For a couple years now, it’s become increasingly evident that the Memphis Grizzlies needed to tear things down and rebuild from the bottom-up. The prudent means of this for most teams (unless you’re, like, the Knicks) has been through gaining draft equity and, thus, tanking. Memphis’ front office stubbornly refused to do so.
The irony, of course, is that the Grizzlies, now in a perfect situation to tank, cannot, in fact, tank. Owing their first rounder to the Boston Celtics (who else?) from an ill-advised Jeff Green acquisition, the Grizzlies need to tread carefully.