© Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports
Losses This Early In The Memphis Grizzlies Rebuild Shouldn't Hurt - But They Do...
The Memphis Grizzlies lost 128-123 on the road Thursday night to the Sacramento Kings after leading by as many as 20 points in the second quarter. This has been an all too familiar trend as the Grizzlies have squandered several double-digit leads, especially on the road. The Grizzlies were predicted to be at the bottom of the league record-wise this season but now they are ahead of schedule. They have become victims of their own relative success, and now it is causing fans to be invested in wins and losses much earlier than they planned.
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It causes an odd situation where you are happy that your team can compete but it can also be frustrating to watch your team blow leads. This is all a part of what a team in year one of a rebuild looks like. A team whose two leading scorers are both 20 years old with a rookie coach. A team that regardless of their youth and inexperience that would have been in 9th place in the Western Conference if they had held on to beat the Kings last night.
Everyone was prepared for the Grizzlies to be bad this year. All that the fans said that they wanted to see was a focus on the young players. Let Ja Morant, Jaren Jackson Jr., and Brandon Clarke develop and show signs of the future was the common refrain of expectation from the fanbase. This expectation soon amped up as the team went from a team that just needed to add another potential top 5 lottery pick to a team that looks like it will be conveying their pick to Boston at the bottom of the lottery.
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Wins and losses weren't supposed to mean much. Everything was supposed to be a learning experience. The team hopefully still learns from the losses but they definitely seem to sting more as an observer. We are supposed to be calculating lottery odds right now, not scoreboard watching and gaining gratification for climbing in the playoff standings! We are supposed to be rolling our eyes at people criticizing nuances of the game that led to a loss. We should be able to cut off the game and disconnect because it is all about the future and not this year, right?
I wish that was the case, but last night even I was upset that I wasn't able to tweet about the Grizzlies being tied for 9th in the West. Do I think that the Grizzlies can make the playoffs this season? I highly doubt it but it has been a joy watching them overachieve so far. They have shown so much promise and have a ton of "learning experiences" no matter how much they frustrate fans and overly invested media members like myself. It is way too early in the process for these games to "matter," but guess what - they do. And that's a good thing.
© Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports
