Mike Conley's deadline day

OKLAHOMA CITY — Mike Conley sat at his locker and talked with Justin Holiday on Thursday night after the Grizzlies loss at Oklahoma City.

On a normal night, the locker next to Conley's would have belonged to Marc Gasol.

But this was not a normal night. It was the beginning of a new era.

"Justin Holiday, everybody," Conley said as he stood up to talk with the media. "He's the man, if you didn't know."

Holiday has been with the Grizzlies just a month. But after the Grizzlies traded four players on Thursday, including Gasol, Holiday seemed like one of the mainstays in a locker room that looks dramatically different than it did just three months ago.

The scene depicted Conley's new reality. The last remnants of the core he once thrived with are gone. His new role is to be the unquestioned player leadership voice for a franchise in flux.

"That’s just where I’m at right now and I’m going to do the best job I can," Conley said.

And with that, he grabbed a Styrofoam box of food and left to get on a plane at the end of what he called "a long day."

Here is how Thursday's trade deadline played out through Conley's eyes, according to his interviews. Midnight-8 a.m. Conley revealed after Thursday night's game that he "never slept" amid uncertainty over whether he would be traded.

"At seven or eight this morning after checking my phone for the thousandth time, I didn’t know," he said. "I did not know. I was prepared for either." 8 a.m.-11 a.m. Conley threw a long-sleeve t-shirt and sweatpants on over his practice attire and walked over to talk with reporters at 10:45 a.m. following the completion of the team's morning shootaround at Chesapeake Energy Arena.

At this point, with just hours remaining until the trade deadline, the Grizzlies had not made any trades.

"It's a unique situation," he said. "New for me, for sure. I've just been trying to take every second and minute and cherish it. You never know, but you still try and treat it as a regular work day. Hard to do."

In keeping with a team tradition, he then jogged onto the court to attempt a half-court shot. The shot hit the backboard but trickled off the rim.

Then, he left to catch the first bus back to the team hotel in the midtown area of Oklahoma City unsure if he would be back that night.

Conley later revealed that he talked with Gasol "a few times" on Thursday morning. Gasol was not with the team in Oklahoma City. 11 a.m. until the 2 p.m. trade deadline "Shoot, I’m normally worried about the game, watching film, doing things like that," Conley said. "Man, I’m sitting downstairs in the lobby until 1:30 or 2 p.m. waiting for the trade deadline to pass and trying to figure out if I’m going to be here or not."

Reports surfaced just before 1 p.m. that Gasol, Garrett Temple and Jamychal Green would be traded. Eventually, Shelvin Mack went, too.

"To see Marc end up going and J-mych and Garrett and just your whole team has all the sudden just changed, it’s hard to lose guys that you consider brothers," Conley said.

"At the same time, I’m thinking about Marc leaving, J-mych leaving, all the sudden everything has happened within the last ten or fifteen minutes. At that point, it started to get real for me, like if everybody else is going then it might be my turn next."

According to Conley, it was around 1:45 p.m. or 1:50 p.m. when he received a phone call with an answer.

"I got a call from (general manager) Chris Wallace letting me know that I was going to be with the team and just to proceed as usual kind of thing," Conley said. "At that point, I tried to lock back in on Oklahoma City and try not to let too much emotion carry me out through the day." What was his emotion? “I thought it would be relief, but it was really like I was just kind of blank," Conley said. "Like, ‘what happened? I don’t understand. What happened?’ I was just trying to process everything." 2 p.m. until departure for arena "For it not to happen, it was like alright let me go to my room," Conley said. "I told my dad (his agent, Mike Conley Sr.), ‘Hey I’m going to go to my room and take a nap and get ready for the game.’ I had to try and sleep because I hadn’t slept in, shoot, two or three days."

Conley tried to get in touch with Gasol after the news broke that Gasol had been traded.

"I sent him a text before we got to the bus and got out here and started getting ready for the game," Conley said. "I’m sure he’s probably hit me back by now. I know he’s probably got a lot of things going on in his mind and a lot of people trying to reach out to him. So we’ll connect when we get a chance. I love big fella. I know he’s going to do well in Toronto. He’s going to have a chance to do some big things there.” 7-9:30 p.m. game time Conley played 28 minutes, scoring 15 points and dishing out seven assists.

Only one of Conley's seven teammates who participated in the game were on the team last season and only three were on the team's 15-man roster to begin the season.

Of the other seven who played, two were two-way players (Yuta Watanabe and Julian Washburn), one was on a 10day contract (Bruno Caboclo), two have spent significant time in the G-league this season (Jevon Carter and Ivan Rabb), one was acquired in a trade last month (Holiday) and the other was a rookie (Jaren Jackson Jr.).

"You get out there to play and you’re bringing the guys in to huddle and there’s no Marc," Conley said. "It’s like, ‘well I’m the oldest guy here now and I’ve got to be the voice for every huddle and every single thing we do.' So it’s just a different thing. I’m sure it’ll take some time to adjust to it for all of us.”

He said after the game that "I'm just happy to have gotten through this one."

"I don’t even know how I played it, to be honest with you," Conley said. "It was just fun to try and get out there and win one.”

What now?

Conley exited the arena Thursday night to catch the team plane back to Memphis with a better understanding of his immediate future than he had upon entering the arena for shootaround Thursday morning.

He was able to put a hectic two-plus weeks of speculation and rumors in perspective.

“After they put my name out there, I was just like, ‘if ya’ll do it, ya’ll do it,’ but this is all I know," Conley said. "Memphis is all I know. I didn’t ask for any of this to begin with. But I also understood our situation and that I’d be one of the players that could hold some value in the trade market. So me being a pro, I just took that and understood it and was ready for whatever was to follow.”

There is no guarantee the Grizzlies will keep Conley beyond this season.

But the postgame locker room scene was a reminder. For however long he is here, there will be no Gasol next to him and no Gasol to help him lead a Grizzlies team that has never looked more different to Conley than it will in the season's final two months.

“It’s another challenge for me," Conley said. "I never get down or think something is too much for me. I’m always just like, ‘hey this is just another challenge, more on the plate,’ I’m going to figure out a way through it to help these guys. I’ve always kind of taken that stance, that it’s always bigger than me. It’s about these guys. I’m going to do whatever I can to help them be the best we can be. I want them to be twenty times better than I’ll ever be.

"If I can do that, then I succeeded at something.

Reach Grizzlies beat writer David Cobb at david.cobb@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter @Davidwcobb.

David Cobb Memphis Commercial Appeal USA TODAY NETWORK - TENNESSEE