According to multiple reports, both players will be fined $20,000 and potentially be placed on the suspended list to start the season.  A Grizzlies spokesman also added that Arthur will have to repeat the rookie transition program next season.

Now, in case you were wondering what the suspended list was and the answer comes straight from the NBA’s website: http://www.nba.com/analysis/00421026.html:

“Any player may be placed on the Suspended List by his team or by the Commissioner for failure to fulfill his contractual obligations, or for failure to comply with training schedules or other disciplinary rules or procedures. Any player placed on the Suspended List who is replaced by another player on his team’s Active List must sit out at least five of his team’s regular season games before he may be restored to the Active List.”

So it appears that if Arthur is placed on the suspended list, which would appear to be the most severe of the penalties, then he would be out for at least five games.

Now back to the story, which is exactly the type of story that you don’t want to be your first when entering the league.  Honestly, you would think it would just be common sense to not bring marijuana to, not only an NBA-run program, but one that is focused on transitioning college players into the real, professional world.  I mean did they not hear all the buzz about Josh Howard’s confession?

But anyways, this big lapse in judgement and the negative headlines it brings is definitely not the type of thanks the Grizzlies wanted to see from Arthur, whom they paid a hefty price for in a 2009 2nd round pick and Syracuse F Donte Greene (who just tore up the Las Vegas Summer League and was picked by Memphis just one pick after Arthur).

Sure, those health rumors that were abuzz on draft night were blamed for Arthur’s draft status falling, but maybe there was something else not mentioned, the dreaded “character” that was what really caused Arthur’s big fall on draft night. 

This incident also comes on the heels of allegations by Arthur’s former teacher at South Oak Cliff High School in Dallas that school administrators changed Arthur’s grade in math when he was a junior so he could ‘pass and play.’  Now, these allegations were cleared up and Arthur’s grade was cleared by the Dallas Independent School District, but never the less these are not the kind of rumors you want to hear about a player who is suppossed to be one of the young cornerstones of your franchise.

The Grizzlies were considered the leader in the clubhouse in signing Haddadi during his breakout Olympics performance where he averaged 16.6 points, 11.2 rebounds, and 2.6 blocks in five game and was the only player in the Olympics to average a double-double.

Haddadi first started to open some eyes this summer when the Iranian National Team was invited to participate in the Rocky Mountian Revue, an NBA summer league hosted by the Utah Jazz.  In the two games the Iranian National Team competed in he averaged 14 points, 11.5 rebounds, and 2.5 turnovers.  That performance started to open some eyes around the league to the 7′2″ center and his Olympic performance backed up his solid showing in the Rocky Mountain Revue and now there was real interest by NBA teams to sign him.

But as I posted earlier when the rumor that the Grizzlies were the leader in the clubhouse in signing Haddadi I was very skeptical and still am.   First of all, Haddadi put up these numbers as the best player on a bad team, and as such was the focus of the Iranian offense.

Secondly, beyond playing on the Iranian National Team he has no significant international experience, as, excluding a brief sting in 2003 with a Dubai team, he has been playing in the Iranian Super League for the last 9 seasons since turning pro at the tender age of 14.  I would’ve liked to have seen some experience playing in some tougher European Leagues to help him transition from the Iranian league to the NBA, as beyond his participation in international tournaments with the Iranian National Team he has really nothing even closely comparable to the level competition he’s going to see in the NBA.

My third and main concern is when he is going to get playing time at the center position this season and beyond, as you would have to believe he is behind both Darko Milicic and Marc Gasol on the Grizzlies depth chart.

I actually like the idea of playing Haddadi in the D-League for the majority, if not the entire, year simply to give him ample time to transition to North American basketball.  This will help in two reasons, as it will help ease the transition to the competition he will be facing in the NBA, as even though it’s not the NBA, the D-League is still a few notches up from the Iranian Super League.  Secondly, giving him playing time in the D-League is a lot better than having him sit at the end of the bench and play maybe five minutes/game in the NBA, which is something he definitely wouldn’t be used to after really being the focus of his Iranian National Team.

