How the Grizzlies fired David Fizdale

David Fizdale’s firing in Memphis comes as the NBA season’s biggest surprise. Fizdale finished his tenure in Memphis with a 50-51 record despite rarely having a healthy cast of players over the last two seasons.

The Grizzlies are in the midst of an eight-game losing streak after starting the year at 7-4. Fizdale’s tenure wasn’t perfect. He hovered around .500 despite having one of the best point guard and center tandems in the league.

But how’d we get here?

Conley was ruled out of the Grizzlies lineup with soreness in his Achilles on Nov. 15 against the Pacers. Prior to that, the Grizzlies were 7-6, but had just lost two straight games to the Rockets and the Bucks.

The team ruled out Conley for at least two weeks before being re-evaluated and determining if he could play games again. This wasn’t the only issue at the core of the Grizzlies’ problems, but it certainly was a big one. Having one of their two best players go in and out of the lineup didn’t help turn things around.

Those losses weren’t to great teams, either. They’ve dropped games to the Rockets, Trail Blazers, Pacers, Nuggets without Paul Millsap, Mavericks, and Nets in that time. It’s hard to win games in the NBA, but the Grizzlies should have won most of those.

But with their point guard lineup shaky, games got even more difficult. And it seems that their Nov. 26 loss to the Nets was the final straw.

The Grizzlies had an eight-point lead in the first half but ended up going into halftime tied. They fell back by 14 going into the fourth quarter, then put a bench unit in the game. They managed to claw their way back into the game and cut the lead to 82-77 with 7:47 left in the game.

Rather than going back to Marc Gasol and his starters, Fizdale kept the same unit in that made the run to get back into the game. It proved to be ineffective with the Grizzlies eventually losing, but it was also the final straw in Fizdale’s tenure.

He went off. See for yourself:

“If I’m not on the floor that means I’m not valued. And that, I’m sure they know, hurt me the most,” Gasol said after the game. “I’m sure they wouldn’t do it to Mike [Conley]. It’s just the way it is. You have to deal with it.”

Gasol said the coaching staff didn’t tell him why he wasn’t put him back in the game. He said he was “more angry” than he could show while still being professional, but he clearly took it personally that Fizdale and the staff didn’t put him back in.

This stems back to last season, according to DraftExpress’ Jonathan Givony. Fizdale and Gasol apparently had confrontations during practice that soured the relationship between the two:

If things were that bad, the organization may have had to make a choice between one of their two best players and their coach. If that was the case, they obviously chose the player.

Throughout his tenure as the Grizzlies owner, Pera has always made brash moves. This is a team that has made the playoffs each year over the last six seasons but will have had four head coaches in that same span once J.B. Bickerstaff begins coaching in Memphis.

Fizdale did a lot without having very much to work with, but Lionel Hollins was fired after he won 56 games and Dave Joerger was let go after three of the most successful seasons in the franchise’s history. As surprising as this move is right now, it doesn’t stray from what we’ve seen from the organization in the past. Fizdale was just another casualty of that same impatience.