On a cool, sunny fall day in Memphis... A podium is set up outside of the Grizzlies Memphis home, the Memphis Pyramid, overlooked by the statue of Ramesses the Great. Grizz GM walks up to the podium, flanked by players sitting on either side of it
Enrique: Anyways, where to begin? Last season. Last season we were riddled with injuries, early 6moty candidate Larry Johnson and Baron Davis were both injured for the better part of the season. It was then we got a call offering to make another trade with Washington, with whom we had traded with in the previous draft to nab Shawn Marion. With that trade we brought in former All-Star, Juwan Howard.
Enrique: On to this off-season. We didn't have a draft pick so lets cut to RFA. We were pleased when we heard Tony Delk was willing to sign an offer sheet with us and made sure to get it done. We thought he could be a great young veteran who we could add to our team. In the last hour of time they had to match however, the Miami Heat did just that. While there was some contact made, we had no interest in moving anything to get Delk, so my staff and I re-convened after that to determine our approach in Free Agency.
Enrique: We decided that our priorities would shift to shoring up all of our second unit guys. With that mindset, we once again brought in Chris Smith who was previously with the team. The new talent we added, we are very excited about. We traded for 27 year old Voshon Lenard and signed Gheorge Muresan, Bryce Drew, & Predrag Danilovich. To shore up our bigs, we've also decided to take looks at Andrew DeClercq, Jim McIlvaine, and Ed Stokes. We're very happy with the talent we were able to bring in and look forward to Pre-season to help us determine our final rotation.
Enrique: Lastly, I'd be remiss if I didnt talk about the stellar Training Camp we saw from the team. We saw just about everyone improve, and I'd once again like to point out our trio. Vince continued the same steady improvement he has shown year after year since we drafted him. Baron Davis took a lot of his time injured and put it towards not only rehab, but studying tape and improving his ability to get to the basket. Shawn Marion reinforced our beliefs that he could be an amazing all around talent. I asked the staff to really challenge him and his abilities in all facets of the game and he really rose to the challenge.
