Money Mike: Conley must continue to carry team
Grizzles need his breakout season to stretch a bit longer
Picture Michael Conley Jr., a baby-faced 19-yearold, fresh out of one season playing for The Ohio State University.
He became the fourth pick in the 2007 NBA draft and needed a big-time question answered before he even dribbled a basketball on an NBA court. “Mom, can I buy a Range Rover?” Conley, 29, now rolls in a Tesla or whatever fancy ride he wants with the richest contract in NBA history. The $153 million dollar man has matured into the main spark plug that ignites the Grizzlies’ engine.
Conley ended the regular season averaging 20.5 points, the highest in his 10-year career, and shot career highs from the field overall (45.9 percent) and three-point range (40.7 percent) in a breakout year that hinges on the Grizzlies’ postseason success.
Conley knows that Memphis will go as far as he can carry it on his scrawny but sturdy shoulders in its first-round playoff meeting with the Spurs.
“I see it as an opportunity,” Conley said. “For people to be negative towards me all the time and hear chants of ‘overrated and overpaid’ is just something I love. It drives me. I hope it continues to affect me in a positive way. I know that I’m going to have to play well and Marc (Gasol) is going to have to play well. I’ve seen the benefits of when we’re aggressive.” Tony Allen out indefinitely with calf injury, Who: Memphis vs. San Antonio (Game 1) When, where: 7 p.m. tomorrow, AT&T Center TV, radio: ESPN; WMFS 92.9 FM/680 AM
The topic is mellows. Favorite mellows. Because this is the Grizzlies television broadcast and it is not like any other in the league.
Rob Fischer, Brevin Knight and Chris Vernon are winding up the pregame show the way they wind up every pregame show, with the 3-pointer, an off-the-wall feature that invites all three to weigh in on a topic related (often loosely related) to the game of the night. This night, with the New York Knicks and Carmelo Anthony in town, the topic is favorite mellows. Fischer goes with the Caramello, a Cadbury candy bar, and even has one on set. Knight goes with marshmallows and waxes on about the joys of “cooking a marshmallow, on a stick, that you got from the ground, that is dirty, that you eat off of.” Vernon? He goes with singer Jack Johnson. Because he’s mellow. Hey, it’s game 80, what do you expect? And just then, on cue, the screen is filled with a picture of Vernon’s head spliced onto Jack Johnson’s body. Laughter all around.
“We have fun every day,” Fischer says. “We try to laugh, we try to entertain. I think we’re different because we have fun with it, we want to model ourselves off the TNT guys more than some of the other local broadcasts.”
This is a fine aspiration, of course. What sports broadcast wouldn’t want to model itself after what is generally considered the best studio show in the country? But the Grizzlies broadcast on FOX Sports Southeast isn’t a cheap knockoff. It is energetic, original and it is rapidly becoming — dare I say it — beloved in this city.
Pete Pranica is the straight man, the play-by-play guy, the consummate professional who holds everything together with preparation and calm. Knight is the color commentator, the former Grizzlies point guard, who can light up the broadcast with his insights or his smile. Fischer is the sideline reporter, the man in every Grizzlies huddle, who is vastly more serious than his goofy shoes suggest. And Vernon is the voice of the fan, the former radio host, who will ask or say things that most people wouldn’t have the nerve to ask or say.
“Everyone who does TV is looking for the right balance of chemistry,” says John Pugliese, vice president of marketing, broadcast and communications for the Grizzlies. “They’ll roll something out that they’re hoping works, but a lot of times it doesn’t. It’s like you’re making a gumbo. And this gumbo has come together just right.”
It works because they’re friends
Two hours before tipoff, Pranica is applying makeup — “just some foundation” — and going through his notes. So many notes. All written out by hand with a particular kind of pen, Le Pen, which is felt tip, fine point and has the advantage that it “doesn’t leak on an airplane.”
Conley amassed 10 of his 15 career 30-point games this season, including five games with seven made 3-pointers. With a 6-1, slight frame, Conley has been a key piece of the Grizzlies’ run of seven straight playoff appearances. This season has proven that he’s been a big-time return on the team’s investment. Conley embraced the challenge of leading the team in an offense designed for him to erupt in space. Conley’s made the most 3-pointers in franchise history and became the only player beyond LeBron James, Chris Paul and Russell Westbrook with at least 10,000 points, 4,000 assists and 1,000 steals since he entered the league in 2007.
San Antonio will try to slow Conley by defending him with All-NBA defender Kawhi Leonard’s length and physicality. But the Grizzlies’ chances in this series rest on Conley’s ability to break through offensively as he has all season.
“Obviously, he’s always been that talented and we need him to score that way,” Grizzlies center Marc Gasol said. “We need him to score 20-plus points because he’s the trigger to our offense. We run probably 80 percent, 90 percent of initial action with him. We need him to be aggressive, because if that doesn’t trigger the rest of the stuff, then we’re stuck. When he’s not out there, our offense gets a little more static.”
This, of course, is all by Grizzlies coach David Fizdale’s design. Fizdale even paired Conley with assistant coach Nick Van Exel, who spent 13 NBA seasons as an aggressive score from the point guard position. Van Exel drilled in Conley an attitude about scoring opposed to deferring.
“Mike has been playing out of his mind,” Fizdale said. “I think he can give me even more. This year was a feeling-out period. I think a lot of guys had to adjust to the fact Mike was going to be more aggressive, especially Zach (Randolph) and Marc (Gasol) because they’re used to him being the initiator. But they did it seamlessly.”
Conley also continues to be an iron man for the Grizzlies despite suffering broken vertebrae in his back last December and lacerations above and below his right eye in the past few weeks.
Now, it’s Conley’s task to race past an older, in-need-of-repair Spurs guard Tony Parker and lead the Grizzlies to another round in the playoffs.
The Grizzlies had Parker in mind when they drafted Conley. Thencoach Marc Iavaroni compared Conley to the luxury sports car, Ferrari.
“I’m not a Ferrari. I don’t move like that,” Conley said. “Now, I’m something classy. I’m just a Mercedes. I won’t break down on you. I don’t shy away from adversity. It’s been a good season in the sense that it’s not easy being in the situation I’ve been put in with the contract and the responsibility. A lot of people might let that affect them.
“The way that I approached the year helped me, believing that I’m that kind of guy. I deserve everything I got and I took it by the steering wheel and drove it. If it wasn’t for my back letting me down early it could have been a really good year. Hopefully, I’ll keep growing.”