Memphis Grizzlies 2004 Pre-Season Media Day

[LoCo89]

GM LoCo89 Walks up to the stage with Coach Lionel Hollins and his players seated behind him...

New Colors, Logo, Uniforms, & Court Scheme

LoCo: While normally, we here at the Memphis Grizzlies have felt silence is the best option in regards to the media and letting our on the court play do the talking, we feel that this has been a disservice to our fans. Well, this has certainly been an exciting off season. To get this session started, we wanted to begin by first announcing the New Brand for Memphis Grizzlies Basketball. The Memphis Grizzlies begin a new chapter in franchise history today by unveiling the team’s new uniforms, website, merchandise and team store. Longtime Grizzlies’ Fred Jones, Mike Dunleavy Jr, & Joe Johnson are here to show off our brand new home, away, and alternate jerseys jerseys:

The Memphis Grizzlies new home uniform is white, with Smoke Blue, Memphis Midnight Blue, Beale Street Blue and Grizzlies Gold trim, with the word “Grizzlies” emblazoned across the front and the Grizzlies’ logo on the lower left leg of the shorts. The Grizzlies’ new road uniform has a base color of Memphis Midnight Blue, with Smoke Blue and Grizzlies Gold Trim, with the word “Memphis” emblazoned across the front and the Grizzlies’ logo on the lower left leg of the shorts.

As you can see, there is a new logo. Our own President of Basketball Operations Jerry West had this to say about the look: “We as a team felt very strongly that the new logo should represent the city, the fans and our players,” . “I’m excited about the new look and am proud that it symbolizes the energy of Memphis, the determination of the team and a united commitment to winning.” We feel that this more modern logo, truly makes the Grizzlies Memphis's own, and are very pleased with the new identity. Here is the rest of the package of the new logo designs and on court scheme:

Draft
Besides our brand update, we feel that we have had a thoroughly successful offseason. After the last two seasons early playoff exits, we felt that we here at the Grizzlies organization needed a very good off season to help instill excitement in our fans once again. Well I'm here to tell the fans that we have done just that. We felt at the beginning of this off season that our core of Veterans (Brand and Johnson) and young players (Dunleavy & Jones) were crucial to keep moving forward thereby forcing us to stand pat on trades. On draft night, we drafted Sebastian Telfair, a talented yet very young and raw PG out of high school with the 25th pick.

Free Agency
After draft night, we opened our FA by bringing in a player who we felt has been the heart and soul of the Memphis Grizzlies since he was traded here. We brought back Alonzo Mourning and are very happy to have him as a Grizzly one again. However, we felt that we needed more, after losing a player like Jalen Rose, we needed to bring in scoring and a PG to lead the team. We feel that we got both with our next two big signings. We brought in Peja Stojakovic and Brevin Knight to fill those roles for our team. We filled out our team with the returns of Vonteego Cummings and Shawn Kemp.


Moving Forward
In conclusion, I believe that this has been one of, if not the best off season in Memphis Grizzlies History. We not only have an updated brand, but also a very good team that we have built. We believe that we have positioned our team to not only compete for, but win the NBA title this season. We are ready to bring you our best Memphis, the only question left is are you ready?

Thank you for your time, if there are any questions, All players, coach Lionel Hollins, and myself are available, ask away. If not, have a wonderful day.

[ItsPaulyP]

Loco, you've had really good squads before but whats going to make this current group rise up and perform better than those other teams you've had and get to the finals?

[Pelicans78]

Now that your roster is set, who's team is this? Who will be your go to guy on offense? Brand? Peja? Even Joe Johnson?

[IamQuailman]

Hi, Will Maukie from BucksNation.com. I was hitting the road and figured I stop for some Jim Neely's Interstate BBQ and a Grizzlies presser.

Despite the Grizzlies being in the West, I think I can speak for the Bucks Nation in saying we are gunnin' for y'all. We were pretty steamed that Zo declined a better deal to return to Memphis and look forward to our in-season match-up. We are ready to show Zo how much of a wrong decision he made. (insert winky face)

That said, you squad is beyond solid. Once again I think it will be a battle between you and the Lakers for Western Conference supremacy. Who do you feel could give you the most grief within the Western Conference?

[LoCo89]

Loco, you've had really good squads before but whats going to make this current group rise up and perform better than those other teams you've had and get to the finals?

Honestly? I hate to say it, but cap space. Our team has always been built around our "Big 3" of Zo, Brand, and JJ. The rest of our starting lineup would usually be whoever we could grab with the MLE (Glen Rice) or someone that we traded for (Jalen Rose). This year, due to not having to pay nearly half of our cap to one player who will not be named (Zo looks like this: ), we feel like we were able to bring in more quality to our starting lineup this season, on top of the constant improvement that we have always had from Brand and JJ. I believe these factors are going to be key to us making a finals appearance.

