Summer Camp Report; Rookie Signing Update
The Grizzlies’ two-day summer camp started today on the practice court at FedExForum as the team prepares to settle on a contingent of players to send to the Las Vegas Summer League later this week. Four names certain to be on the summer roster are second-year guards Mike Conley and Javaris Crittenton and rookies O.J. Mayo and Darrell Arthur. The rest of the hopefuls in camp today — aside from Senegalese big man Malick Badiane, whose rights the Grizzlies own from a trade last season — were young free agents hoping to land on a roster, among them several former college stars with some NBA experience, including: Oregon’s Luke Jackson, Kentucky’s Randolph Morris, Texas’ P.J. Tucker, and Michigan State’s Alan Anderson.
At last season’s summer camp, the first thing I noticed was how much bigger and more muscular Rudy Gay looked, something that carried over into a breakout sophomore season. Today, Conley’s physical transformation was even more eye-popping. His arms and shoulders look twice as thick and muscular as they did when the season ended in April and he doesn’t seem to have lost an ounce of quickness on the court.
Media got to watch the last half hour of practice, which was a rotating scrimmage among three sets of players. The players rotating on the first team were the four players under contract, Badiane, and Anderson, with Conley, Crittenton, and Mayo all getting looks at point guard.
The play was far too disjointed to pick up much of interest, with Conley really the only player to make plays strong enough to make my notebook: Skying over a group of bigs for a defensive rebound and later knocking down a corner three. On the downside, Mayo and Crittenton were both turnover-prone in transition, underscoring my already held belief that neither player is ready for full-time point-guard duty at the NBA level.
Assistant coaches Kevin O’Neill and Johnny Davis ran the practice, with head coach Marc Iavaroni, GM Chris Wallace, player personnel director Tony Barone, and Mayo’s agent, Leon Rose, watching from the sideline.
A few notes gleaned from conversations with various team insiders:
*Mayo apparently signed his rookie deal with the team this morning, with Arthur set to follow this afternoon. The team’s other rookie acquisition, Marc Gasol, is flying into town later today and is set to sign tomorrow before heading back to Spain for work with his national team in preparation for the Olympics.
*Antoine Walker’s physical went well and he’s amenable to playing for the team next season, though no decision has been made.
*There’s a chance the team could sit Conley, Mayo, and/or Crittenton for some of the Vegas games in order to provide more minutes in individual games to get all three looks at the point guard.
*Things continue to move slowly on the free agent/trade front. Recent suggestions from the Denver media that the team is pursuing free agent small forward Yakhouba Diawara (which would be a very minor signing) were shrugged off (and I got the sense that there’s nothing pending there), while the ESPN.com report today of the team potentially acquiring former University of Memphis player and current Philadelphia 76er Rodney Carney was deemed unlikely.
