LoCo89]

We return once again to the former city of Elder, South Dakota, now known as Van Memphis, the halfway point between Vancouver and Memphis. A fitting place as the road to contention or tanking both seem so far away

GM Enrique: Hello and welcome, to the beginning of another season in Van Memphis Grizzlies basketball. Before we begin to talk about this years team, I'd like to talk about how we got here:

GM Enrique: Last season, I came up here and talked about how we were asking fans to get ready for the shift in Grizzlies basketball and to strap in for the long weird road that we thought we'd travel on the way to prominence. We may now actually be further than we were last year. Last season, two opportunities came up for us to quickly gain future assets. The first was acquiring Mike Miller for 2 first round picks. The second was selling Kyle Lowry for two more and the young shooter Anthony Morrow. Kyle's presence was missed for us, as we were rudderless without our All-Star PG. We trudged our way to 31 wins, 8th worst in the league. We ended up with the 9th and 15th Picks in the draft.

GM Enrique: With those picks, we decided to start to try to fill in the void at PG. We brought in two potential guys that we really like, but both will take a bit to develop. Eric Bledsoe and Ish Smith are both guards that showed flashes in college, and we hope that they can be two of the torchbearers for the future.

GM Enrique: In RFA, we decided to go after another shooter to pair along with Miller, Morrow, and Bobby Simmons. We settled on JJ Redick formerly of the champion Phoenix Suns. We also brought in another shooter in FA in James Jones who we expect to get some run. Other than that, we largely brought back the same bench/rotation players as last season. We're planning on putting as many shooters on the floor as we can and for as long as we can. While we're lacking in the defensive departments, we're hoping that we can make up some of those liabilities with pace and efficient shooting.

GM Enrique: Still, the message is the same for Grizz fans, hope for the best, expect the worse as we try to steer ourselves out of this.

Now if there are any questions, we will be taking them now

[MESSI_2.0]

How do you plan on dividing up minutes between your shooting guards? Is there a plan to move one of your SG to a different position to get the most shooters on the floor at the same time?

[LoCo89]

How do you plan on dividing up minutes between your shooting guards? Is there a plan to move one of your SG to a different position to get the most shooters on the floor at the same time?

So actually this is something we've done for awhile. Bobby has always split time at SF for us to get him as much time, Mike Miller actually played some at PF for us as well. We haven't quite nailed down our rotations, but it will be a fluid situation at the beginning of the year to try to get everyone where they need to be


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[NOLa.]

As stated in your presser, you're teetering between competing for a spot in the playoffs and continuing your rebuild.

Last season we saw the Suns employ the 3-ball attack which won them the championship, but they had a front court presence. Is this something you're looking for that could be the difference between being stuck and full on competing?

Sent from my SM-S765C using Tapatalk

[JNR]

GWR: Talk about Anthony Morrow's training camp, particularly on the defensive end, and what it means to your team going forward.

[LoCo89]

As stated in your presser, you're teetering between competing for a spot in the playoffs and continuing your rebuild.

Last season we saw the Suns employ the 3-ball attack which won them the championship, but they had a front court presence. Is this something you're looking for that could be the difference between being stuck and full on competing?

Sent from my SM-S765C using Tapatalk

Absolutely. Anytime you can become a more complete team is helpful to competing and while we'd love to strengthen both our front and backcourt, we're in a difficult position to do so

[LoCo89]

GWR: Talk about Anthony Morrow's training camp, particularly on the defensive end, and what it means to your team going forward.

It was a surprise to us certainly. We came in thinking he'd continue to improve as a shooter and offensively, but the focus he had defensively makes him a more interesting player moving forward. Everyone hopes to find guys that you don't have to sacrafice on either side of the ball, so to develop one in house, when he appeared to be a one way player, is very promising

[ballsohard]

There are rumors that Eric Bledsoe was unhappy during Training Camp; can you expand upon these rumors?

[LoCo89]

There are rumors that Eric Bledsoe was unhappy during Training Camp; can you expand upon these rumors?

Nah. Don't know where that came from


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Conroy]

Sports Guy Bill Simmons here, will Ish Smith and Eric Bledsoe see any time on the court together? Would their speed and athleticism make up for the massive size disadvantages?