Updated: Feb. 8, 2005, 10:53 AM ET
Brown's influence still felt in Memphis
By Chad Ford
ESPN Insider
MEMPHIS – Hubie Brown might have stepped down as coach of the Memphis Grizzlies on Thanksgiving Day, but his spectre still floats along the corridors of the new Fed Ex arena.
Every time Brian Cardinal dives for a loose ball. Every time Stromile Swift rises to the rafters for a block. Every time Jason Williams makes a defensive stop.
The Grizzlies have rebounded from a 5-11 start under Hubie and interim head coach Lionel Hollins. Since new head coach Mike Fratello took over, the team is 22-10. They posted the best record in the league in January with a 12-3 record under Fratello's steady hand.
The Grizzlies are the best team in the NBA that no one is talking about.
And if you believe everyone in Memphis, the retired Hubie is the biggest reason for their newfound success.
ECLIPSING THE SUNS
The ghost of Hubie was there in all of his glory last Tuesday as the Grizzlies faced the red hot Phoenix Suns. Down four key players – Pau Gasol, James Posey, Bonzi Wells and Earl Watson – the gritty Grizzlies somehow found a way to defeat the red-hot Suns 108-97.
In the closing minutes of the fourth quarter with the game tied, Fratello signaled for Williams to come in off the bench to replace rookie Antonio Burks. Burks, who had come straight off the injured list to play his first minutes since Dec. 13, was running out of gas.
The Grizzlies were down 89-88 with 5:41 left in the game and Fratello wants Williams to anchor the team for the rest of the game.
As Williams waits by the scorer's table, an exhausted Burks hits a three pointer to put the Grizz ahead 91-89.
Williams looks toward the bench at Fratello. Fratello sees him and nods. A minute later, Burks rises up and hits a second three. Williams begins creeping toward the bench and asks Fratello, "Do you want me to come back? Do you still want to take him out?"
Fratello doesn't hesitate to put Williams back in the game, but later uses Williams' unselfishness to stress a point about this year's Grizzlies.
"You have egos, but are the egos going to share the ball?" Fratello told Insider. "Does the 'W,' does that umbrella everything else?
"The other stuff goes on in every place. But when you have the big umbrella that covers everything else – winning – players make the extra pass, they go after a loose ball, take a charge. That part is unselfishness. They have egos. But the team aspect becomes bigger than the individual agendas.
"It all goes back to Hubie. There was a base, a foundation, an understanding of work ethic, practice habits and game preparations," Fratello said. "Some people just never get it. Some players and some teams never get it. We have character guys here. They come from programs where they learn to work.
"You come in here and you walk in after a guy who was the coach of the year. A guy who believes in organization and discipline and it makes it such a blessing as you come in."
As Fratello walks into the tunnel after the game, he's met by a grinning Jerry West who opens his arms, embraces Fratello, and offers up his congratulations – Hubie would have been proud.
Even in the locker room, Hubie – who retired at 71 and now is an NBA analyst for ABC broadcasts – gets the lion share of the credit.
"Hubie's influence is everywhere," swingman Shane Battier said. "He taught us how to be a team. That the little things mattered. That to succeed we had to rely on each other."
Fratello and the players aren't the only ones trying to pass the credit back to Brown, the NBA's Coach of the Year in 2003-04 when he led the Grizzlies to a 50-32 mark and first-ever playoff berth.
West is still reeling from his departure. Together with Brown, West rebuilt one of the sorriest franchises in the league brick-by-brick. They infused the entire franchise with a sense of professionalism and created a starless, selfless team that valued teamwork, depth and playing the right way over everything else.
"On Thanksgiving, I get a call and I'm shocked. I'm shocked," West told Insider. "[It was tough] to lose someone I felt so impassioned about. What he's done for the franchise brought a passion, a spirit, a discipline, and a toughness to the table."
And while West is the first guy to praise Fratello ("He's done a great job. An unbelievable job. We all feel better about where we are."), everyone from Battier to Fratello to West didn't believe the Grizzlies needed an overhaul after their 5-11 start.
Each man points to two major factors that got the Grizzlies off on the wrong foot this season – injuries (especially to James Posey) and a brutal schedule (they played six games in eight days during a stretch in November) to start the season.
"Honestly, I've been telling people all year long that this year's team is very similar to last year's," Battier said. "We had some adversity right out of the gate with the schedule, injuries and a coaching change.
