7 players the Memphis Grizzlies gave up on too soon

2. PG Mike Bibby

It’s hard to say the Grizzlies necessarily gave up on Mike Bibby because he was pretty good during his time with them. However, considering that not long after trading him is when, at the time Vancouver Grizzlies, began taking off makes it hard to be happy about how they got rid of him.

Bibby was drafted by the Grizzlies with the second pick in the 1998 NBA Draft and after three very solid seasons, the team opted to trade him to the Sacramento Kings for Nick Anderson and Jason Williams. In hindsight, this is a pretty awful trade, but for a relatively new franchise, adding the much flashier and marketable Williams could have had a big effect on the team’s growth.

Williams wasn’t the worst player by any means, but his complete lack of consistency made it hard to say he was better than Bibby, especially with how he upped his level of play once joining the contending Sacramento Kings.

Obviously, there was no way of telling what the direction of the franchise was. However, replacing Williams with Bibby on that infamous Grizzlies team with Pau Gasol, Shane Battier, and Mike Miller would have made them far better than they already were.

We can somewhat understand the Grizzlies thinking with this trade, but my goodness they could have been so much better if they had opted to stick with the more consistent player in Bibby.