As I’ve fruitlessly explained to family for years now, the real NBA “offseason” doesn’t come when the games stop in late June. It finally comes late July through mid-September, when activity slows to a trickle and the people who run teams actually squeeze in some vacation time. 

If the NBA is on vacation right now, I just got back from one, so it’s time for our (now) annual Mid-Summer Grizzlies Mailbag. Per usual, I got tons of good questions, so I’ll break this into two parts, with a second installment coming next week. 

As always, questions were accepted on the Grizzlies, the wider NBA and “there’s more to life than basketball.” Most questions were, of course, on the lead topic. Not many on the second. But more than usual in the last category.

Let’s get into it. 

This is a good mid-summer question to wade into, now that Desmond Bane has secured his near-max contract extension and will open the season as the team’s primary backcourt offensive engine. 

Let’s start by looking at the recent track record of West guards in the All-Star game:

2023 West All-Star guards: Stephen Curry, Luka Doncic, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Damian Lillard, Ja Morant, Anthony Edwards (injury replacement), De’Aaron Fox (injury replacement)

2022 West All-Star guards: Stephen Curry, Ja Morant, Luka Doncic, Devin Booker, Donovan Mitchell, Chris Paul, Dejounte Murray (injury replacement)

2021 West All-Star guards: Stephen Curry, Luka Doncic, Damian Lillard, Donovan Mitchell, Chris Paul, Devin Booker (injury replacement), Mike Conley (injury replacement)

What’s the pattern there? Five to six initial spots, with one or two injury replacements opening up. The result has been exactly seven West guards named “All-Star” in each of the past three seasons, so let’s work with that assumption.

Looking at that list, Mitchell has moved East and Paul has declined. Lillard seems a decent bet to be traded East before the season, and may be a longshot now even if he isn’t, given how poor his team is likely to be. 

Given his absence for the first 25 games, Morant’s All-Star streak is likely to end. Booker missed last season only due to injury. Add him to the near-lock list. 

So, this year’s West candidates, in rough order of likelihood:

1. Luka Doncic (Dallas)
2. Devin Booker (Phoenix)
3. Stephen Curry (Golden State)
4. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (Oklahoma City)
5. Jamal Murray (Denver)
6. Anthony Edwards (Minnesota)
7. Desmond Bane (Memphis)
8. De’Aaron Fox (Sacramento)
9. Bradley Beal (Phoenix)
10. Damian Lillard (Portland)
11. Kyrie Irving (Dallas)
12. Fred Van Vleet (Houston)

I don’t think Bane’s the most likely first-time All-Star among West guards. That would be Murray, who starred in Denver’s run to the title this summer. Assuming he plays well to start next season, the urge to elevate Murray onto the All-Star team will be understandably strong. 

My list has Bane seventh. An injury replacement slot. On the bubble. Morant’s absence opens up a space on the team, and also a chance for Bane to be showcased with the Grizzlies. What if he averages something like 23-5-5 and the Grizzlies still have a winning record without Morant? A reasonable scenario, and a strong case. 

But at the moment I’d still project Bane fighting with Gilgeous-Alexander, Edwards and Murray for the final spot or two, and likely hoping for an injury-replacement opening. 

That’s the big question, and if you poke around you can find things to speculate about, but this is not really a topic I want to publicly speculate about. 

I got another question about Morant’s status related to team activities. The question was deleted or otherwise disappeared after it was sent, but I’ll answer anyway. There still hasn’t been any clarification from the NBA on this front, and thus none from the team. But I’ll again point to the specific language of the NBA’s initial statement, which said that Morant would be suspended from “public” team activities for the first 25 games. That word wasn’t there accidentally. Until someone specifies otherwise, I’m assuming Morant will be able to practice with the team, on the team’s practice court, in training camp, but will not appear at games or public events. 

Adams’ recovery from a mid-season knee injury went slower than expected, with the details of the injury and treatment more than a little murky. But as noted, he’s been active this summer and my understanding is that the team expects him to be fully ready when training camp opens.

“MLE” is the mid-level exception, the highest free agency exception available to teams over the salary cap. The Grizzlies have the full MLE (about $12.4 million), but haven’t used any of it. 

With Dillon Brooks leaving in free agency, the Grizzlies only had one roster spot to fill. They traded away Tyus Jones to acquire Marcus Smart and then signed Derrick Rose to a veteran’s minimum in free agency to fill the final open roster spot. Even when over the cap, you don’t need to use any other exception to sign a player to a minimum contract. 

Could the Grizzlies have used the MLE to sign a player better than Rose? I think so, but the Rose signing was clearly motivated by factors beyond on-court contribution. For better or worse, Rose was the player they wanted, and they didn’t need to use the MLE to get him. 

The Grizzlies still have access to the MLE. At this stage, the odds of using it, or part of it, this summer are near-zero. They will still carry it into the season, and the one way it could be useful there would be if the Grizzlies wanted to sign an in-season free agent, likely someone cut by another team. Using part of the MLE in that scenario could help them out-bid teams only able to offer a minimum. That’s an unlikely but not far-fetched scenario, and one that probably wouldn’t manifest until after the trade deadline. Odds are, however, the Grizzlies just don’t use the MLE. 

I think the roster is likely “finalized” to begin the season in the sense that there won’t be more additions. They’ll have to shave a couple of guaranteed contracts to get down to the opening-night limit of 15, and that will almost certainly be Josh Christopher and Isaiah Todd, young players whose contracts the team had to absorb in a couple of off-season trades. 

Is it finalized relative to the entire season? I wouldn’t assume so. Grizzlies’ decision-makers will evaluate their team, their chances, and the rest of the league ahead of the in-season trade deadline.