"People wrote us off a little bit. But we knew we were pretty good. Our health has improved, the schedule has broken in our favor. Once you get some confidence, things start going our way."
GO WEST
Lately, everything has been going the Grizzlies' way.
In the span of their past 18 games, the Grizzlies are 14-4 and are beating teams by a margin of more than nine points per game. They are doing all of this short-handed and without any fanfare.
"We've been a pretty hot story and we don't even get our names mentioned," West said with a chuckle. "We had a big win against Phoenix the other night and all [everyone on TV] wanted to talk about was the Suns."
On the rare occasions that folks mention the Grizzlies, they don't talk about superstars, flash or style. They talk about depth and determination. There's a reason.
"We have to spread it around to win games," Battier said. "Outside of Pau, we don't have that one dominant force that can carry us every night.
"When he goes out, we all have to chip in and do it collectively. When we're at our best is when we are driving and pitching and just trying to find the open guy. We get into a lot of trouble when we try to do it individually. We're just not good enough individually to win games by ourselves."
While they don't have a superstar to carry them on a nightly basis, they very well might be the deepest team in the league. Brown played a 10-man rotation in Memphis, and Fratello easily could do the same once the team gets healthy.
The teams' depth has protected them from suffering from the injury bug. The Grizzlies' bench of Battier, Wells, Watson, Wright and Cardinal is good enough to beat most bad teams on its own on any given night.
While the coaching of Fratello and Brown gets most of the credit, West's contributions to the team can't be ignored.
When West landed in Memphis after winning titles in Los Angeles, he knew that an organization without any real history or stature was never going to land a marquee free agent.
After dealing with two of the best players and biggest egos in the league with the Lakers, West sought out a smaller town to escape the tabloids and escalating expectations.
"I've had a great opportunity to work with a team that has had a lot of success," West told Insider when reminiscing about his years with the Lakers. "I always wanted to know what it would be like to work for a team that had no success. I wanted to see if you could build a team built on the principles of teamwork and effort instead of star power."
While West is the first to admit that he would've loved to have landed LeBron James in the lottery two years ago ("We're one ball away from getting LeBron. Can you imagine if we had him on our team?"), he's taken great pride in accomplishing so much with relatively so little in Memphis.
West, over the years, has developed a rep as the NBA's premier talent evaluator.
The talent he's acquired – James Posey, Mike Miller, Bonzi Wells, Earl Watson, Brian Cardinal, Dahntay Jones, Antonio Burks and Andre Emmett– have all played well for the Grizzlies.
"You can't change players that you have," West said. "They are going to be successful a certain way. That's why I think you see certain coaches that are the right coach for the right team at the right time....There are certain types of coaches that fit well. Behind good teams, there's someone sitting behind that bench that is pretty damn good."
Fratello claims that it's West influence that allows coaches to succeed. In a league where a coach's perceived brilliance rarely withstands a five-game losing streak, West's unconditional support for Fratello has allowed him to quickly gain control of the team.
"It's such a unique special situation to work with Jerry," Fratello said. "Not only was he a high-caliber player, he's coached and he's been in the front office. When he walks into the locker room and wants to speak, they are riveted on him.
"This isn't just some guy walking in off the street. This is the logo. There's a special meaning to it coming from a person of that level."
SURPASSING THE LAKERS
What West, Brown and Fratello have done in little more than 2½ years has been nothing short of amazing.
At the time when West took over the Grizzlies (April 30, 2002), his goals were pretty modest.
"We just wanted to get to the point where we can compete with the Lakers and we can compete with them right now and that feels good."
But now the Grizzlies want more. The Grizzlies are the hottest ticket in Memphis at the moment with an amazing new arena looming over Beale Street, all new uniforms and the sweet smell of success surrounding the franchise.
"What does a professional sports team bring to a town?" West asks. "It can bring community pride. And a lot of times communities don't have a lot of pride. But if they have something they can rally around....We're a pretty good story in this town. That's what's made it so fun."
[font=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]“[/font][font=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]I know I'm not going to be around much longer. I know that. I want to enjoy, I hope, this year and one more year and hopefully we can continue to make some improvements.[/font][font=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] ”[/font][font=Times,serif]— [/font][font=Times,serif]Grizzlies president Jerry West[/font]
Last year, they made their first-ever playoff appearance and were dumped in four straight games by the San Antonio Spurs.
This year, now that the ship is righted, the expectations continue to increase. At the pace the team is winning, the Grizzlies could be a fifth or sixth seed by the end of the season.
