#SLOE: People's Basketball Sim League

As the press files in, the space is noticeably different than the last few seasons. Gone is the extravagant decorations, platters and other accoutrements that has been the calling card of the Grizz pressers. And it's not even something that was noticeable before, but their absence is. GM Enrique strides in to new music, he's in his usual attire of a suit, tie, and sunglasses. While the affair is noticeably stripped down, he is not

Enrique Well we've arrived. Even though they haven't told me specifically, we all know I'm probably gonna be out as GM next season. You can't run a team into the ground like I have financially and expect to be brought back. As the team moves forward to navigate out of the hell hole, I imagine they'll bring some young upstart to GM the squad moving forward.

EnriqueIt's funny I'll often look back. at the trading for Rondo 3 seasons ago that kicked this off and wonder if I'd do it again. No titles, playoff runs marred by injury, poor TC results, financial ruin... And every time, as I sit there, sipping at some cocktail undoubtedly, I think yes, 10/10 of course. I can only control what I can control, and I feel like I put one of the best teams seen in this franchise's history. Sure other teams won more, but top to bottom, talent-wise, this team blows the old, Carter-Marion or Gatling-Daugherty teams out of the water.

Enrique I think about where these guys will be a year from now, Rondo as he enters his twilight, Hawes the same, Kawhi and Jimmy finally separated and it makes me a bit sad. This team should've been great... It's funny, I mentioned before how I havent been told anything about my future here, but you can tell so much by the fact there's no damn food at this presser. They finally nixed the budged on me and it was on the food at my likely last presser

EnriqueBut we still have this year. This will undoubtedly be this team's swan song, it's farewell tour, it's curtain call. We knew that coming in. In the exit meetings last season, I told the guys they'd be kept together for this last run. I was transparent with them and I only asked for one thing in return. I wanted them to use every connection they had. Call every player they knew and try to get them in here. We in the office followed every rumor of a contract offer and went to players that we knew were unhappy with their offers. Together with the players, I feel like we put together a group befitting of a last run.

EnriqueOur big coup was free agency. Yes we picked up a solid piece in the draft that could help now, in Bonifaz Wenninger who will likely be the start of the next iteration of Grizz Basketball. But Free Agency is where we shined. First we wanted some veteran PG help. We were very happy to be able to pick up George Hill and think he can spell Rajon for times. Next was our wings. We've lacked three point shooting for the last few seasons and wanted to pick up guys who could contribute in that aspect. We brought in OJ Mayo who is a self proclaimed gunner from range. In addition, we were very happy to bring in promising SG Sean Kilpatrick. He's shown flashes of being a solid guard and we hope he can help anchor our bench

Enrique Finally, we've all seen the terror that is Anthony Davis in Detroit. We wanted to make sure we could guard at the big positions for all 48 minutes and then some. We were able to pickup Jeff Adrien to solidfy the 4 spot and bring back Omer for a 3rd run with the Grizz. As we began to wind down feeling good about our class, we received a phone call. Jimmy and Kawhi were on vacation in LA and had run into Roy Hibbert. He was unhappy that he wasnt offered a contract to stay with the Clippers after being 3rd team All NBA. He wasnt satisfied with the offers that were drying up as teams went in other directions. And so I flew down to LA to meet with the 3 of them. We were able to secure Roy Hibbert and bring him to Vancouver.

Enrique So there you have it, while the team is filled out, we haven't quite decided how to deploy our rotations. We expect to experiment to start out the season. Assistant Coach Rob-O tried some things in Preseason, and we liked the mix of what we saw but ultimately it led to a poor overall preseason result. But overall we're excited as we head into this final chapter of these Vancouver Grizzlies

We will now take questions

You acquired a surplus of goods this offseason during free agency. Which player acquisition are you most excited about heading into next season?

You mentioned injury has derailed this team in the past. How confident do you feel that your depth will allow you to overcome any potential injury setback?

Do you feel any responsibility to try to remedy your tax situation for the next GM if your speculation is true, or for yourself if it isn't?

Take us through that first round of UFA. You could have played it safe and attempted to use all 10 bids on Y/Y guys who would have been valuable pickups as role players, but you swung and hit a grand slam grabbing Hibbert and Kilpatrick. Was this a calculated move that you felt these players wouldn’t receive attention, or were you swinging for the fences wildly here?


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With so much talent, what is your plan for the depth chart and rotations? How are you going to keep all these guys happy?

Do you feel this current team is the best team you've had on paper since you've been the GM here? And is this team good enough to win the West?

GWR: Is it freeing to make moves and then shrug at whatever happens outside of your control?

digiskunk wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 5:02 pm You acquired a surplus of goods this offseason during free agency. Which player acquisition are you most excited about heading into next season?

It's not often you can pry away an All NBA player in a trade, let alone a signing, and for damn sure not a minimum signing. That's exactly what we got in Hibbert.

Under different circumstances it might've been Kilpatrick since he's still so young, but we know that this is only a stop for him on his journey

WigNosy wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 5:39 pm You mentioned injury has derailed this team in the past. How confident do you feel that your depth will allow you to overcome any potential injury setback?

Fairly confident. Even at potentially our weakest depth position at PG, we feel like George Hill can be serviceable with our other pieces. At the Bigs/Wings we think we're 4-5 players deep and it's hard to not be happy about that

garbageman wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 8:31 pm Do you feel any responsibility to try to remedy your tax situation for the next GM if your speculation is true, or for yourself if it isn't?

Not at all. My job has been to put together the best roster and get as many wins as I could.

(I'm not quitting. Whenever it's a change in direction I've "fired" the GM and "hired" a new one)

LoCo89 wrote: Mon Dec 18, 2017 11:13 am (I'm not quitting. Whenever it's a change in direction I've "fired" the GM and "hired" a new one)

NOLa. wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:33 pm Take us through that first round of UFA. You could have played it safe and attempted to use all 10 bids on Y/Y guys who would have been valuable pickups as role players, but you swung and hit a grand slam grabbing Hibbert and Kilpatrick. Was this a calculated move that you felt these players wouldn’t receive attention, or were you swinging for the fences wildly here?


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As much as I'd hate to give away company secrets, every good FA we acquired was from a team in some sort of transition, whether it was new management, extreme talent departure, or tax issues. We targeted these guys and wanted to get them in here

kucoach7 wrote: Sun Dec 17, 2017 9:37 pm With so much talent, what is your plan for the depth chart and rotations? How are you going to keep all these guys happy?

Winning hopefully. We think we'll largely go with the lineup we had last year with our new FAs coming in off the bench. The way we see it, we're going to be bringing in a fresh, starting caliber lineup in in bunches off the bench.

78# wrote: Mon Dec 18, 2017 5:42 am Do you feel this current team is the best team you've had on paper since you've been the GM here? And is this team good enough to win the West?

As I said before, this team is certainly up there in Grizz history.

As for your second question, no idea. We know we don't have that top level superstar and in the long haul of the regular season/playoffs it gets a little tougher to win significantly without one

Are you totally locked into making this team a success no matter what this season, or do you see yourself pulling the plug early if the team stumbles at any point before the trade deadline?