The other thing that this signing sort of said to me is that maybe the Grizzlies have had enough after one season of the Darko Milicic experiment and would be willing to move him along with one of their point guards (from the rumors this off-season most likely Javaris Crittenton) for either a more defensive PF or a solid back-up SG/SF.

Memphis really has an insanely unbalanced roster, as they now have five PGs in Mayo, Conley, Lowry, Jaric, Crittenton and three Cs in Milicic, Gasol, and Haddadi.  The craziest thing about this unbalanced roster is this off-season they added two PGs and two Cs.  Now, while Mayo is considered a combo-guard and will likely be the Grizzlies starting SG for years to come, the front office has still done nothing to clear up the PG-log-jam the Grizzlies have and have now added to it by signing their second back-up C of the off-season.  This team still has no defense at the PF position and no solid back-up to either O.J. Mayo or Rudy Gay at the SG or SF positions- two needs the team needed to address and still hasn’t.

But it’s hard to find equal value when you’re not trading from a position of strength, which the Grizzlies definitely aren’t since the other 29 teams in the league all know that Memphis has a PG and now C-log-jam, which gives them a clear advantage over the Grizzlies in any negotiations.

But, we’ll see if this is GM Chris Wallace’s final move this off-season or if he will finally deal away a PG this off-season.

Overall though, I’m not the biggest fan of this signing (especially for mid-1st round pick money) as it seems like he was signed on potential and the old saying “you can’t teach size” alone.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see Haddadi have little-to-no impact as an at best back-up center for the Grizzlies in what will most likely be a brief three-year stint for Haddadi in the NBA and something most NBA GMs will look back at and say “I’m glad we didn’t sign him.”

But it wasn’t easy for Spain to get into the gold medal game, as they faced a tough challenge from Croatia in the quarter-final round, coming away with a 72-59 victory.  The Spainiards key was actually a 12-o run in the first quarter, where they built a 22-11 lead, which was key in a game that was pretty much equal over the final three quarters.

Pau Gasol led the Spaniards with 20 points, 10 rebounds, and 3 blocks, while Marc added 3 points and 6 rebounds in 14 minutes off the bench.  Meanwhile, Navarro struggled again- as he didn’t score in his 10 minutes of play in the contest.

Pau would again lead his team in the semi-finals, scoring 19 points and grabbing 5 rebounds in their 91-86 victory over Lithuania.  Marc and Juan Carlos would struggle coming off the bench though, as Navarro was 0-for-3 in his 12 minutes of playing time, while Marc added 6 points and 4 fouls in his 14 minutes of play.

But now Team Espana looks to win the gold against a team that absolutely throttled them earlier this tournament in pool play.  I think the Spanish team will be hard-pressed to beat Team U.S.A. in the gold medal game, but think they could if all their players played up to their potential.

Juan Carlos Navarro, Marc Gasol, Jorge Garbajosa, and Jose Calderon- all current or former NBA players have really struggled so far in these Olympics, but the Spaniards are still playing in the gold medal game.  Calderon will be out with an injury, but if these other three can step up and play up to their potential this very well could be a close game, but only if Pau Gasol and Rudy Fernandez continue their solid play.

Otherwise, I see a game a little (but not much) closer than these two teams earlier meetings in this Olympics, with ‘Team Redeem’ living up to their name and winning gold in these Olympics.

First, I’ll start off with the Gasols and Marc, who is coming off the bench to back-up big brother Pau.  In the four games Marc has played in (he was the only player not to play in yesterday’s 98-50 throttling of Angola) he has averaged 7.5 points and 5 rebounds in an average of 19 minutes/game.