The team has reason to believe they'll be more competitive this year. They've already beaten solid teams like the Suns and Detroit Pistons twice and beat the Spurs in their only meeting.
The Grizzlies play just five games during the next 18 days, which should give them a chance to heal for their run during the home stretch.
With Gasol and Posey fully healthy, the Grizz should keep rolling.
They have an emerging inside-outside game on the offensive end, and defensively, they've been in the elite company of the Spurs, Pistons and Rockets over the course of the last six weeks.
Two years ago, the thought of the Grizzlies making a playoff run seemed absurd. Now, opposing teams are no longer laughing.
But how long will it all last? The team's payroll stands at $65 million this year. That's more than $20 million over the cap and around $10 million over the expected luxury tax threshold.
Next summer, the Grizzlies have $63 million worth of salaries on the books, with Swift, Wells and Watson hitting free agency. Given the financial realities of running a team in such a small market, there's a good chance the Grizzlies won't be able to afford any of themr, seriously cutting into their depth and long-term playoff chances in the future.
While West said he thought the team would make offers for all of its players, he admitted that it would be tough to keep all of them.
"We know there's going to be attrition," West said. "We have some players that other teams are going to sign. And frankly, in a small market we have to be careful of our dollars here."
That situation, along with some comments West made at Brown's resignation, have raised questions about how much longer West will remain on the job.
While he said that he hopes to honor the full length of his contract (which runs through the 2005-06 season), he acknowledged that his health would dictate whether he might step down sooner.
"I know I'm not going to be around much longer. I know that," West said. "I want to enjoy, I hope, this year and one more year and hopefully we can continue to make some improvements. [I want the Grizzlies to be a team] that when they get into playoffs, teams don't want to play you. That would be my goal."
If that's the destination, then West and company have already led the Grizzlies to the promised land.
And somewhere, Hubie Brown is still smiling.
=====================
Brown's influence still felt in Memphis
By Chad Ford
ESPN Insider
MEMPHIS – Hubie Brown might have stepped down as coach of the Memphis Grizzlies on Thanksgiving Day, but his spectre still floats along the corridors of the new Fed Ex arena.
Every time Brian Cardinal dives for a loose ball. Every time Stromile Swift rises to the rafters for a block. Every time Jason Williams makes a defensive stop.
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[font=verdana, arial, geneva]Brown[/font]Somewhere, Hubie is smiling. The Grizzlies have rebounded from a 5-11 start under Hubie and interim head coach Lionel Hollins. Since new head coach Mike Fratello took over, the team is 22-10. They posted the best record in the league in January with a 12-3 record under Fratello's steady hand.
The Grizzlies are the best team in the NBA that no one is talking about.
And if you believe everyone in Memphis, the retired Hubie is the biggest reason for their newfound success.
ECLIPSING THE SUNS
The ghost of Hubie was there in all of his glory last Tuesday as the Grizzlies faced the red hot Phoenix Suns. Down four key players – Pau Gasol, James Posey, Bonzi Wells and Earl Watson – the gritty Grizzlies somehow found a way to defeat the red-hot Suns 108-97.
In the closing minutes of the fourth quarter with the game tied, Fratello signaled for Williams to come in off the bench to replace rookie Antonio Burks. Burks, who had come straight off the injured list to play his first minutes since Dec. 13, was running out of gas.
The Grizzlies were down 89-88 with 5:41 left in the game and Fratello wants Williams to anchor the team for the rest of the game.
As Williams waits by the scorer's table, an exhausted Burks hits a three pointer to put the Grizz ahead 91-89.
Williams looks toward the bench at Fratello. Fratello sees him and nods. A minute later, Burks rises up and hits a second three. Williams begins creeping toward the bench and asks Fratello, "Do you want me to come back? Do you still want to take him out?"
Fratello doesn't hesitate to put Williams back in the game, but later uses Williams' unselfishness to stress a point about this year's Grizzlies.
"You have egos, but are the egos going to share the ball?" Fratello told Insider. "Does the 'W,' does that umbrella everything else?
"The other stuff goes on in every place. But when you have the big umbrella that covers everything else – winning – players make the extra pass, they go after a loose ball, take a charge. That part is unselfishness. They have egos. But the team aspect becomes bigger than the individual agendas.
"It all goes back to Hubie. There was a base, a foundation, an understanding of work ethic, practice habits and game preparations," Fratello said. "Some people just never get it. Some players and some teams never get it. We have character guys here. They come from programs where they learn to work.
