The greatest miracle the Grit ’N Grind Grizzlies pulled wasn’t making Memphis fall in love with the local basketball team (the South has long been a hoops mecca). It wasn’t providing a counterweight to a league getting faster, freer, and smaller. The biggest achievement of Grit ’N Grind was turning Zach Randolph into what he has become.
Zach Randolph and Memphis were perfect for each other
The Z-Bo era is over in Memphis, and what an era it was. But it’s time for everyone to move forward.
Photo by Frederick Breedon/Getty Images
Randolph was the trouble child incarnate before arriving in Memphis. He’d been cast off from the Blazers, ridiculed with the Knicks, and salary-dumped by the Clippers. (The Clippers!) In Memphis — with stability, good coaching, and great teammates — he found a new identity and a real career.
Now, he’s been signed by the Sacramento Kings on a two-year deal to provide a veteran presence and buckets under his old coach Dave Joerger. Tell someone stuck in 2008 that Z-Bo would eventually be a stabilizing, culture-positive veteran for a young team. They’d laugh you out of the room! But we’re there.
Stability, defense, and a refusal to compromise their identity had been the hallmarks of Grit ’N Grind. The first of those became tenuous when Memphis fired Joerger a year ago and went outside the franchise for his replacement. (Joerger had been Lionel Hollins’ top assistant when he took over three years prior.)
With Dave Fizdale in the lead chair, the Grizzlies began to compromise their identity some. As the league changed and the key Grizzlies aged, the old ways weren’t fully tenable. The defense held — having Mike Conley, Marc Gasol, and Tony Allen around helps — but Memphis began valuing the three-pointer much more. That resulted in Z-Bo taking a full-time bench role behind the quicker, slightly more stretchy JaMychal Green.
Randolph still played plenty, scored lots of buckets, corralled tons of rebounds, and stared down any fool who challenged him. The Grizzlies became less grisly, but Zach Randolph stayed himself.
That changes now.
Memphis will likely be paying big to re-up Green, who looks like a nice find. Allen might leave too, as the Grizzlies are rather strapped for space due to giant contracts for Conley, Gasol, and Chandler Parsons. Fizdale wants to play a free style. Conley is a half-court lead guard, and Gasol isn’t exactly fleet, so the shift won’t cause whiplash. But it’s a shift, and it’ll be noticeable over the long haul.
That’s what happens on the court. Culturally speaking, Z-Bo is integral to Grit ’N Grind, associated with the identity more closely than anyone but T.A., the Grindfather himself. The Grindhouse will remain, but without Randolph in the building the identity will be slightly diminished.
It’s like the ’90s Lakers in a qualitative, metaphorical sense. They still played wild with Nick Van Exel instead of Magic Johnson, and the courtside celebrities hung around. But they just weren’t Showtime anymore. Gasol and Conley will keep the candle lit, but the flame is flickering.
Memphis will be OK — Fizdale is choice, those two stars are studs, and Parsons isn’t a completely lost cause yet. The Grizzlies will keep making the playoffs, and Chris Wallace has shown the acumen needed to transition once Gasol crosses past his prime and slows down.
Z-Bo, likewise, will be fine, and that’s wonderful. It was never guaranteed for him. Memphis was the best thing to happen to his career, and in turn he was a mighty big positive for the Grizzlies. Sometimes in this league, good happens. We’re lucky we got to watch it all work out for Memphis and for Z-Bo.