He’s also been solidly consistent from game-to-game, with the only real concern being the fact that he fouled out in the game against Team USA in only 17 minutes of playing-time.  But even so, the younger Gasol brother grew great praise from Team USA players, with Kobe Bryant going as far as saying that the Lakers shouldn’t have included Marc in the trade. 

That’s some pretty high praise from Kobe, and overall Team USA’s praise was actually quite surprising, including the Kobe quote.  But most of their praise was what we already knew- he’s big and can shoot the ball well for a big man.  Also this is still international ball and it will still be very interesting to see how Gasol’s game translates to the NBA, as well as how the minutes are divied up among Marc Gasol and incumbent C Darko Milicic, who is in the second year of a 3-year, $21 million contract.

But now I’ll talk about Team Espana’s two former Grizzlies: Pau and Juan Carlos. 

Pau overall has had a disappointing Olympics so far, as even though his stats are solid- 2nd at Olympics in scoring (averaging 19.4 points/game), 5th in rebounding (7 rebounds/game)- he overall hasn’t been Spain’s” go-to guy.”  This is evidenced by the fact that even though Pau is shooting a crazy 75.5% from the field, 60 of his 97 points came in two games against China and Angola.  In the other three games against Greece, Germany, and the USA he never scored over 13 points and only put up a combined 23 shots.

Navarro, meanwhile starts for the team just like Pau and has struggled, shooting only 22.7% from beyond the arch and only 32% from two-point range.  Before yesterday’s 12 point game against Angola, Navarro had averaged only 5.5 points/game in 17.75 minutes/game.

But that’s in pool play and now it gets down to the quarterfinals, with Spain kicking off action against Croatia today.  Will have an update on Team Spain and Gasol’s play in final rounds coming up.

Also, the other interesting tidbit from the Olympics was the fact that the Grizzlies are interested in yet another international big man, as Iran’s 7′2″ C Hamed Ehadadi seems to have caught Memphis and coach Marc Iavaroni’s attention.  Ehadadi was quoted as saying that he has spoken to Iavaroni via the telephone and expects to play for Memphis sometime during the upcoming season.

Ehadadi has played well in these Olympics after first catching the attention of the NBA during the Iranian team’s play during the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas.  Ehadadi has averaged 16.6 points and and Olympic-leading 11.2 rebounds during his team’s play in Beijing, to go along with 2.6 blocks/game.  Add this to the fact that over his last four games Ehadadi averaged 18.5 points and he was a surprise to many.

But right now all of this is talk, as the NBA has sent a letter to teams saying that before teams can begin discussing a contract with Ehadadi, as the NBA must first apply for a license to allow its’ teams to negotiate with Ehadadi, an Iranian national.

But my main question regarding the possibility of Ehadadi joining the Grizzlies is when would he play?  We already have Darko and Marc, two above-average NBA centers on our roster and they’re around (barring a trade) for two and three more years respectively.  The only playing time Ehadadi would see would be either in the D-League or very limited minutes in third string and being that he is a major project him sitting on the bench would not be good for his development.

His size does make him an intriguing prospect, but Memphis just doesn’t have the room right now to give him enough playing time so I think this is just a case of ’we saw him first’ with Ehadadi and the Grizzlies. 

Smith averaged 17.2 points, 8.2 rebounds, 3.4 assists, 2.8 blocks, and 1.5 steals last season and was widely believed to be the top restricted free agent (RFA) on the market.  Smith was also one of the leaders last season on the young Atlanta team that made the playoffs and pushed the eventual champion Boston Celtics to the max in the first round.

Smith was courted by both the 76ers and Nuggets before both those teams passed and chose different options, in part because the Hawks said they would any offer sheet that Smith was signed to.

But the Grizzlies decided to take a shot on Smith and signed him to an offer sheet, as they went against their off-season plans of standing pat and signed Smith to an offer sheet, as they were really the only team left at this point who had the cap space to make and offer like this.

This was actually a very wise move by the Memphis front office, as it is a win-win situation either way.  Smith is a very, very good young player who would have filled the void the Grizzlies have at the PF spot for years to come.

If the Hawks hadn’t matched the offer sheet Memphis would’ve gotten another key piece of its’ young nucleus, to go along with Rudy Gay, O.J. Mayo, and Conley/Lowry/Crittenton.

On the other hand, if the Hawks do match the offer, it still gives fans the perception that the Grizzlies are still trying to improve their team, without actually having to spend a penny.  So the next time someone pulls out the ‘this team is trying to cut costs’ argument GM Chris Wallace and Owner Michael Heisley can point to the Smith signing to refute the claim.

Either way this was a smart move, as Smith is really one of the league’s up and coming stars, a la Rudy Gay.  Smith also plays defense, as evidenced by his rebounds, blocks, and steals, and that is something this team could definitely use.  He also got playoff experience last season, which is something lacking among our young nucleus.

But the Hawks quickly matched the offer sheet to Smith, which means Grizzlies fans were disappointed…again, but then again, would you expect anything else.

The signing of Marc Gasol will actually give Memphis one of the better center tandems in the league, to go along with Darko Milicic, who played much of last season battling various injuries.

The only question now appears to be who will get the starting nod and the majority of the playing time.

Darko, the incumbent, battled through injuries last season, is still only 23 years old and is heading into the second year of a 3-year deal of his own, this one worth $21-million.  Darko battled through injuries last season, playing in 70 games while putting up averages of 7.2 points, 6.1 rebounds, and 1.6 blocks.  I still would give the nod to a healthy Darko, as he was solid defensively while showing flashes of some offense last season.

Marc Gasol is really a wild card because no one really knows what he can do in the NBA.  Gasol was one of, if not the best young player in the European leagues last year, as he was the MVP of the Spanish League, averaging 16.2 points and 8.3 rebounds.

Grizzlies GM Chris Wallace has publicly said that Gasol would have been a lottery pick in last week’s draft.  Now, while I’m pretty sure that this is a little over-hyped on Wallace’s part, I think Gasol can definitely be a solid center in the NBA, putting up compatible numbers to Darko last season.

Regardless, this is a very solid pick-up for Memphis, as it gives them a couple of legitimate NBA centers, something that most NBA teams can’t say.

It also gives them more ammo to say that the Pau Gasol trade last season wasn’t so bad, as they now have three young, promising players on the team from that trade in Gasol, Javaris Crittenton, and Darrell Arthur.

Memphis gets:

-(Rights to) G O.J. Mayo (USC)

-PG Marko Jaric

-SG Greg Buckner

-PF Antoine Walker

Minnesota gets:

-(Rights to) PF Kevin Love (UCLA)

-SF Mike Miller

-PF Brian Cardinal

-C Jason Collins

This trade is very interesting and something that I really don’t understand all that much.

Al Jefferson, Minnesota’s star player, played last season out of position at center and the feeling is that he is truly a power forward.  So why they would want Love, who would keep Jefferson at center for a long time, I don’t know?

Meanwhile, it’s been well publicized that the Grizzlies have a gluttony of PGs, and while Mayo is projected to be a combo guard, he is still projected to be more of a PG than a SG, even if he will be a scoring PG.

Honestly, I’m not the biggest fan of O.J. Mayo and thought Kevin Love filled a much more pressing need for the Grizzlies than Mayo did.  I thought picking Love with the 5th overall pick was a little high, but I thought he would be a very solid NBA player.  Mayo, I’m not so sure about, mostly because of the hype and allegations surrounding him.

I find it interesting that a team that’s in the tank with their fan base would take a flyer on a player with such a questionable history as Mayo, with his constant moving around and Greg Oden-like, you’d of thought he would’ve dominated the Pac-10 this year.  Now Mayo averaged 20.7 points in his only season at USC, so it’s not like any slouch, but I just wonder about his personality and attitude.

