Columnist
Chris Herrington covers the Memphis Grizzlies and writes about Memphis culture, food, and civic life.
There are 1660 articles by Chris Herrington :
The public protests of the past week would seem to violate current health directives against mass gatherings of 50 or more. Given the cause for the gatherings, it would be a mistake for officials to use that as a pretext for breaking them up. But that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t worry about them.
When people ask why protests in Memphis have been so different than in most other cities, they’re fishing for a compliment. But there’s one aspect that is never mentioned: They have been smaller than in most other cities.
Protests began early Saturday with two events (one was billed as a rally) occurring in Collierville.
With the Grizzlies returning, so does the Daily Memphian Grizzlies Podcast, with columnist Chris Herrington and new Grizzlies beat writer Drew Hill discussing the way the NBA is coming back, the potential pitfalls along the path and what it all means for the Grizzlies.
The NBA’s Board of Governors approved the outline of a plan that will bring 22 teams to a Disney campus in Orlando next month for eight more regular-season games and a full-scale 16-team playoffs. Wexler appears satisfied.
Protest groups moved around, as did police. But it all ended peacefully as everyone went home before the 10 p.m. curfew.
If there’s a commonality among many who disagree about protest tactics as well as those who by profession are on the other side of a line, maybe it’s a care for the city. Defensive pride in place is a Memphis throughline, and it may be serving us here.
Protesters distributed a list of “suggested demands” at a weekend rally. Some are easier to achieve than others given the coronavirus-spiked budgeting chaos. All, perhaps, are debatable. But it would do the city great good for the current moment to become a more actionable one.
Jennifer Biggs is joined by Chris Herrington to talk about new and old restaurants opening, the all-important ampersand, what bbq they like and where they like it, at-home paella and more.
So, yes, I do not care about whether a college basketball player stands up for an anthem. To complain about such a thing in this moment seems to me pointless, trivial, a kind of profanity.
As the NBA looks at a variety of plans to return to the court, the Memphis Grizzlies path to the playoffs has a lot of different scenarios -- some good; some not rewarding the team for its regular-season performance so far.
When the Memphis/Shelby County Joint COVID Task Force moved from daily to twice-weekly briefings this week, I saw it as a sign that living with the virus, and accepting that you’re living with it, means not being gripped by a crisis report day after day after day.
The NBA has been in discussions with the Walt Disney World about hosting games in a controlled “campus” or “bubble” environment in Orlando. And it looks like the Grizzlies will be part of the picture.
The Memphis Grizzlies will enter the offseason with a lot of options but plenty of unanswered questions on the wing.
The general footprint of the plan to renovate the park – three “stages” with separation and a smaller covered venue – mimics the footprint of Memphis in May's Beale Street Music Fest, but in a way that would make a good park even without it.
How do you measure 6 feet of social distance in Elvis speak? Where the Memphis Zoo stenciled 6-foot markings of snakes and alligators on the ground when they reopened, Graceland has gone with six gold records or six teddy bears.
The Grizzlies opened their practice facility as the NBA offices discusses a resumption of the 2019-2020 season. Meanwhile, three more weekends have been added to their recent “Grizzlies Rewind” broadcasts of franchise-favorite playoff games.
The elevation of mask-usage into a kind of political symbol is a drag — it’s flat-out dumb — but it’s happened, and I’d worry that a government requirement, even a loosely enforced one, would increase the political strife around the issue without a commensurate increase in compliance.
It’s hard to imagine many places of Memphis’ size with history and culture so rich and a sense of place so profound.
This week, the Memphis Grizzlies joined the growing list of NBA teams who have reopened their practice facility to voluntary, individual player workouts. League-wide, practice facilities were closed on March 19 because of coronavirus concerns.
The operational difference between “Phase 1” and “Phase 2” was always fairly narrow and has grown more so via “phase creep.”
This weekend's Grizzlies "Rewind” broadcasts — featuring fresh commentary from broadcaster Chris Vernon and former Grizz great Tony Allen — hit two more notable entries in the franchise’s playoff back pages.