I consider myself blessed to have family in several corners of the United States: Vermont, Seattle, New Orleans, and Hawaii. Whenever I visit any of these distinctive regions, one topic invariably comes up: the Memphis Grizzlies. Considering I live a short drive from the second-most visited home in the country, our NBA team being the ice-breaker of choice over Elvis Presley is rather significant. As the Grizzlies celebrate their silver anniversary in the Bluff City, it\u2019s worth noting that we Memphians are as Beale Street Blue as our professional basketball team.<\/p>\n
In September 1992 \u2014 my rookie \u201cseason\u201d with Memphis Magazine \u2014 we devoted a cover story to the city\u2019s pursuit of an NFL franchise. The issue included a comprehensive list of reasons Memphis was a perfect fit for the league\u2019s 29th or 30th team, and copies were sent to the NFL commissioner\u2019s office. Alas, today you can cheer on the Carolina Panthers and Jacksonville Jaguars on fall Sundays, and the former Houston Oilers play in Nashville as the Tennessee Titans. But Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium remains a college-only facility. (Go Tigers!) It felt like the best and last chance for Memphis to gain big-league status.<\/p>\n
Then Michael Heisley came along. In 2001, the owner of the Vancouver Grizzlies identified Memphis as a better location for his six-year-old franchise to grow, a more attractive region for his team to be fully embraced. (Yes, the promise of a new arena made three seasons in The Pyramid palatable for the move.) In what initially felt like an overnight love affair, a new marriage was announced between Memphis and \u2014 can it be? \u2014 the National Basketball Association. Honey, we are big-league.<\/p>\n
Over the 24 seasons since the Grizzlies\u2019 arrival, the culture of Memphis has changed, if not quite transformed. While the blues, barbecue, and yes, Elvis, remain Mid-South touchstones treasured the world over, \u201cGrit and Grind\u201d are three words virtually every Memphian identifies with a basketball team that has yet to reach the NBA Finals. Three of the \u201ccore four\u201d players who took the Grizzlies to the Western Conference final in 2013 \u2014 Zach Randolph, Marc Gasol, and Tony Allen \u2014 now have their jersey numbers hanging from the rafters at FedExForum. (Mike Conley will certainly join them when his playing career ends.) Public murals featuring Ja Morant \u2014 to date, the most electrifying player in franchise history \u2014 can be found in multiple parts of the city. Two former coaches \u2014 Hubie Brown and Lionel Hollins \u2014 have already been inducted into the Memphis Sports Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n
\nMaybe that\u2019s where the Grizzlies have made their deepest impact on Memphis. They \u2014 the players, coaches, and much of the front office \u2014 feel as much of us as representing us. It\u2019s a \u201cWe are them\u201d vibe. And this includes rocky seasons, and rocky headlines.<\/p>\n
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And we\u2019ve been paying attention. Our June 2015 cover story celebrated the culture of Grizzlies basketball. Shara Clark mentioned a favorite t-shirt she spotted one game night: \u201cGod-Family-Grizzlies.\u201d Here in the American South, that\u2019s Biblical stuff. Not once, but twice we\u2019ve named a Grizzly player or players our Memphian of the Year (Gasol in 2015 and the entire team in 2022).<\/p>\n
In early May 2013, I was in line at a local computer store to purchase a laptop for my high school-bound daughter. And in walked Allen, \u201cthe Grindfather\u201d himself. The Grizzlies had just eliminated the Los Angeles Clippers in the first round of the NBA playoffs on their way to the franchise\u2019s deepest run to date. Wearing no media credential, I was able to approach Allen, amid his small entourage, and congratulate him for the series victory. \u201cI appreciate you,\u201d he replied, with that slight, slanted smile Grizzly fans adore to this day. And then the six-time All-Defensive Team guard got in line behind me for computer service.<\/p>\n
Maybe that\u2019s where the Grizzlies have made their deepest impact on Memphis. They \u2014 the players, coaches, and much of the front office \u2014 feel as much of us as representing us. It\u2019s a \u201cWe are them\u201d vibe. And this includes rocky seasons, and rocky headlines. Players have found themselves in legal hot water (Allen is one of them). There is citywide hand-sweating over the possibility of the franchise leaving Memphis if it doesn\u2019t receive the kind of arena renovations a half-billion dollars might buy. And yes, we\u2019d really like to see the NBA Finals played a block from Beale Street. The Grizzlies have won precisely one playoff series over the last ten years.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve walked the streets of New Orleans recently, current home to one of my daughters. It\u2019s an NBA city, sure, but it\u2019s an NFL culture that pervades, the Saints\u2019 iconic fleur-de-lis visible on every block, commercial or residential. Here in Memphis for a quarter-century, now, a grizzly bear is, somehow, the most celebrated animal, symbol, and idea. And what\u2019s more valuable in this age of division and cross-culture clash? We are, indeed, the Memphis Grizzlies. We have the grind marks to prove it.<\/p>\n
Why do we so love rankings? Maybe it\u2019s because numbers are tangible, making even the flightiest opinion appear more grounded. It\u2019s so easy to gin up a top-ten list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I consider myself blessed to have family in several corners of the United States: Vermont, Seattle, New Orleans,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":389990,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[1073,185707,3576,185706,3135,1260,167316,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-389989","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-columns","9":"tag-frank-murtaugh","10":"tag-ja-morant","11":"tag-last-stand","12":"tag-memphis-grizzlies","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-november-2025","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115576636072913402","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}