I mean, Mayo has basically played wherever he’s wanted to since high school, he’s the only player I’ve ever heard of that told a school he was going to play for them.  Now, he gets to spend the next few years playing in Memphis for a rebuilding team, no more ‘I’m bored here, where do I want to play next.’

Another reason I’m not a big fan of this deal is because I don’t like it at all from a Memphis perspective.  You can pretty much cancel out Cardinal, Collins, Buckner, and Walker in the trade because those are basically just bad contracts being traded for other bad contracts.

The only good news is that the Grizzlies are getting back over $13 million-worth in expiring contracts in Walker and Buckner.  Well, sort of at least, as Walker has a Team Option at the end of the upcoming season that surely won’t be exercised (since it’s $21 million over those next 2 years) and Buckner has the possibility for a $1 buyout of the remaining 2 years, $8.3 million of his contract at the end of next season.

Meanwhile, the Grizzlies are getting rid of a $6.2 million expiring contract of Collins, while also unloading the horrible Cardinal contract (over $13 million over 2 years).

That really means it’s down to two things, comparing Mayo/Love and Miller/Jaric.  I think that while Mayo has a little bit more upside, but right now Mayo and Love are similar players, contributions wise to either team.  Having said this, I don’t think Mayo is good enough that you should be willing to completely re-shape your roster, giving up basically two starters for him, while taking on additional, bad contracts.

Now it comes down to the Miller- Jaric comparison, which Miller wins hands down.  Miller averaged 16.4 points, 6.6 rebounds, and 3.4 assists last season with Memphis, where he started all 70 games he played in and was Memphis’ legitimate scoring threat behind Rudy Gay last season after Pau Gasol was traded.  He also is owed a decent $18.75 million over the next two seasons.

Meanwhile, Jaric averaged 8.3 points, 4.2 assists, and 3 rebounds in just over 29 minutes of game action last season and has just about as bad a contract (3 years, $21+ million) as any of the aforementioned huge contracts…I mean players.  Honestly, the best thing  going for Marko Jaric is off the court, as he is dating supermodel Adriana Lima.  Add this to the fact that he is ANOTHER PG (albeit the world’s tallest at 6′7″).

Honestly, I think that the Grizzlies just got fleeced by the T-Wolves and their GM Kevin McHale, which automatically makes Chris Wallace the NBA’s worst GM.  It seems teams knew that Memphis didn’t want to settle for Love and were just waiting until Memphis finally saw at least a decent offer they liked.  Now, while this isn’t as bad as some of the proposed trades for Beasley (Miller, Conley/Lowry, and 5th pick for Beasley) it still is not a good trade for the Grizzlies.

Arthur In, Greene Out: The Grizzlies have also traded their other draft pick, as they’ve traded the rights to Syracuse F Donte Greene AND a 2009 2nd round pick to the Trail Blazers for the rights to Kansas PF Darrell Arthur.

Honestly, I think this trade sickens me the most because we basically traded a 2nd round pick in next year’s draft, in all likelihood a top-40 pick, to get a player who went the spot before us.  Is getting the guy who went 27th overall really worth trading away the 28th AND a top 40 pick in next year’s draft.

Haven’t we learned that trading future 2nd round picks for either late 1st round picks or 2nd round picks in that year’s draft is a bad idea.  Just think about what we could’ve had if Memphis would’ve had their 2nd rounder this year: Memphis G Chris Douglas-Roberts or Texas A&M C DeAndre Jordan.  If you combine either of them with Love and Greene and you have the potential to pick up three lottery-projected players in one draft.

Now we’ve traded away next year’s 2nd round pick for a guy with kidney problems who was sinking like the Titanic at the draft.  I mean, Arthur was projected to go about the same place as Greene, both slipped, so it’s not like trading a player who slipped for a player that had less value, they both had pretty much equal value.

