Griz set roster without a trade
They never created a buzz around the NBA.
The Grizzlies didn’t act as bees looking to produce honey around the league’s trade deadline. So it should come as no surprise that Memphis stood pat Thursday and quietly allowed the 2 p.m. deadline pass.
Grizzlies general manager Chris Wallace sounds as if he’s betting a healthier roster can compete with any Western Conference team that made upgrades through trades.
“We listened and were active fielding inquiries but decided to stand pat with our current roster,” Wallace said. “We feel great about where we stand with our team entering the stretch run of this season. We truly feel like we made key additions with the return of Brandan Wright from injury and adding Toney Douglas for the remainder of the season. From the front office to coaches and players, we feel very confident in the depth of our roster as we move towards the playoffs.”
Memphis begins the final 24-game stretch of the regular season Friday night with a road game against the Indiana Pacers. The Grizzlies (34-24) sit sixth in the West standings — 11⁄2 games ahead of seventh-place Oklahoma City and just two games behind the fourthplace Los Angeles Clippers.
There promises to be musical chairs in the standings with teams ranked 4-7 jockeying for seeds. Memphis’ goal is simple: Move up and try to grab homecourt advantage in the first round of the playoffs. It’ll be a highly competitive mission. Oklahoma City acquired Taj Gibson and Doug McDermott from Chicago to strengthen their bench with rebounding and three-point shooting. Houston bolstered an already potent offense by acquiring dynamic scoring guard Lou Williams in a trade with the Los Angeles Lakers.
The Clippers held on to the fourth seed despite many predictions they would dramatically fall with point guard Chris Paul injured. Now, Paul has been cleared to play after missing five weeks with a torn ligament in his left thumb.
The Grizzlies signed point guard Toney Douglas for the rest of the season after he played on back-to-back 10-day deals. Coach David Fizdale strongly insists that Douglas plus a healthy Brandan Wright and an improving Chandler Parsons strengthens the Grizzlies without a roster shakeup.
“Overall, I’m really happy with this team. I really like these guys,” Fizdale said. “We’ve shown that we can compete with the best. We haven’t consistently played the best against the teams we should beat. But we’ve shown we can play with the best. With what we have — if we can continue to build chemistry and guys get stronger — I’d like to see where this team ends up.”
Fizdale stressed that the Grizzlies already are built for postseason basketball while other teams looked to fill holes at the trade deadline.
“I feel very good about going into battle with anyone,” Fizdale said. “This team can beat anybody. We have the type of game that can win series. We’ve established a top-five defense and that always travels on the road in the playoffs. We’ve got a post-up game. I like our chances against anybody.”
Reach Tillery at Ronald.Tillery@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter @CAGrizBeat.