Obviously, things arent going well this year.
Ja is out.
Adams and Clarke are hurt, leaving us threadbare on the inside.
We couldnt pay Tyus or Dillon, and Marcus isnt gelling yet.
Shams and Tim McMahon who are complete outsiders wrote some hit pieces against us so the national narrative about our franchise is actually truly false.
We decided not to find a young point guard who is actually a point guard to replace Ja for 25 games, and instead expected Bane, Rose, and Smart to replace Ja, none of whom are truly natural pure point guards.
That being said. We are getting hosed in most of these games. I have watched the Grizz for a long time and I cant remember a worse stretch of games from an officiating standpoint. When you play Golden State on national TV on Christmas, I expect us to get jobbed out, but in years past, that would even itself out over the course of the year. We would get John Goble to screw us in the GSW game, but then we would get Gucci Mane ref to give us a nicer whistle the next night.
This year feels different. It feels more like we are persona non grata within the league. Our team is getting very limited support from the refs on offense, and players like Smart are getting a very tight whistle on the other end. There isnt a situation where some games and for us and others are against us. Every game feels against us.
Could this be intended to punish Memphis for Ja?
And if not, could there be a larger objective for the NBA? To slowly erode the positivity of the Grizzlies in Memphis with the long term objective of shifting the team to Nashville, a market with more money?
The current state of affairs is heavily slanted against us. In response, we might make dramatic moves like changing coaching or changing the roster in ways that set us actually even further back. Is this what the league wants?
Damn! This was long ! tl;dr: very unlikely because it requires too many people to pay off to keep quiet about the effort. If you care to read the expanded version, go ahead…
Well, let’s talk this out.
• What are you suggesting?
The suggestion is that there is a League-wide effort to move the team from Memphis (a true basketball town) to Nashville (a larger market but definitely not a basketball town). Further, the suggestion is that this effort includes:
1.) the League’s executive management
2.) some or all of ownership, including that of the Grizzlies
3.) the 74 staff officials who call games and, possibly, the 8 non-staff officials
4.) people in the media across a range of publications
• What does this require?
There is no version of reality where this effort is benign volunteering on behalf of the city of Nashville. People who hate Memphis are certainly not going to have a greater affinity for Nashville. Certainly not your average basketball fan. Maybe your average baseball fan would prefer Nashville over Memphis… definitely your garden variety NASCAR fan. But basketball fans? Not really.
Certainly not anyone in the media who covers basketball. Certainly not officials or a bunch of owners. So what does this entire effort require? MONEY. No media personality is going to write insincere hit pieces on behalf of an effort like this without payment of some type from those who want the move to happen. NBA officials are going to need to be told to have a bias against the Grizzlies strictly to tip the scales in favor of a move and that requires none of them to have a shred of ethics prompting them to say “I don’t think this is right. I’m not on board and I’m going to tell someone about this.”
Now, maybe you’ll say “I don’t think a singe ref in the League is a decent person who has any ethics at all and they would totally be on board.” Okay, fine. Let’s go with that. You play the immoral referee and I’m the greedy whoever looking to get you to go along with the plan. Here’s the negotiation:
Me: “I want you to do this unethical thing of calling games against the Grizzlies to tip the scales so that they move to Nashville. I’m going to pay you to do this. I’m offering you X dollars.”
You: “I’m on board but my price is triple X dollars and I know you have it.”
Me: “You’re right. I do. I’ll pay you triple X dollars.”
You: “I don’t know. Now I’m kind of thinking you might need to triple that figure again. You wouldn’t want me to talk to the media about this would you?”
And round and round we go.
The reason that this is all unlikely is because it’s virtually impossible that you won’t have at least one 100% ethical individual who’ll never get on board and will expose you as well as one or more wholly unethical people who’ll take advantage of the situation and make the whole effort outrageously expensive. In fact, the very sort of person who’ll be on board with this is precisely the sort of person who will bleed you dry.
And the problem there is that money doesn’t move without a trace. There will be a paper trail. Some official whose salary is public ends up earning way too much money and the IRS begins asking questions. Some chode of a sports writer who lives on social media starts showing too lavish of a life and people begin asking questions. Some rando who knew a little too much —a city official in Nashville, someone in the Grizzlies ownership group, some billionaire NBA player with millions of fans at the end of his career who just doesn’t think this passes the smell test and speaks up because he’s confident in what he knows and doesn’t need his team’s money— will speak up.
And what does the district attorney in the city of Memphis do with that information? They can investigate the NBA and it’s easy to see how the League loses that battle in the court of public opinion. It just doesn’t work.
Officials have a bias and it’s showing right now but a conspiracy to move the team? No. Not when this could land us the no.1 pick and fucking backfire in less than a calendar year.
I genuinely might unsubscribe to this sub lol you guys come on
They are punishing our team because they want to discredit Ja and remove him from a face of the league
Because a NBA bust made a comment on a podcast; this is where people’s minds are at.
I guess i wouldn’t completely write it off but I’d say the more likely scenario is them wanting to make Ja feel the punishment. Add that to the regularly occurring sports betting that refs engage in
You guys are losing it, these takes are incredibly stupid. The league didn’t put a gun in Ja’s hands. They didn’t put Brandon Clarke and Steve Adams out of commission. They didn’t then put a second gun in Ja’s hands. They didn’t make Derrick Rose old. They didn’t discombobulate Marcus Smart. They aren’t the reason 3 of last year’s draft picks aren’t playing in the NBA.
And ask Seattle - if they want the team moved, they won’t need to use referee malfeasance to make it happen. Come on now