Roughly three minutes into the first news conference, Mike Conley laid it right out there.
“We feel like we have a team to make a run for the championship,” he said.
Way to set the bar low, Griz!
“The sky’s the limit,” said Conley. As if on cue, his teammates joined in.
“The sky’s the limit,” said Zach Randolph.
“The sky’s the limit,” said Rudy Gay.
As possible slogans go, this franchise has come a long way from Dunkyland.
Yet it’s true, isn’t it? For the first time since the team moved to Memphis, Grizzlies fans can look forward to a season with no limit to what can be achieved.
This team isn’t trying to get to the playoffs. This team isn’t trying to win a playoff game. This team is trying to claim a place among the league’s elite.
“We’re looking at the big picture,” said Randolph. “Winning a championship.”
Small wonder the team was all smiles on the first day of camp.
“It feels like coming home,” said the irrepressible Tony Allen.
“I’m 200 percent right now,” said Gay.
About the only thing that could have made Gay feel any better: Having Marc Gasol suited up and in camp.
That was the only disappointment, really, that Gasol hasn’t yet been signed.
“Obviously, we need him,” said Gay. “There’s no more Gasol brothers out there.”
But nobody seemed alarmed that Gasol was missing. The Grizzlies continue to insist the deal will get done.
“When we get the big feller back, I’ll be happier than a kid at McDonald’s with a Happy Meal,” said Allen and, yes, it was good to be writing down quotes like that again.
They were your same lovable Grizzlies. They were just the way you remembered them.
All around the league, teams are scrambling to figure out their rosters. The Grizzlies know exactly who they are. They are Randolph and Gasol inside and Gay and Conley outside. They are O.J. Mayo and Darrell Arthur and Greivis Vasquez off the bench. They are Allen and the relentless ethic he inspired. They are grit and they are grind.
And if league officials — who left the Grizzlies off the Christmas television schedule — seemed to have forgotten all of this, well, it’s not like the players were surprised.
“They actually added a game with two teams that didn’t even play in the playoffs,” said Gay.
Isn’t the chip on the shoulder grand?
It’s what drove this team last year, what drives them to this day. Randolph got a contract extension during the playoffs and then spent the summer working out with the Memphis Tigers’ maniacal trainer, Frank Matrisciano.
“It’s definitely different for me, training,” said Randolph, who said he’s aiming for 30 — 30! — dunks this year.
And then there was the pickup game the Grizzlies held the other day, with some strange stuff going on.
“We were doing things in pickup games I didn’t ever think we’d do,” said Conley. “We were trapping the ball, rotating.”
It’s the winning mindset, taken hold.
None of which means the Grizzlies will actually win the championship, of course. That seems wildly improbable to me. But, then, last year was wildly improbable. It happened just the same.
At the end of the news conference, Channel 5′s Jarvis Greer asked Conley, Gay and Randolph to pick their favorite memory from last year. All three picked the scene at the airport, after the final loss. They appreciated the gratitude, the connection with the city their work had forged.
Gay said he even took a picture of the moment. Snapped it from his seat on the team plane.
“I still have that picture, I want to see it again,” he said. “Maybe on Beale Street one day.”
To reach Geoff Calkins, call (901) 529-2364 or e-mail calkins@commercialappeal.com. Visit his blog at geoffcalkinsblog.com.
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