"You come in here and you walk in after a guy who was the coach of the year. A guy who believes in organization and discipline and it makes it such a blessing as you come in."
As Fratello walks into the tunnel after the game, he's met by a grinning Jerry West who opens his arms, embraces Fratello, and offers up his congratulations – Hubie would have been proud.
Even in the locker room, Hubie – who retired at 71 and now is an NBA analyst for ABC broadcasts – gets the lion share of the credit.
"Hubie's influence is everywhere," swingman Shane Battier said. "He taught us how to be a team. That the little things mattered. That to succeed we had to rely on each other."
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[font=verdana, arial, geneva]Brown (center) taught the Grizzlies the importance of team basketball.[/font]Lorenzen Wright was even more succinct, "If you play team basketball, you can beat anybody." Fratello and the players aren't the only ones trying to pass the credit back to Brown, the NBA's Coach of the Year in 2003-04 when he led the Grizzlies to a 50-32 mark and first-ever playoff berth.
West is still reeling from his departure. Together with Brown, West rebuilt one of the sorriest franchises in the league brick-by-brick. They infused the entire franchise with a sense of professionalism and created a starless, selfless team that valued teamwork, depth and playing the right way over everything else.
"On Thanksgiving, I get a call and I'm shocked. I'm shocked," West told Insider. "[It was tough] to lose someone I felt so impassioned about. What he's done for the franchise brought a passion, a spirit, a discipline, and a toughness to the table."
And while West is the first guy to praise Fratello ("He's done a great job. An unbelievable job. We all feel better about where we are."), everyone from Battier to Fratello to West didn't believe the Grizzlies needed an overhaul after their 5-11 start.
Each man points to two major factors that got the Grizzlies off on the wrong foot this season – injuries (especially to James Posey) and a brutal schedule (they played six games in eight days during a stretch in November) to start the season.
"Honestly, I've been telling people all year long that this year's team is very similar to last year's," Battier said. "We had some adversity right out of the gate with the schedule, injuries and a coaching change.
"People wrote us off a little bit. But we knew we were pretty good. Our health has improved, the schedule has broken in our favor. Once you get some confidence, things start going our way."
GO WEST
Lately, everything has been going the Grizzlies' way.
In the span of their past 18 games, the Grizzlies are 14-4 and are beating teams by a margin of more than nine points per game. They are doing all of this short-handed and without any fanfare.
"We've been a pretty hot story and we don't even get our names mentioned," West said with a chuckle. "We had a big win against Phoenix the other night and all [everyone on TV] wanted to talk about was the Suns."
On the rare occasions that folks mention the Grizzlies, they don't talk about superstars, flash or style. They talk about depth and determination. There's a reason.
"We have to spread it around to win games," Battier said. "Outside of Pau, we don't have that one dominant force that can carry us every night.
"When he goes out, we all have to chip in and do it collectively. When we're at our best is when we are driving and pitching and just trying to find the open guy. We get into a lot of trouble when we try to do it individually. We're just not good enough individually to win games by ourselves."
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[font=verdana, arial, geneva]Taking over for Brown after a slow start, Fratello has helped right Jason Williams (left) and the Grizzlies.[/font]The Grizzlies are the NBA's version of the New England Patriots. While they don't have a superstar to carry them on a nightly basis, they very well might be the deepest team in the league. Brown played a 10-man rotation in Memphis, and Fratello easily could do the same once the team gets healthy.
The teams' depth has protected them from suffering from the injury bug. The Grizzlies' bench of Battier, Wells, Watson, Wright and Cardinal is good enough to beat most bad teams on its own on any given night.
While the coaching of Fratello and Brown gets most of the credit, West's contributions to the team can't be ignored.
When West landed in Memphis after winning titles in Los Angeles, he knew that an organization without any real history or stature was never going to land a marquee free agent.
After dealing with two of the best players and biggest egos in the league with the Lakers, West sought out a smaller town to escape the tabloids and escalating expectations.
"I've had a great opportunity to work with a team that has had a lot of success," West told Insider when reminiscing about his years with the Lakers. "I always wanted to know what it would be like to work for a team that had no success. I wanted to see if you could build a team built on the principles of teamwork and effort instead of star power."
While West is the first to admit that he would've loved to have landed LeBron James in the lottery two years ago ("We're one ball away from getting LeBron. Can you imagine if we had him on our team?"), he's taken great pride in accomplishing so much with relatively so little in Memphis.