But, with Memphis moving Love that left a gaping hole at PF that needed to be addressed, giving Portland the upper hand, thus giving them the opportunity for Chris Wallace to be taken in another trade.

Love fills a need at the PF position for the Grizzlies, and he’s really a solid, safe choice here. The only questions surrounding him are really about his athleticism, but he brings interior scoring and rebounding, which are two things the Grizzlies desperately need and lacked last season.

What you hear the most about Love is his high ‘basketball IQ’ and the fact that he knows how to play the game. Probably the main thing associated with this are his outlet passes that help start fast breaks. I’ve never heard so much raving about the outlet passes of a player, and people are saying he’s the best outlet passer since Bill Walton, so that’s quite a complement. But these outlet passes could be very useful, especially if Marc Iavaroni decides to speed things up a little bit. Overall, Love’s passing and vision are two of his biggest pros, and Love could be great at finding an open Mike Miller around the perimeter, or a slashing Rudy Gay.

Now, having said this, I do think that selecting Love 5th overall is a little bit of a reach at the 5-spot, but the Grizzlies really put themselves in a tough position with their glutton of guards, especially point guards. That meant that pretty much half of the top players in the draft (O.J. Mayo, Russell Westbrook, Eric Gordon, D.J. Augustin, Jerryd Bayless) really didn’t make sense for them, especially since none of them really projected to be a pure pure shooting guard, which IS something the Grizzlies need.

Now, saying this, I like Love better than Stanford C Brook Lopez, who had similar athleticism questions to Love, and whose best asset was that he was a 7-footer who had some game. Besides that, the Grizzlies have more depth at the center spot, with Darko Milicic under contract for the next two years. Add this to the fact that Marc Gasol announced that he will be coming over to play in the NBA this upcoming season and the center position could be Memphis’ second strongest position (depth-wise) entering the season.

Memphis’ selection of Love could also be another sign that the younger Gasol will be playing for the Grizzlies next season.

Overall, I’m happy with the selection and I think (other than trading down a few spots and filling a few other holes) it was the best overall choice.

28th pick: Syracuse F Donte Greene

Surprisingly, there were multiple quality players that slipped to the Grizzlies at the 28th overall pick, including Greene, Texas A&M C DeAndre Jordan, and a hometown pick in Memphis SG Chris Douglas-Roberts.

It would have been easy for GM Chris Wallace to make the ‘hometown pick’ in choosing Douglas-Roberts.  It would have been the best PR the Grizzlies have gotten since the hiring of Marc Iavaroni last season and possibly help mend some fences burnt in the Pau Gasol trade, along with the possibly of putting some extra fannies in the seats, something the Grizzlies also desperately need.

Instead they chose Greene, who has been compared to the Grizzlies Hakim Warrick, another Syracuse forward who has been labeled as a ‘tweener’ who doesn’t really have a position and is said to play no defense.

But I applaud Wallace for not taking the easy way out and choosing Greene because, honestly, Greene has more potential than Douglas-Roberts and is better value at this point, as many projections had Greene going in the teens.

Greene also fills a need at the SF position for Memphis, and brings great athleticism and length to the Grizzlies.  His real upside is offensively, as he averaged 17.7 points and 7.2 rebounds in his freshman season at Syracuse.

The only problem is that he does tend to settle for jump shots, especially 3-pointers a lot, which is not something that the Grizzlies need.  Also, the questions about his defense are also something a team with one of the worst defenses in the league last year don’t need.

I still like the pick though, as even though it really centers around Greene’s potential, the fact that he is lottery talent is too hard to pass up on at this point, even for a hometown pick in Douglas-Roberts.

I think that Greene shouldered the load offensively on a pretty mediocre Syracuse team, which could have led to his poor shot selection.  I think that if Greene is the type of player who needed to go to a veteran team and learn from the veterans how to play in the league.  While the Grizzlies aren’t exactly a veteran team, they do have a veteran F in Mike Miller who could be a good mentor to Greene.

