Fizdale, Grizzlies better off without each other
About a year ago, on a Sunday night in late November, David Fizdale decided to bench Marc Gasol for the fourth quarter of a game against the Brooklyn Nets and never coached again for the Memphis Grizzlies.
The team fired Fizdale abruptly after 19 games, and a 50-51 overall record, citing numerous factors, but none more glaring than his fraught relationship with Gasol.
About a year later, on a Sunday night in late November, Fizdale will return to FedExForum for the first time as head coach of the New York Knicks, and there should be a sense of closure for everyone involved in this saga.
Because about a year after Memphis stunned the NBA by dismissing Fizdale, they’re all better off without each other. Gasol, the Grizzlies and Fizdale – they all have what they want again.
The Grizzlies are back to being the Grit N’ Grind Grizzlies after veering toward a more modern look under Fizdale. They’re again surprising the rest of the league with a methodical style that runs counter to everyone else and playing quite well because of it.
Before Saturday’s games, Memphis was still tied atop the Western Conference standings and allowing the fewest points in the league.
They also got one of the NBA’s best rookies
(Jaren Jackson Jr.) and an intriguing new coach (J.B. Bickerstaff) out of the carnage that followed Fizdale’s firing.
Gasol, meanwhile, is back to being Gasol and enjoying a renaissance surrounded by a supporting cast built with defensive-minded veterans rather than unpredictable youth. He’s grabbing more rebounds, making more 3-pointers and impacting games in a way he hadn’t the past couple years.
This season, for instance, he leads the NBA in real plus-minus and ranks third in the NBA in defensive win shares.
And Fizdale is back on the bench, charged with rebuilding one of the league’s marquee franchises. Winning now, with star Kristaps Porzingis hurt, is less important than developing a young core for when the Knicks make their inevitable run at Kevin Durant this offseason.
In some ways, despite being in the country’s biggest media market, it's less pressure than what Fizdale was tasked to do in Memphis. He didn’t have to walk into a locker room full of playoff-tested veterans and try to completely change the culture like he did with the Grizzlies.
That’s not to say Fizdale didn’t make sense in Memphis. He championed and embraced this city, taking up its social causes in a very public way. He helped Mike Conley have the best offensive season of his career.
He won more than 56 percent of his games when both Conley and Gasol played, and he was 7-5 before Conley got hurt last season. And he memorably gave us “Take that for data” and "They're not gonna rook us" during a very competitive playoff series against the San Antonio Spurs in 2017. Fizdale’s swift firing ultimately raised his profile. As soon as it happened, national analysts like Stephen A. Smith loudly criticized the Grizzlies for getting rid of a well-regarded young coach 19 games into his second season.
Suddenly, Fizdale began appearing regularly on ESPN and the spotlight shined on a Memphis front office that looked dysfunctional for cycling through three coaches during a run that included sevenstraight NBA playoff appearances.
The Grizzlies' decision-making process still remains something of a mystery, despite the team's strong start to this season.
But the roster changes necessitated by Fizdale’s preferred style resulted in Memphis not re-signing Zach Randolph or Tony Allen before last season, and it appears the franchise cut them loose at just the right time given their age and declining skills.
The Grizzlies also re-considered their immediate future upon aborting this short-lived culture change, rebooting on the fly last offseason in order to return to their roots. Just five players (Gasol, Conley, JaMychal Green, Wayne Selden and Chandler Parsons) remain on the Memphis roster that Fizdale inherited two seasons ago.
So when he leads the Knicks onto the FedExForum floor Sunday for the first time, the overriding storyline shouldn’t focus on how his tenure here turned so sour.
Because about a year later, Fizdale’s firing might be the best thing that happened for all the parties involved.