Sportsfrog.com

So, he’s finally leaving. How will he be remembered by the four remaining people that care about the Grizzlies in Memphis? Here’s my take as one of those four people:

Pulled a franchise out of the depths and gave them hope? Check.

Failed misearbly at talent evaluation and giving the team a base to move forward with success into the future? Absolutely.

West’s best moves in Memphis were the Hubie Brown and Mike Fratello hires, as they helped wring three playoff appearances out of the previously moribund franchise. But West’s absolute inability to identify and draft quality talent or bring any free agent to Memphis who had a pulse brought about, in no small part, the disaster that was the 2006/07 season in Memphis.

From moves like picking Drew Gooden over Amare Stoudamire to picking the not-so-immortal Robert Archibald over Carlos Boozer to passing over Josh Howard in the draft, to holding a giant money burning party while bringing in free agents like Brian Cardinal (still happily collecting $38 million dollars guaranteed), West failed and failed miserably in the most important part of his job. He came to Memphis with a reputation as a talent identification savant, but that reputation has been revealed as a lie.

The window he had to improve the playoff version of the Grizzlies slammed shut somewhere around the Damon Stoudamire free agent signing. West inherited Pau Gasol and has run the franchise so poorly around him that Gasol has spent the year begging to be traded. He inherited Shane Battier, and any chance West has of anyone in Memphis remembering his stay as talent guy remotely fondly rests on Rudy Gay (acquired for Battier) someday being decent. And I will never forgive him for bringing the execrable Stromile Swift back to Memphis.

West leaves the franchise in an awful state, his sins compounded by absentee owner Michael Heisley’s extortionate price for selling the team putting everyone associated with the Grizzlies in a state of permanent limbo with no direction from the top. West himself has allowed that situation to impact his moves, and has said as much.

All in all, the dwindling attendence, uncertainty in ownership, and a team relatively devoid of useful pieces has made the NBA in Memphis something of a sick novelty.

What the franchise needs? Ownership to care. A GM that actually has a clue about identifying and acquiring talent. And a ping pong ball. Of those three, perhaps most desperately, a ping pong ball. If Oden and Durant go elsewhere, I suspect Memphis will not be an NBA town ten years from now…