Familiar situation
Why the Grizzlies nearly traded Conley in 2009
As the Grizzlies prepared for Tuesday night’s game against the Timberwolves with uncertainty over whether it could be the final home game for franchise icons Mike Conley and Marc Gasol, Conley summed up the situation succinctly.
“Thursday can’t get here any quicker, I know,” he said after Monday’s practice.
By 2 p.m. Thursday, which is the NBA’S trade deadline, Conley and Gasol will know if they have been traded or if their unprecedented run as Grizzlies will continue.
Until then, or until a trade is made,
they are chartering territory that is unfamiliar but not entirely unprecedented.
“It’s not new to me, it’s just been a while,” Conley said.
An article on the front of the Jan. 15, 2009 Commercial Appeal sports section laid out the relationship between the Grizzlies and Mike Conley in plain terms.
“They are looking to unload Conley, the fourth overall pick in the 2007 draft, while he’s mired in his second performance funk this season,” former CA sports writer Ron Tillery wrote.
The offer the Grizzlies entertained for Conley 10 years ago would have sent him to Milwaukee in exchange for guard Ramon Sessions and small forward Joe Alexander.
Tillery wrote that the Grizzlies “wouldn’t be devastated” if the deal did not go through.
But the mere fact that the organization considered it shows how radically the perception of Conley has changed in the last decade.
Sessions plateaued as a spot starter in the NBA and is no longer in the league at age 32, while Alexander scored a total of four more NBA points before embarking on an overseas playing career that continues today.
In short, it would have been a disastrous trade for the Grizzlies, who ultimately made seven straight playoff appearances with Conley as their point guard.
Talks were so serious that the Grizzlies pulled Conley from a loss at Toronto as the teams discussed the trade.
“I was in the locker room just like ‘What is going on?’” Conley told ESPN’S Zach Lowe in 2017.
“I kinda called my Dad like ‘Am I getting traded?’, and he was like ‘Yeah, looks like you’ve got this on the table’, and so I was trying to prepare my mind for it.”
Conley averaged 4.1 points on 22 percent shooting to go with 2.9 rebounds and 1.1 assists in 19.1 minutes over the eight games leading up to the January 2009 article detailing the franchise’s proposed trade with Milwaukee.
“(The) deal is being discussed partly because Conley no longer has the faith of his most ardent supporters within the organization,” Tillery wrote. “Much of the disappointment has to do with Conley’s perceived lack of competitive spirit and dogged play on the court.”
As Conley prepared his mind for a trade, his play picked up.
In the 16 games between that article and the 2009 trade deadline, Conley shot 45.5 percent from 3-point range, averaging 5.4 assists, 1.1 steals, and 13 points per game.
Ultimately, the Grizzlies backed away from trading Conley and traded point guard Kyle Lowry instead.
The Grizzlies got a first-round draft pick and two players who appeared in a combined one game for the franchise in the deal.
“With the emergence of Mike Conley, we decided that the acquisition of Orlando’s unprotected first-round pick was a good move to make,” general manager Chris Wallace said at the time. “We now will enter the upcoming draft with two first-round selections and three picks overall, likely inside the first 37 picks.”
Lowry ultimately became a five-time All-star, and the Grizzlies drafted Hasheem Thabeet, Demarre Carroll and Sam Young in that summer’s draft.
A debate over who whether Conley or Lowry would have been the better starting point guard in Memphis over the last decade has some merit.
But a debate over the proposed deal that would have sent Conley to Milwaukee is not.
Conley’s play — and perhaps Gasol’s words — convinced Memphis it would be making a mistake to part with its second-year point guard for such an uncertain return.
“I know I’ll get in trouble, but I just don’t like it,” Gasol, then a rookie, said in a story that appeared in the Jan. 18 edition of the Commercial Appeal.
“Mike is an important piece for us. He’s a team-oriented player. There aren’t many guys like that. He never makes excuses. He’s always thinking about the team, and I haven’t seen many players in the NBA like that so far.”
Whether Gasol’s words had any sway on the franchise’s decision in 2009 is unclear. But the rest is history. The longest-tenured duo in franchise history.
Reach Grizzlies beat writer David Cobb at david.cobb@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter @Davidwcobb.