Half-man/half-rumor Peter Vecsey is reporting that Memphis Grizzlies G.M., Jerry West, is set to retire when the 2006-07 season ends.
This move would seems to piggyback on top of the news that a group led by former Dukies, Christian Laettner and Cryin’ Brian Davis, are set to buy 70% of the franchise; this would make the group the majority owner of the team and would buy out current owner Michael Heisley. There seems, at this point, to be no confirmation that West’s move is directly related to the transaction, however West was hired several years ago by Heisley and one would imagine that West’s decision was somehow linked.
During West’s time in Memphis he was unable to bring the team to the kind of success he was able to bring to the Lakers in both their Showtime incarnation and in the “Shaq/Kobe/Phil” era.
However, he was able to take a team that was a perennial laughingstock and turn them into a consistent upper-tier NBA franchise. His philosophy was built around the idea that the team, with Pau Gasol already on it, was never going to be bad enough to get a superstar in the draft and so he built his team around several very solid players with mid-level contracts instead of a few superstars and many more role players.
It appears as though the plan may have been to stockpile that midlevel talent and then trade several of them out for superstars that could fit with Gasol.
His most long lasting move seems to have been made this off-season when he sent Shane Battier, and parts, to the Houston Rockets for the draft rights to Rudy Gay and a former Grizzly in Stromile Swift.
Rudy Gay, having a chance to be a superstar, was seen as the right piece to bring in to take some pressure off of Pau Gasol and help take the team to the next level.
