Chris Wallace has made many poor decisions as the general manager of the Memphis Grizzlies. Will he lose his job, and if so, when?
Chris Wallace is not a good NBA general manager. Anyone who argues otherwise at this point is either just trying to be contrarian, delusional, or stupid (or a mixture of all three). In most situations, Chris Wallace would have already been out the door.
However, the Memphis Grizzlies are not your average situation.
There is real way to spin this in a positive light. In order to fix the problems with the front office, you have to fix the problems that are above even that–the ownership situation.
When is the last time that anyone has seen Robert Pera in the Memphis area? It certainly wasn’t during the MLK celebration where even Jeanie Buss, the owner of the Lakers, flew in from Los Angeles to be there. Of course, the owner of the Memphis Grizzlies couldn’t be bothered to show up.
Honestly, it all comes down to simple logic. Who is going to fire an incompetent executive if there is no one there to fire him? For all we know, Robert Pera may love mediocrity just as much as Chris Wallace.
If the Grizzlies do fire Wallace, I can’t see it happening until at least later in the summer. Hopefully, the ownership situation will resolve itself by then. However, if nothing changes at the very top, you can expect Wallace to remain here for pretty much as long as he wants.
At this point, Chris Wallace carries himself like a man who has nothing to fear. He knows that even if he makes bad decisions, there is no one really there to hold him accountable. He has repeatedly made it clear that the backlash of Memphis media means nothing to him. If things are going to change, it all depends upon the man who owns the franchise.