Top Players:<\/strong><\/p>\nRudy Gay – One of the best small forwards in the league. In addition to being a top performer he is the player they look to to make plays in critical situations.
\nMarc Gasol – Underrated big man is one of the few effective true centers in the league. \u00a0He is not overly athletic but contributes regularly.
\nZach Randolph – The power forward can be enigmatic but has been a good soldier in Memphis and a reliable double-double guy. \u00a0His game is not always pretty and he plays on the ground but you can\u2019t knock the results.<\/p>\n
The West is loaded and this team is definitely second tier behind Oklahoma City, Los Angeles and San Antonio. \u00a0They have had some success against the Spurs in the past but it is hard to see them being able to go on a run and knock out more than one of those teams.<\/p>\n
With the offseason moves the Grizzlies made it appears they are hoping that improvement and continuity will push them higher up the Western Conference pecking order. \u00a0They might see getting rid of guard O.J. Mayo as a positive but you can\u2019t argue with the kid\u2019s talent and they may wish they had him around on nights when they don\u2019t get much of anything scoring wisefrom their bench. \u00a0This is a good but not great team. [ad-6571516]<\/p>\n
Strengths:<\/strong><\/p>\nNucleus – This team\u2019s core players have been together for a few seasons now and have theoretically mastered how to play together. \u00a0This should put them ahead of teams early in the season who are integrating new talent and systems in a material way. \u00a0The fact that they have talent to boot is why this team could be a factor in the West.<\/p>\n
Weaknesses:<\/strong><\/p>\nThere is not a lot of proven depth on the roster for Memphis. \u00a0They are looking to replace Mayo\u2019s production with untested second year player Josh Selby and frequent traveller Jerryd Bayless. \u00a0Upfront Mareese Speight shows flashes from time to time but there is a reason he doesn\u2019t see regular action when Randolph is available .<\/p>\n
Prediction:<\/strong><\/p>\nMemphis should win between 42-50 games this year. \u00a0They have youth mostly on their side and high levels of continuity amongst the starting unit. \u00a0This is a good defensive team in the backcourt but up front Randolph and Gasol are not anything special. \u00a0Which makes me wonder if they can once agains be among leaders in points allowed like they were last season. \u00a0Look for this team to qualify for the playoffs relatively easily but probably bow out in the second round in not before.<\/p>\n
Something to look for:<\/strong><\/p>\nThe Grizzlies were an ATS monster two seasons ago when they surprised many but were below .500 last year when the expectations were higher. \u00a0This is a good team that doesn\u2019t score a ton of points so they often tease bettors. \u00a0Like so many teams in the West they had solid records both ATS and SU against the Eastern records while struggling against the more familiar and better teams in the West. \u00a0Also, because they are still a generally youthful club they do well on the second game of back to backs – 61% ATS the last three seasons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Memphis Grizzlies Season Preview \u2013 NBA Predictions The Grizzlies have turned around their franchise from also ran to making the playoffs but you have to wonder if this group can really expect to make the next step.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":28044,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[39626,56782,4580,17914,17917,2551,3092,56896,744,745,749,2381,3925],"class_list":["post-56823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba","tag-39626","tag-2012-nba-gambling","tag-grizzlies","tag-grizzlies-odds","tag-grizzlies-predictions","tag-memphis","tag-memphis-grizzlies","tag-memphis-grizzlies-season-preview","tag-nba-betting","tag-nba-futures","tag-nba-odds","tag-nba-picks","tag-nba-predictions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56823"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56903,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56823\/revisions\/56903"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}