The Grizzlies did deadline deals for Luke Kennard and Justise Winslow in 2023 and 2020, respectively, while standing pat in 2021 and 2022. Given Xavier Tillman Sr.’s impending free agency, crowded situations among young wings and frontcourt role players, and increasing pressure to push further in the playoffs, my guess is they’ll be aggressive in-season if the Morant-Bane-Jackson core is clicking.

I don’t know if being a multi-year tax team is a prerequisite to championship contention, but I think if you’re serious about contention you can’t also be intent on avoiding it. 

The Grizzlies are currently projected to be below the tax this season and above it in 2024-2025, and I don’t see either situation changing. Would they be a tax team again in 2025-2026? 

I’m not sure. We could have a $200 million luxury tax line at that point. I’ve got the Grizzlies at close to $170 million right now for 2025-2026, with 11 players under contract. That doesn’t include Luke Kennard or Steven Adams, whose current contracts would be up. It also factors Ziaire Williams and Santi Aldama on their rookie-contract qualifying offers, not new extensions. I think the Grizzlies could probably dodge the tax in 2025-2026 while maintaining a very good team. But to go all-in on title contention? I think they have to use all of their resources, and that will put them into the tax again.

The Grizzlies are only guaranteed to have Morant, Bane and Jaren Jackson Jr. together for these next three seasons. They have to maximize that extended moment. 

The over-under here has to be 2.5, even though all five players are under team control going into the 2024-2025 season. There’s a real cluster of middling-to-unproven wings among Williams, Roddy, LaRavia and Konchar and it feels like this season there will be some sorting. I’d expect at least one of the four to be sorted out. Adams? I’d lean toward his return since he’s actually under contract and there’s no-one else quite like him on the roster, but the Grizzlies have some things to sort out in the frontcourt too.

This is a good excuse for another reminder, which I find that even many people who write and talk about the NBA for a living need: If two expansion teams are added to the West, then only one will move East. That’s the way math works. 

Assuming the NBA adds two to the West (Seattle, Las Vegas are assumed) and assuming it keeps a two conference West/East alignment, then the candidates to move east would presumably be Memphis, Minnesota and New Orleans. If the NBA also kept the divisional concept, then Minnesota makes the most sense. They’re on an island in the current Northwest Division, and make much more sense alongside Chicago and Milwaukee in the Central.

Memphis and New Orleans have each other in the Southwest, and are a perfectly reasonable fit with the Texas teams there. 

That said, I think the Grizzlies would prefer to move East. The competitive road in each conference will change season to season, but travel would be better for the Grizzlies in the East.

THERE’S MORE TO LIFE THAN BASKETBALL

With “Barbenheimer” still blooming as I rang the Mailbag bell, the “more than basketball” questions had a decidedly movie-oriented bent. I approve, and will tackle those this week, with the non-film questions left for next week.

I was on a family trip when “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” each dropped, so we were a week late to both. But yes, I’ve seen “Barbie.”

I’m a big fan of writer-director Greta Gerwig, going all the way back to early low-budget indie obscurities “Hannah Takes the Stairs” (where she co-starred and co-wrote) and “Nights and Weekends” (where she added co-director), both of which played the Indie Memphis Film Festival to maybe a hundred people nearly two decades ago. But going from those to helming “Lady Bird” (instant classic coming of age story), “Little Women” (masterpiece of literary adaptation) and “Barbie” (brainy pop-cinema blockbuster) in a career’s first three solo-directed films? Head-spinning stuff. 

There’s a ton to say about “Barbie,” and this isn’t a film review, so I’ll make only a couple of observations. One is that I was struck (but not surprised) by the generosity of its satire, how much it cares about the potential humanity of all of its characters, Barbies and Kens alike. Gender roles and expectations can be confusing, frustrating and a good laugh. The patriarchy limits us all. As Ken ruefully learns, it’s not just about horses. 

But do I think “Barbie” fully breaks out of the limitations of being a toy commercial, as savvy and knowing as it is about that predicament? Not quite. 

This is funny, and I really don’t think either would work. Christopher Nolan is a highly technical filmmaker, and “Barbie” is a technical challenge, so his version would be something to see. But Nolan is also a filmmaker notably lacking in humor and a feel for women. The Manhattan Project is a subject that provides a lot of cover for those limitations. “Barbie” not so much. 

So I guess I’d give Gerwig better odds of making something of “Oppenheimer.” 

My working Top 10, based on only one viewing of each so far, and very much subject to change. (I’ll save TV for next week.)

1. “Oppenheimer”
2. “Past Lives”
3. “Asteroid City”
4. “Showing Up”
5. “Barbie”
6. “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse”
7. “Rye Lane”
8. “You Hurt My Feelings”
9. “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.”
10. “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Part 1”

“Past Lives” and “Showing Up” are very small, quiet films. I wouldn’t recommend the latter widely, even though I can’t shake it myself. I would recommend “Past Lives” to anyone. Give it a shot. I might be underrating “Across the Spider-Verse” at this point. The “to be continued” nature of it slots it behind the other five for now, which are complete statements, but 3-6 on this list is the toss-up range.

You probably don’t need to hear this from me, but go see “Oppenheimer,” on the biggest screen with the best sound you can find, while you can. 

This is a random question, but I like random questions. 

“Jeremiah Johnson,” a 1972 film directed by Sydney Pollack, in which Redford plays a frontier hermit, is probably the most significant Redford film I haven’t seen. That or “All is Lost,” which is more recent.

In truth, I’m not a big Redford fan, and less enamored with films such as “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and “The Natural” than their reputations would suggest. My favorite Redford film (as an actor) is “All the President’s Men.” My next favorite Redford film is probably one he directed but didn’t act in, “Quiz Show.” Runners-up: “The Candidate,” “The Sting,” “Brubaker,” “The Old Man & the Gun.”