Memphis Grizzlies Will Experiment with a New Front Office Structure

The Memphis Grizzlies will enter the next era of their franchise’s history with a new style of management operations. How effective will it be?

Alright, folks. Settle down. The music has stopped again, even if only temporarily. The Memphis Grizzlies have restructured the Front Office after a debacle of a media day to officially end the 2018-19 season.

But hey, what’s new? Well, the way they have responded thus far. The reassigning of the Grizzlies’ greatest General Manager in franchise history to date — Chris Wallace –to a reduced scouting role came as a major shock. He had just conducted media day and player meetings seemingly confirmed his job was safe just two hours prior to the music stopping.

Now, here we are with a team of lawyers running the Front Office in Memphis. Former attorney Jason Wexler, who many seem to like locally, is now President with Zach Kleiman in tow as the Vice President and de facto GM. Kleiman happens to be only 30 years old, which sounds similar to anyone familiar with majority owner Robert Pera and how he moves.

Not only is this rare, but both are former lawyers as well as Rich Cho, who will move here to Memphis to run the analytics department and help build the analytics culture amongst day-to-day staff while also serving as a valued voice at the table of all personnel matters.

In other words, Cho will serve as a more experienced version of John Hollinger. Hollinger, who is regarded by many as an analytical genius and the creator of Player Efficiency Ratings, wasted first round NBA Draft picks on said analytics darlings like Jordan Adams. Not to mention, Hollinger simply proved he just was not the type of day-to-day manager one had hoped to implement such a culture.

Rich Cho is slightly the contrary, though many in NBA circles will tell you Cho is not a good head honcho himself despite being great at building like one, if that makes sense.

Glen Grunwald will serve as the front office OG of sorts with his nearly 30 years of basketball operations experience. However, as of now, Grunwald will work remotely from where he currently resides as opposed to living in Memphis and being in the office every day like the former Charlotte Hornets GM, Rich Cho. However, both are serving different roles in such regard.

Grunwald, a former General Manager for the New York Knicks, is the guy with a long-respected résumé and has great relationships throughout the league. The Memphis Grizzlies now have three former NBA GMs working as a team, and they all work for Kleiman, a 30-year-old former intern of Cho and Grunwald.

Here is the kicker. None of the three former GMs serve such a role now. They are a collective brain trust of general managers. Now that is unprecedented for an NBA front office, and only time will tell if such uniqueness translates into equal success. Gone are the days of having Chris Wallace serve as the sacrificial lamb to the public for awful moves being made on the behalf of the organization and killing their reputation most times.

Today is a new beginning. One that Robert Pera clearly hopes will lead to the Memphis Grizzlies eventually being amongst the elite in analytics culture. Having three lawyers and three former general managers all as one engine is a great way to start.

Now that we are here, allow Beale Street Bears to dig a little bit more into the roles and briefing of both Rich Cho and Glen Grunwald, beginning with the former.