Memphis Grizzlies: 5 takeaways from first loss of the season

No. 2: Andrew Harrison doesn’t need to start

Now, the obvious.

Placeholder minutes are fine, especially since Wayne Selden and Ben McLemore are injured. However, Harrison doesn’t need to start. In fact, he probably shouldn’t be seeing more than 20 minutes, and he certainly shouldn’t see the floor in crunch-time.

He’s not at that level yet.

I understand he needed to play more minutes tonight. With Selden, McLemore, Green and Parsons out, they really only had nine rotation players. In addition, since they play the Mavericks again tonight, there’s no sense in playing Chalmers and Evans — two players with recent injury issues — extended minutes in an October game.

This takeaway is a mixture of Selden and McLemore needing to return soon and a fix in the rotation. Once one of those two players return, they’ll be the starting shooting guard as Harrison moves to the bench. On the other hand, Harrison plays decent defense but isn’t an offensive threat. In the process, teams are giving him the “Tony Allen” treatment and putting the bigger guards on the smaller Mike Conley.

If he continues this lack of production, they need to mix up the starting 5.