[LoCo89]

Now that your roster is set, who's team is this? Who will be your go to guy on offense? Brand? Peja? Even Joe Johnson?

LoCo: I'll let Coach take this one.

Hollins: Brand, all day. Our philosophy has always been about getting the easier and better shots inside. While Zo became less of an offensive force last season, EB showed up, and put in the work needed to get those buckets. That is not to say Peja will not be extremely important to our gameplan however. We have never had a shooter as talented as him, and I am very excited to add him to our inside out game that we have always tried to use.

[LoCo89]

Hi, Will Maukie from BucksNation.com. I was hitting the road and figured I stop for some Jim Neely's Interstate BBQ and a Grizzlies presser.

Despite the Grizzlies being in the West, I think I can speak for the Bucks Nation in saying we are gunnin' for y'all. We were pretty steamed that Zo declined a better deal to return to Memphis and look forward to our in-season match-up. We are ready to show Zo how much of a wrong decision he made. (insert winky face)

That said, you squad is beyond solid. Once again I think it will be a battle between you and the Lakers for Western Conference supremacy. Who do you feel could give you the most grief within the Western Conference?

That's interesting, because Zo never even mentioned any other deals to us, he just wanted us to increase our offer...

While we have posted the 2nd best record in the conference last season and tied for the best in the league the season before that, what truly matters is the playoffs. We look forward to establishing our supremacy there.

However, to answer your question we believe that, while the Lakers generally put up one of the better looking teams in the league, we are looking at some of the teams within our own division as teams that can give us problems. We believe Minnesota and Houston are fielding teams that will not make life easy on us. Not to mention there are a large number of new GMs that I'm sure are chomping at the bit to give everyone some trouble this season and make their mark

[BallSoHard]

FYI, this presser is great.

[BallSoHard]

Hi, Bill Plaschke from L.A. here. So am I hearing you right that you guys think more competition for you will come out of your division than the Lakers in the West? Can I put you on record saying you're prediciting the Timberwolves and Rockets to have a better record than the Lakers? Also, it seems like you've put together a great top 4 players. Maybe the best in the league, but you seem to have, at least from our perspective, glaring weaknesses at the 1 and a lack of a bench. How do you view theses perceived weakensses? Do you think with your star 4 you can cover-up for those perceived weaknesses?

[Conroy]

Sports Guy Bill Simmons here, I really don't have a question I just want to marvel at your team. I'm very happy that my Celtics are in the east and wouldn't have to face you until the finals. Adding Peja was amazing, resigning Zo to that contract was a minor miracle, and Brand and Joe Johnson are amazing players. I love the logo, I love the team, I love memphis BBQ, I love Marc Cohn's song "Walking in Memphis", I've gone too far I'll stop now...

[LoCo89]

FYI, this presser is great.

TY, actually put some time into it

Hi, Bill Plaschke from L.A. here. So am I hearing you right that you guys think more competition for you will come out of your division than the Lakers in the West? Can I put you on record saying you're prediciting the Timberwolves and Rockets to have a better record than the Lakers? Also, it seems like you've put together a great top 4 players. Maybe the best in the league, but you seem to have, at least from our perspective, glaring weaknesses at the 1 and a lack of a bench. How do you view theses perceived weakensses? Do you think with your star 4 you can cover-up for those perceived weaknesses?

By no means are we saying that, this league is far too unpredictable to guess numbers of wins. Look at the team the Lakers put together last season and how they turned out. We just think that a given in this league is the Lakers will be there when the dust settles. However, we also believe that it would be silly to overlook teams in our own division, who have been gathering talent over the last two seasons, and will become forces in this league.

To answer the question about Brevin being a weakness, I believe it's all about perception. Last season we split the 1 spot between Vonteego Cummings and Earl Boykins. We were the second best team in the West. and we feel that Brevin is an upgrade over those two, and are not worried at all about that perceived "weakness".

Finally to address the bench weakness, we are relying on a bench that is largely the same from last season with the addition of Vonteego. We are confident that they will continue last season's success, and improve upon it.

[LoCo89]

Sports Guy Bill Simmons here, I really don't have a question I just want to marvel at your team. I'm very happy that my Celtics are in the east and wouldn't have to face you until the finals. Adding Peja was amazing, resigning Zo to that contract was a minor miracle, and Brand and Joe Johnson are amazing players. I love the logo, I love the team, I love memphis BBQ, I love Marc Cohn's song "Walking in Memphis", I've gone too far I'll stop now...

Thanks Bill, always great to see you, and glad to see what you think of the team. We were very fortunate with the way this off season played out, and as I said before, we are very excited