I know this pick will take a lot of heat in Memphis, but I like it because even though both Greene and Douglas-Roberts filled a need for the Grizzlies, Greene has more upside.

The interesting thing all along has been that Gasol has never mentioned the Grizzlies specifically when discussing the fact that he wants to come over and play in the NBA.

Now, whether this is just posturing because the Grizzlies can’t officially sign Gasol until July or something more I don’t know.

What I do know is that Gasol’s announcement that he is coming to play in the NBA would greatly increase any trade value he would have if Memphis were looking to make any sort of trade.

I honestly really don’t know what to think, as honestly, when Juan Carlos Navarro bolted back to Spain, I thought it greatly hampered Memphis’ chances of getting the younger Gasol to cover over and play.

This along with the fact that he would basically be seen as replacing his older brother, in a city where his brother was not all that popular lead me to believe that it might be better for Marc to start his NBA career elsewhere. Add this to the fact that he, along with Javaris Crittenton and whomever the 28th overall pick will be, will face pressure to perform because of the fact that they were apart of that lopsided trade push the agenda that Gasol will face a tough start in Memphis even more likely.

But Gasol went to high school in Memphis and is familiar with the area, so I can see why it would look attractive for Marc to come over and start his NBA career with a city and franchise that he is familiar with.

Either way, it appears Gasol will be playing the the NBA next season, with or against the Grizzlies.

Grizzlies looking to dump Cardinal’s salary?: We all know the answer to this question is yes, but it appears they may be willing to deal the 5th overall pick to whomever will take on the final two years of Cardinal’s $13 million contract.

The teams mentioned are the Knicks, Trail Blazers, and Suns, with the only package being mentioned is the Knicks sending Fs David Lee and Malik Rose (expiring contract) to the Grizzlies for the 5th overall pick and Cardinal.

Honestly, if the Grizzlies make this move, I don’t see how they are going to stay in Memphis, as this would kill absolutely any interest in the team, showing the owner Michael Heisley is more interested in making a profit then putting a winning team on the court.

This would be a PR disaster for Memphis on the level of the Gasol trade, as it would offer more steam that they are just looking to cut costs left and right, assuming the fans won’t show up.

The only trade I would like to see the Grizzlies do is to trade down, with the Nets being the most likely option, as Memphis would ideally get both the 10th and 21st overall picks, allowing them to address the multiple needs this roster has.

While it helps the Memphis clear up their crowded PG situation, possibly even putting them back into the mix for a guard in next week’s draft, it is a major blow to an already depleted Grizzlies bench, as Navarro averaged 10.9 points, while playing an average of 26 minutes/game.

Navarro was really one of the more consistent Grizzlies all of last season, his first in the NBA after a lengthy career overseas.  He, along with Kyle Lowry, were the only two Grizzlies to play in all 82 games and he started 30 games last season.  When Navarro was coming off the bench he was really one of the only consistent scorers off the bench.

But I really can’t blame Navarro, as while his best friend (Pau Gasol) was traded to the NBA Final-bound Lakers, he was stuck in Memphis, TN, a far cry from Barcelona.  Add this to the fact he was a restricted free agent and the Grizzlies would probably match any offer they received meant Navarro would be returning to a rebuilding NBA team.  So he chose comfort, and honestly, more money, in returning to his former team, FC Barcelona.

Navarro returning to Spain pretty much ends any chance of Marc Gasol coming over to play for the Grizzlies, as big brother Pau was a big part of Navarro coming over to the Grizzlies in the first place.  I would imagine a big part of little brother Marc coming to Memphis would depend on Navarro recruiting him over here.  With Navarro gone, I now see little to no chance of Gasol signing with the Grizzlies.

This now leaves the Grizzlies with a bench of Kyle Lowry, Javaris Crittenton, Jason Collins, and Brian Cardinal…it’s going to be a fun year barring some big off-season moves.