It took Zach Randolph some time to remember some details about the first game of his NBA career.
After all, it is the past 20 years ago, and the memory is inevitably a little blurry.
At that time, Randolph, as the first-round pick of the 2001 NBA Draft, had just been selected by the Portland Blazers, and his first official game in the Blazers jersey was to follow the team away to the Grizzlies in the preseason, "I just remember that Paul Gasol was so tall and so talented," Randolph had been playing against Gasol that day, and the two were peers in that draft, "so I would love to face him head-on for a few rounds and have a fight." ”
The victory or defeat of a preseason game is not enough to worry about, and even how the two performed that year is difficult to verify on the vast Internet, but everything seems to have its own fixed number: the game between the Grizzlies and the Trail Blazers on the day is not only the debut of Randolph and Gasol's respective NBA lives, but also the NBA's first visit to the city of Memphis.
It was in the summer of 2001 that the Grizzlies said goodbye to their Vancouver days and moved south to Memphis. A coincidence of fate put Randolph into that game, and years later Randolph not only became the symbol of this team, but even formed a "black and white bear" combination with another person named Gasol.
After 20 years, the man who witnessed the debut of the Memphis Grizzlies now has the first retired jersey in the history of the team.
Everything was the best arranged.
Randolph was traded to the Grizzlies in 2009, after eight years in the NBA.
He was once seen as a star of hope in Portland. Growing up behind Rashid Wallace, Randolph's scoring soared from 8.4 in the previous season to 20.1 in the third season, earning him the Fastest Improvement Award of the year. Succession roared and became a star seemed inevitable, but what followed was far less smooth than people thought.
The Trail Blazers suddenly became infamous because of the large number of "problem teenagers", and the team had a lot of disciplinary problems on and off the court, and even the jianghu people called the "prison blazers", in which Randolph was regarded as the leader of the problem teenagers.
So in 2006, after the Blazers got Aldridge and Roy in the first round, the team management no longer cared about the talent of the problem teenagers, and Randolph was also swept out of the door - he not only failed to become an All-Star, but even began a life of upheaval. From June 2007 to July 2009, he was traded 3 times in 2 years, like a hot potato in the player market, he can still get 20+10 data per game, but most people have seen through him, this guy is just a data brush, and even a cancer on the top team in the league.
In 2007–08, he was traded to the Knicks, where he led the team to 23 wins and 59 losses, and the following year he spent a brief stay in New York and traveled to the Los Angeles Clippers, where he led the team to another 19-63 loss.
Everywhere you go, there is scorched earth. In particular, he was suspended from the Clippers this season, twice for punching a Sun player, arrested for drunk driving in April, and suspended twice, as if he were an out-and-out trouble expert.
The Grizzlies decided to take a gamble at this point.
On the one hand, it was their second-year general manager Chris Wallace himself who was under pressure, and the year before he had just taken over the Grizzlies from Jerry West, he sent Paul Gasol to West's old club, the Lakers, directly achieving the great cause of the Purple and Gold Army's consecutive finals;
On the other hand, the Grizzlies are also in trouble, although Hobby Brown has led the team to 3 playoffs, but in three years a total of 0 wins and 12 losses, not a single playoff victory has not been obtained, not to mention that after the short playoff window was closed, the Grizzlies have fallen into a sinking, in the three years before Randolph joined, the Grizzlies have won 22, 22 and 24 respectively, and have been reduced to a rotten team.
Wallace decided to switch to a player who could score, and the good news was that the price he had to pay was very small: As long as Quentin Richardson, who had averaged 10.2 points per game in the previous season and had clearly slipped in form, the Clippers promised to give him Randolph, who averaged 20.9 points per game; even Richardson, who had exchanged It with Center Dako Milisic, who averaged only 5.5 points per game in the same summer.
Limit one for one, limit one for one, the Grizzlies are equivalent to using a Milisic to exchange zach Randolph, and since then, In his basketball career, Misilic has only played a total of 131 games before announcing his retirement, but Randolph officially opened the curtain on him and the city of Memphis to save each other.
On the day the jersey was retired, Randolph kept saying, "God forbid, I was able to come to this place." ”
Randolph has feelings for Memphis because his father is from the city, and his father died in March 2009, which makes Randolph who came to Memphis at this time feel a lot of emotion. "This place is very similar to the place where I grew up, I was born in Marion, Indiana, in the neighborhoods of both cities, there are a lot of people who are not easy to live but are still strong and alive," he said. ”
In a blue-collar city, randolph's "blue collar" side of the game was awakened, he played harder than ever before, in the first season of the Grizzlies he averaged 20.8 points and 11.7 rebounds per game, he grabbed the most offensive rebounds in the NBA that year, even if the opponent's taller interior line can stop him once, he will also launch a second and third impact with crazy rebounds, Memphis fans soon fell in love with this desperate little fat man, Beginning to call out his nickname "Z-Bo!" during every pause of every night! Z-Bo！ ”
The more important thing is that Randolph was able to help a team win. The Grizzlies actually signed another former superstar, Aaron Iverson, but after only 3 games, AI chose to run away and returned to the 76ers to complete his retirement performance, but Randolph unexpectedly became the leader of the team, winning 14 more games than the previous season. Although he did not make it to the playoffs, he was selected as an All-Star for the first time in his career, which was already the best reward Randolph received at the beginning of his time with the Grizzlies.
