MOST VALUABLE PLAYER: Rudy Gay emerged as a budding All-Star. A year ago in a shaky rookie season, his outside shot was unsure and he didn't have decisive moves to the basket. He fixed that in the offseason, improving every facet of his game. His scoring average jumped from 10.8 points last year to 20.1 this season, as he became the third Grizzly after Shareef Abdur-Rahim and Pau Gasol to average at least 20. He also set a single-season franchise scoring record for most points with 1,632. He's the first second-year player in three years (LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Carmelo Anthony in 2004-05) to average 20-plus points.
MOST DISAPPOINTING PLAYER: Free agent Casey Jacobsen was supposed to give the Grizzlies some outside shooting pop. But when he showed he couldn't do that, he was worthless. He can't guard and he can rarely beat anybody off the dribble. Management finally ordered Marc Iavaroni to cut his playing time next-to-nothing. BIGGEST NEEDS: The Grizzlies still need an inside force who can bang people around and be enough of an inside threat where defenses can cheat out toward the perimeter.
FREE AGENT FOCUS: Kwame Brown, Aaron McKie, Casey Jacobsen, Andre Brown and Juan Carlos Navarro are free agents. Navarro likely is the only player the Grizzlies will try to re-sign.
PLAYER NOTES:
--G Mike Conley said he's going to continue this summer to concentrate on being aggressive offensively. "A lot of people on the team want me to look to score. I tend to try to pass too much," Conley said. "I think that's a big thing, and working on the medium-range jump shot, working on being able to make the open jump shots when the ball's swung to me, and just working on those things constantly until I get it down to the point that they're going to have to respect it and make it a lot harder for them to guard me in games."
--The Grizzlies have nine players with guaranteed contracts for next season. They are Mike Miller ($9 million), Darko Milicic ($7 million), Brian Cardinal ($6.3 million), Jason Collins ($6.2 million), Mike Conley ($3.6 million), Rudy Gay ($2.57 million), Hakim Warrick ($2.1 million), Kyle Lowry ($1.16 million) and Javaris Crittenton ($1.38 million).
