At the NBA regular season’s midpoint, we are grading each Memphis Grizzlies player through the first half of the season. Today we grade guard Mike Conley.
The Memphis Grizzlies had a rocky start to the season as a whole, but Mike Conley hasn’t been his old self all year.
Conley’s averaging 15.0 points per game and 5.8 assists per game, both numbers a few notches ahead of his career averages which is fine. The problem is he’s been inefficient at being a scoring presence for his team that struggles on offense to begin with.
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His shooting splits this season of .406/.359/.850 are down from his career numbers except for the free throw shooting, but his field goal percentages are what really concern me. On both two-point and three-point attempts Conley is significantly below where he was last season which doesn’t make much sense considering he’s in a contract year.
He hasn’t improved his rebounding and steals since last year and has decreased in win shares by almost half of his number last season (3.5 win shares down from 6.8). His PER has gone up slightly to 18.8 from 18.6 but it’s still lower than the 20 he put up two years ago.
So what has led to Conley’s decline this year? He’s missed six games due to injury, but nothing was significant enough to still be lingering. He’s relatively healthy and hasn’t lost any of his explosiveness, and his team around him is virtually the same as last season.
The answer, however, is in the playing style that he’s been forced to quarterback. The Grizzlies are trying to play a fast-paced offense this year built around a small-ball lineup consisting of Matt Barnes at small forward and Jeff Green at power forward. While this can lead to more cuts and three-point shots, it’s still an adjustment overall because of the speed Memphis is trying to move at.
For almost his entire career Conley has been in the middle of a pick-and-roll offense with Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol. Now he’s had to initiate more himself and draw more attention away from perimeter shooters. He has more space to work with but it takes time to adjust to these things especially when you played one way for almost your whole tenure in the NBA.
The good news is that a faster pace is better for him because he’s a quick point guard himself. Conley loves to run up and down the floor and now that he’s gotten his wish to push the ball more it’s up to him to make the necessary adjustments to his game.
With free agency looming and the chance for him to pick up a very large contract, I’m sure Conley won’t let the entire season go to waste. Memphis has just started to turn things around in the win/loss column so the best is yet to come for the Grizzlies’ new offense.