With the NBA trade deadline now behind them, the Memphis Grizzlies can start to look towards the future as they start to acclimate their acquisitions.
Marc Gasol is now on the Toronto Raptors and Mike Conley is now the lone Grit N’ Grind Veteran left. Avery Bradley is now in Memphis, along with Jonas Valanciunas, a Toronto 2024 2nd rd pick, Tyler Dorsey, and Delon Wright. That’s not the NBA trade deadline fans were expecting.
Grizzlies fans who saw the Gasol trade return were not pleased, to say the least, including me initially. I said on my podcast listed below, that Memphis traded Marc for a drink voucher at The Cat Walk on Lamar.
How can you blame fans initial reaction, when the highlight of trading a potential hall of famer is some 2024 second round pick that we won’t see for another five years!
Toronto Raptors
Well, thankfully the story doesn’t necessarily have to go that way. Wright is only 26 years old and at 6’5″ is a very talented point guard out of Utah who Toronto selected 20th in the first round of the 2015 NBA draft.
He is the younger brother of former Miami Heat player Dorell Wright, so has an NBA bloodline. Wright possesses every tool in his arsenal and as of recent when given the ticks, he has shown the production.
I compare his situation to that of Eric Bledsoe early on in his career as Chris Paul‘s understudy with the Los Angeles Clippers. In Toronto, Wright being an on-ball playmaker was stuck in the understudy role behind potential Hall Of Famer and former Grizzlies point guard Kyle Lowry.
Lowry is a resident pit bull who doesn’t leave much on the plate for any other dog coming behind him so there goes the reason Wright hasn’t surged yet. Hopefully the former changes here in Memphis though he is kinda in a similar situation.
Wright may be older at age 26 but is essentially a redraft prospect. These are the type of moves one has to make and strike gold on with such a lack of assets as Memphis currently. Simply put if finally given the right audition (pun intended), Delon can turn this from an all-time low return into a pretty even swap, he has that much potential.
The good thing about the only pick we got out of trading four guys, is the second round pick we got from Toronto is in 2024.
By that time, the Raptors could very possibly be heading to the lottery depths again or well in it. This means the 2nd round pick we got will hopefully be at the top of the second round meaning we will be still drafting first round talent but able to pay the prospect second round money. Those are the small wins that add up in the long run.
These are the moves that the Brooklyn Nets have made after mortgaging the future years ago for the corpses of Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce. Brooklyn under Sean Marks has turned toilet water into moonshine.
The New York Knicks are also doing the same now with Scott Perry and Steve Mills running the show. Memphis now has to mimic the same success if they want to accelerate the rebuild as smoothly as possible.