Memphis Grizzlies: What if O.J. Mayo wasn’t a bust?

Memphis Grizzlies G OJ Mayo could have been the final piece of the puzzle

The story of OJ Mayo is a lesson to NBA teams on the fragility of building a team. The Grizzlies did everything right, bringing Mike Conley, Marc Gasol, and Zach Randolph to the team and building a force to be reckoned with, but were derailed by a single misstep along the way.

But imagine a world where OJ Mayo doesn’t turn into a bust. Do the Memphis Grizzlies win an NBA Championship in that world?

The answer will never be able to come down to a simple yes or no, so in order to find our answer, let’s look at what his ceiling would have looked like as a player.

Some former third-overall picks that come to mind are some of the best players in the league’s history. Michael Jordan was a third overall pick. Bradley Beal, a player who was the leading scorer in the NBA for most of the season, was a third overall pick. The list is long.

The Grizzlies made it to the conference finals in their first season without OJ Mayo since he was drafted. At this point, he was supposed to be approaching his ceiling as a player.

You have to believe that the Memphis Grizzlies would have had as good of a chance as anybody to win an NBA Championship that season if they had a prime, unproblematic OJ Mayo on the squad. There would be too much talent for this not to happen.

Unfortunately, it didn’t happen. Instead, the Grizzlies re-entered another rebuild a few years later. This time around, things may work out in their favor.