Mike Conley doesn’t seem anxious to leave Memphis, just as Marc Gasol wasn’t last year, but Gasol didn’t make any promises until he re-signed in July, and Conley isn’t either, observes Chris Mannix of SI.com.
“It’s easy to feel obligated; it’s easy to want to stay,” Conley said to Mannix. “This is where I’ve had my whole career. At the same time I understand this is a business. I have to weigh my options just like [Gasol] did. Hopefully it will be an easy decision, whatever it is.”
Since Conley, No. 3 in our 2016 Free Agent Power Rankings, is apparently thinking along the same lines as Gasol, even if he’s reluctant to say he’ll draw the same conclusion, check out what Gasol had to say about what went into his decision to re-sign this past summer amid the latest from Memphis:
- Dave Joerger‘s job wasn’t in jeopardy at any point earlier this month in spite of the rumors, and no indication came forth that owner Robert Pera had grown impatient, writes Ronald Tillery of The Commercial Appeal. Joerger pushed for the team to trade for Mario Chalmers, and the team did so, indicating the sway Joerger still has within the organization, Tillery notes.
- The Chalmers trade has been a boon for the Grizzlies, opines Chris Herrington of The Commercial Appeal, who examines what he brings to Memphis, the emergence of JaMychal Green in the rotation, and more in his weekly Pick and Pop column.
- The feeling that he had unfinished business with the Grizzlies helped lead Gasol to re-sign, as he told Mannix for a separate piece. “I think every conversation always led to that. About how much the city means to me, how much my teammates mean to me, how much this franchise means to me,” Gasol said in part. “At the end of the day, I felt responsible for that. There was a lot of attention and a lot of people wanted to talk, but this is where I wanted to be.”