West, over the years, has developed a rep as the NBA's premier talent evaluator.
The talent he's acquired – James Posey, Mike Miller, Bonzi Wells, Earl Watson, Brian Cardinal, Dahntay Jones, Antonio Burks and Andre Emmett– have all played well for the Grizzlies.
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[font=verdana, arial, geneva]Since arriving in 2003, West, far right, has helped build a winning Grizzlies foundation.[/font]But it's been the two coaches that he's hired, Brown and Fratello, that have found the right formula to put them in a scenario where they can compete against the Kobe Bryants of the world. "You can't change players that you have," West said. "They are going to be successful a certain way. That's why I think you see certain coaches that are the right coach for the right team at the right time....There are certain types of coaches that fit well. Behind good teams, there's someone sitting behind that bench that is pretty damn good."
Fratello claims that it's West influence that allows coaches to succeed. In a league where a coach's perceived brilliance rarely withstands a five-game losing streak, West's unconditional support for Fratello has allowed him to quickly gain control of the team.
"It's such a unique special situation to work with Jerry," Fratello said. "Not only was he a high-caliber player, he's coached and he's been in the front office. When he walks into the locker room and wants to speak, they are riveted on him.
"This isn't just some guy walking in off the street. This is the logo. There's a special meaning to it coming from a person of that level."
SURPASSING THE LAKERS
What West, Brown and Fratello have done in little more than 2½ years has been nothing short of amazing.
At the time when West took over the Grizzlies (April 30, 2002), his goals were pretty modest.
"We just wanted to get to the point where we can compete with the Lakers and we can compete with them right now and that feels good."
But now the Grizzlies want more. The Grizzlies are the hottest ticket in Memphis at the moment with an amazing new arena looming over Beale Street, all new uniforms and the sweet smell of success surrounding the franchise.
"What does a professional sports team bring to a town?" West asks. "It can bring community pride. And a lot of times communities don't have a lot of pride. But if they have something they can rally around....We're a pretty good story in this town. That's what's made it so fun."
[font=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]“[/font][font=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]I know I'm not going to be around much longer. I know that. I want to enjoy, I hope, this year and one more year and hopefully we can continue to make some improvements.[/font][font=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif] ”[/font][font=Times,serif]— [/font][font=Times,serif]Grizzlies president Jerry West[/font]
Last year, they made their first-ever playoff appearance and were dumped in four straight games by the San Antonio Spurs.
This year, now that the ship is righted, the expectations continue to increase. At the pace the team is winning, the Grizzlies could be a fifth or sixth seed by the end of the season.
The team has reason to believe they'll be more competitive this year. They've already beaten solid teams like the Suns and Detroit Pistons twice and beat the Spurs in their only meeting.
The Grizzlies play just five games during the next 18 days, which should give them a chance to heal for their run during the home stretch.
With Gasol and Posey fully healthy, the Grizz should keep rolling.
They have an emerging inside-outside game on the offensive end, and defensively, they've been in the elite company of the Spurs, Pistons and Rockets over the course of the last six weeks.
Two years ago, the thought of the Grizzlies making a playoff run seemed absurd. Now, opposing teams are no longer laughing.
But how long will it all last? The team's payroll stands at $65 million this year. That's more than $20 million over the cap and around $10 million over the expected luxury tax threshold.
Next summer, the Grizzlies have $63 million worth of salaries on the books, with Swift, Wells and Watson hitting free agency. Given the financial realities of running a team in such a small market, there's a good chance the Grizzlies won't be able to afford any of themr, seriously cutting into their depth and long-term playoff chances in the future.
While West said he thought the team would make offers for all of its players, he admitted that it would be tough to keep all of them.
"We know there's going to be attrition," West said. "We have some players that other teams are going to sign. And frankly, in a small market we have to be careful of our dollars here."
That situation, along with some comments West made at Brown's resignation, have raised questions about how much longer West will remain on the job.
While he said that he hopes to honor the full length of his contract (which runs through the 2005-06 season), he acknowledged that his health would dictate whether he might step down sooner.
"I know I'm not going to be around much longer. I know that," West said. "I want to enjoy, I hope, this year and one more year and hopefully we can continue to make some improvements. [I want the Grizzlies to be a team] that when they get into playoffs, teams don't want to play you. That would be my goal."
If that's the destination, then West and company have already led the Grizzlies to the promised land.
And somewhere, Hubie Brown is still smiling.
=====================
