The Early Word: Grizzlies go big, and 500 students are in school limbo
Are you feeling lucky, Memphis? It’s Thursday, June 27 — National Bingo Day — and if you answered “yes,” then get yourself to Rock’n Dough Pizza & Brewery in Cordova tonight. Cerrito Entertainment is hosting a game that combines bingo and song trivia.
Today is also day two of the NBA Draft, so we’re still on Grizz Watch. The Grizzlies hold picks No. 39 and No. 57 in the second round.
The Memphis Grizzlies picked Purdue center Zach Edey with their No. 9 first-round NBA Draft pick on Wednesday night. Edey, at 7-foot-4, is now the tallest player in franchise history, and he’s expected to fill the hole left behind by center Steven Adams. But can Edey shoot? That’s the question a lot of fans critical of the Edey pick are asking, and our own Chris Herrington admits choosing Edey was a risk. Some fans were hoping the Grizzlies would trade up for Donovan Clingan, who went to the Portland Trail Blazers, but Grizzlies general manager Zach Kleiman said the Edey selection was “exactly what we were hoping would happen.”
More than 500 students suddenly don’t know where they’ll be going back to school this fall. That’s after three Memphis charter schools, run by Memphis Scholars, closed this week as the charter operator faced a violation from the state-run Achievement School District for failing to meet enrollment goals. The students will be absorbed back into the Memphis-Shelby County Schools system, and the district has a number of options for how they’ll handle the influx. The closures leave just three schools in the state’s Achievement School District for chronically low-performing schools.
Plus, the University of Memphis hires an AD, a new gastropub offers live music outside the loop and we look at how much you’ll pay in city property tax.
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Bianca Phillips
Bianca Phillips is a Northeast Arkansas native and longtime Memphian with two decades of experience in local journalism and public relations. She’s a diehard morning person who spends her free time training for marathons and ultras. And she’s the author of “Cookin Crunk: Eatin’ Vegan in the Dirty South.”
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