In Shy’s Corner: A little time with Devine

I had the pleasure of having a conversation with Dan Devine from Ball Don’t Lie, Yahoo Sports’ NBA blog. I really appreciate his time and effort.  In this edition of Shy’s Corner, Dan Devine answers a few questions for us.

 

Briefly tell me a little about yourself.

 

Hi! I’m Dan. I’m a 33-year-old white guy with glasses and a beard who works on the Internet, which makes me a really rare beast in Brooklyn. I’m an editor at Ball Don’t Lie, Yahoo Sports’ NBA blog. That means I watch too much basketball as a job, but I’m trying to be better about not doing that when I don’t have to so I can spend some more time with my wife and 18-month-old baby girl. I really like jokes. Jokes are the best.

 

 

1) In the wake of all the adversity the Grizzlies have faced this season, how impressed are you with them after losing Marc Gasol for the season and the win against Cleveland?

 

Very! I’ve written about this and talked about it on the radio a bunch over the last month or so; while nobody roots for injuries and I’d prefer to see the Grizz at full strength, I’m really enjoying the process of watching Memphis have to scramble for answers seemingly every game, and finding them with a mix of new stuff (more small-ball, more pace-pushing, more firing away from outside) and old stuff (looking to crank things up defensively, aggressively attacking on the perimeter, throwing it into Z-Bo when he’s available, falling in line behind Tony Allen). The Cleveland win, for me, was the best and most fun version of that so far.

 

 

 

2) With the latest injury, the Grizzlies lost Mario Chalmers. How do you think they will play for the rest of the season and the playoffs [if they make it]?

 

First, I think they’re going to make it; they’re eight games clear of ninth place with 20 games left, and even though the schedule’s about to get brutal, that still feels pretty safe considering the inconsistency of the teams chasing them. That said, I think they’ll play … erratically, I guess? You’ve got to like that new starting point guard Briante Weber only turned the ball over twice in 71 minutes over his first two games, but still, relying on him, fellow new addition Ray McCallum and Lance Stephenson as your primary ball-handlers means you’re moving pretty far away from Mike Conley’s steady hands. I’d expect a more amped-up version of the rollercoaster ride we’ve seen for the last five weeks or so — frenetic activity leading to some soaring peaks where the Grizzlies seem crazy enough to be overwhelming and some plunging valleys where the wheels fall off completely. It ought to be fun to watch.

 

 

3) Dave Joerger has guided this team through adversity…should he be in the coach of the year conversation if the Grizzlies?

 

He probably has to wait in line behind Terry Stotts, Gregg Popovich, Steve Clifford, Steve Kerr and Brad Stevens (give or take a name or two), but yeah, I think he’ll get some votes. Handling as much rotational uncertainty as he has sure isn’t easy, and he’s made bold moves at important junctures of the season — moving away from the two-big look early in the season when it clearly wasn’t working, reinserting Z-Bo into the starting lineup for a mid-January boost, bringing Jeff Green on the bench when it became clear he wasn’t working with the first five, etc. — that have helped Memphis stay afloat.

 

 

 

4)  I’ve have followed you on Twitter for years now…in your opinion what makes a team like the Grizzlies special?

 

At the risk of plugging old stuff too much, I wrote about this a bit during the summer (http://yhoo.it/1hXSN0u) and a bit after the Cleveland win (http://yhoo.it/1X8UYNr): the cultivation of and commitment to an identity, the full-hearted embrace of a style that might not make sense anywhere else but makes perfect sense in Memphis, and an atmosphere that rewards players for exuding personality. There just seems to be something joyous about this era of Grizzlies basketball, an acknowledgment that a team can matter in a major way even if it doesn’t win a championship, and that it’s OK to just appreciate something awesome on its own merits. I don’t think that atmosphere and acknowledgement exist in many other places, and it’s worth celebrating.

 

 

5) What are you thoughts on the Chalmers injury and subsequent waiver by the Grizzlies? And what do you think is next for him?

 

Wrote about this at BDL, too: http://yhoo.it/1RCV77B. I think it’s incredibly unfortunate for him to suffer such a devastating injury months before hitting unrestricted free agency. I think it’s unfortunate the Grizzlies waived him and that the optics of doing so in the same press release where they announced his season-ending injury, but I also get that they had to do it all immediately to open up roster space to add healthy bodies. I think he still draws interest on the free-agent market, albeit not at the “best backup point guard available” level he might have before, which could cost him many millions of dollars, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see him back in Memphis next year.