Randolph thus became the Grizzlies' signature as quickly as possible. Although the Grizzlies also selected young talents such as Rudy Guy, Mike Conley and O.J. Mayo because of their poor records in previous years, the team's game revolved entirely around Randolph, who was the team with the fewest three-point shooting and the slowest pace of the game in the NBA. The team's then-head coach, Lionel Hollins, said, "My original plan that summer was to let our team play fast, but then Z-Bo came and he subdued everyone in training, gave him the ball in the low position, either scored or fouled, sometimes even 2+1, so we decided to change." ”
The Grizzlies' approach to play was directly determined, Gay and Mayo have since left, marc Gasol and Tony Allen, who are more compatible with Randolph, have become the core of the team, and the versatile Mike Conley has become the Grizzlies' most famous "Core Four" in the history of the Grizzlies - since Tony Allen joined in 2010, these four people have worked together for 7 years, and they have not missed a single playoff in the past seven years.
In the first year of their partnership, the Grizzlies staged the famous Black Eight Miracle, and in the first round of the playoffs against the Western Conference Boss Spurs, it was Randolph who played the most critical role, and all the Witnesses of the Black Eight at that time relished Randolph's performance in Game 6 of the series.
On that day, the Grizzlies with match points set up a fight at home, and the fans also showed unprecedented crazy enthusiasm, and they all played the banner "Just today, kill them" banners. But it's clear that beating the mature spurs will never be so easy, and McDace's jumper brief gave the Spurs an 80-79 comeback in the fourth quarter.
But the fourth quarter belonged to Randolph, who scored 31 points and 13 rebounds that day, setting a new playoff career high at the time, writing in the Associated Press's war report, "That's when Randolph stepped forward, the nobody randolph who was abandoned before joining the Grizzlies in the summer of 2009, took over the game, and he scored 17 points of 29 points in the Grizzlies' last quarter." ”
With 3.4 seconds left in the game, the Grizzlies, whose victory had been decided, replaced Randolph, allowing him to enjoy the endless cheers of the fans alone, and How could Randolph not be moved by this scene, "The emotions are really exploding, I think all this is dedicated not only to the Memphis Grizzlies, but also to the entire city and all the fans." ”
The 2011 Grizzlies' miracle journey came to an end, losing 3-4 to the rising Thunder, which almost epitomized the Grizzlies' seven years of glory.
They don't have the top talent, and reaching the Western Conference Finals in 2013 is their limit, but they will never be easily defeated, and the Grizzlies, who have never won a playoff game before, have won 29 real-life post-season showdowns in 7 years. Of course, there are also questioning voices asking, isn't it still a team that has never scored in the finals, and Landolph can really retire the jersey for this achievement? A total of 2 All-Stars, 1 best team, players with such personal honors are not the car bucket?
To this question, we have to repeat what Randolph just said: All this is dedicated not only to the Memphis Grizzlies, but also to the entire city and all the fans.
Randolph is deeply loved by the city of Memphis, not only because of his brave style in the field, not only because of his highly overlapping image with the team logo, but also because of his unparalleled care for the community and fans during his time with the team. So far, Randolph has to spend tens of thousands of dollars a year to help 200 poor memphis residents to pay utility bills, and at the retirement ceremony, Randolph said, "In fact, the most important thing about so-called care is not money, but time, how much time are you willing to spend with them?" ”
As a child raised on the basis of his mother's low-income insurance, Randolph still remembers his difficult childhood, and in his hometown of Marion, he said he regretted that no NBA player had ever helped them in the community. So he didn't want Memphis to suffer the same regrets from people who had a similar life to him.
In the Grizzlies' tribute shorts, you can see one footage after another of Randolph going deep into the community, without any repetition, and you can't even count how many places he's been to, how many ordinary people in the city he's talked to, "Yes, I'm going to the most difficult neighborhoods that no one else wants to go." ”
This is Randolph's more incomparable value to Memphis, and this is the perfect story of a man and a city achieving each other. After coming to the Grizzly Bear, Randolph took root in a soil suitable for him, not only grew into a towering tree, but also used the shade of the tree to shield others from the wind and rain, he was no longer a violent problem element, but grew into a warm idol.
Therefore, competitive sports are to be won and lost, and every year in the NBA, only one of the 30 teams can win the championship. But how can the existence of other people be meaningless?
Every player who gives his all on the field and selflessly dedicates himself off the field is an amazing role model. Imagine how motivated a child who has a difficult family in the city of Memphis, but still insists on practicing, suddenly meets Randolph to chat and play with him? That's why, the Grizzlies' first retirement number in history, Sherandorff, who it was.
And, people grow up best in the right environment, which seems to be what Randolph and Memphis taught us.