The Memphis Grizzlies will hold their annual Media Day gathering on Monday, and will hit the training-camp hardwood the next day. Many questions will be asked amid Media Day scrums, but the most important ones won’t be answered on that day or even, fully, in the days and weeks that follow. But it’s a start.

As a new season of Grizzlies basketball begins, here are the six most pertinent on-court questions to ponder this preseason:

Is Mike Conley diminished?

The last time we saw an apparently healthy Conley, he was playing the best basketball of his life, averaging 25 points per game in a six-game playoff battle with the San Antonio Spurs.

Conley was never quite right last season, even in the 12 games he played. And now he’ll be a small guard on the wrong side of 30 coming off foot surgery (a procedure on a heel bone that was irritating his Achilles). Can he get back to spring of 2017 form, or are those days gone for good?

The Grizzlies and Conley have been both optimistic and cautious about his post-surgery trajectory. The caution is such that, in concert with some recent Grizzlies injury history, it has bred skepticism. There are recent cases of injuries having a greater impact than expected (Chandler Parsons, Brandan Wright, Jordan Adams). But there’s also the counter-example of Marc Gasol, who returned from foot surgery at a similar age to have his best offensive season.

This week will offer a first look at Conley’s progress. How healthy will he be to start camp, or to start the season? How effective? A sound and productive Conley does not guarantee a competitive Grizzlies season. But it will be a prerequisite for one.

Is Marc Gasol committed?

Gasol hated last season, the first since his rookie year in which he played games without a playoff goal to pursue. He spent his summer growing eggplant, raising money for his and brother Pau’s Gasol Foundation, and rescuing migrants at sea. Sounds like a good recipe for getting your mind right.

On the plus side, Gasol will welcome back pick-and-roll life partner Conley. The team spent the summer crafting its roster more in Gasol’s fundamentals-and-defense mold, including a potential star in Jaren Jackson Jr. whom Gasol could mentor. Gasol will begin this season under the guidance of a head coach whom he respects and on a team that now lacks the incentives (and probably the stomach) to pack it in and focus on next summer’s draft.

On the other hand, the Grizzlies enter the season with what appears to be a just-making-the-playoffs ceiling, and Gasol will turn 34 ahead of the All-Star break. Gasol has always valued process over results, valued trying to win over the certainty of it. But with a contract opt-out looming next summer, is this still a situation in which he can believe?

Is Jaren Jackson Jr. ready?

A subject of some skepticism on draft night, Jackson won over many doubters via his infectious personality, strong family pedigree, and a Summer League performance that showcased his precocious mix of shooting and impact defense.

Still, the rookie will be barely 19 years old when the Grizzlies convene for training camp. The Grizzlies have never had a player with Jackson’s combination of youth and raw talent. Even Pau Gasol was a couple of years older than Jackson when his NBA career began, with overseas professional experience on his resume. And even Gasol was considered something of a project as his rookie season began.

The Grizzlies have sky-high hopes for Jackson, but growing pains should be expected. He’ll play from Day One. But how big of a role can he handle, or should he be asked to fill? And how effective can he be?

Does J.B. Bickerstaff have a plan?

This will be Bickerstaff’s third season in which he’ll be an NBA head coach, but the first in which he gets to put his own plan together from the start.

Bickerstaff proved himself as a leader last season, even amid losing that was both strategic and helpless, and he probably has the roster tools to back up summer talk about a return to strong -- or at least respectable -- team defense.

The looming question along the sideline will be whether Bickerstaff has the creativity (if anyone does) to forge a competitive offense from a roster that will almost certainly play slow, will struggle to be better than average from outside the three-point arc, and lacks dynamic one-on-one scorers.

Does Chandler Parsons still have a chance?

Once meant to be the third leg of a new competitive core, Parsons has become a kind of forgotten man, as long as you’re not looking at the team’s salary-cap sheet.

Midway through a four-year max contract, Parsons is a sunk cost, but can he help? Parsons was quietly effective when he played last season, with shooting percentages and a scoring rate not terribly out of line with his pre-Grizzlies career norms. One imagines the Grizzlies would be content, at this stage, with similar production, provided it came in more than the 35 games Parsons has averaged in his first two seasons with the team.

Vince Carter had his most effective season in an injury-impacted Grizzlies tenure in his third season. Parsons could be poised to do the same. If not, one way or another, he may not be here for a fourth.

What’s the perimeter pecking order?

We know Conley and Gasol will start. The battle between Jackson Jr. and JaMychal Green will be relatively low stakes: One will start, the other will be the primary big off the bench, and each will play plenty of minutes. But that leaves two more starting positions and three-to-four more rotation spots, with 10 players competing for them.

How does the rest of the rotation settle? Who starts on the wing? Who comes off the bench? Who waits for an opportunity?

Top free agent signee Kyle Anderson and rising second-year find Dillon Brooks are sure to figure prominently, perhaps both starting. But their roles don’t seem set. At the other end, a summer thumb injury will have rookie point guard Jevon Carter in the waiting room. After that?

Was MarShon Brooks’ small-sample-size scoring late last season real or a mirage? Will a healthy Wayne Selden win a job that a hip injury likely lost him in training camp last fall, or will he be pushed out by Brooks and/or reliable veteran import Garrett Temple?

Can Andrew Harrison hold the backup point guard job, or will veteran late addition Shelvin Mack pass him? Will Parsons remain in the mix or fall behind even veteran insurance signing Omri Casspi? The big questions may focus on the stars (Conley, Gasol), the coach (Bickerstaff), and the phenom (Jackson), but intrigue looms up and down the roster.

Deflections

• Who's the 20th man? The NBA allows teams to carry 20 players into training camp. The Grizzlies headed into the weekend with 19: The 15 players on guaranteed NBA contracts, one player (Japanese rookie Yuta Watanabe) on a two-way contract that allows the player to split time between the Grizzlies and the developmental Memphis Hustle, and three more (Markel Crawford, Brandon Goodwin, and Doral Moore) on what are called "Exhibit 10" contracts, a presumed precursor to joining the Hustle. Expect the Grizzlies to add a 20th player before training camp begins on Tuesday, but don't expect them to fill their other two-way contract quite yet. More likely, they'll add a fourth player on another Exhibit 10 deal and keep their options open for a little while longer. It's possible that 20th man is still former Tiger D.J. Stephens, who had been widely rumored for the team's remaining two-way deal. Any of the Exhibit 10 players could be converted into the remaining two-way deal, or the Grizzlies could look beyond their training camp roster to fill that slot.
• The Grizzlies will host their 17th tip-off luncheon on Monday, October 15th. "Suit Up for St. Jude" will be a benefit for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and will feature the entire Grizzlies roster. Tickets are $75 individually and $650 for a table. More info here. 
• File this under "Shocked! Shocked to find gambling in this establishment!": Former Grizzlies forward Matt Barnes, now retired, revealed in a podcast that he smoked marijuana before every NBA game. If ever a guy needed something to take the edge off ... 
• The Ringer's Jonathan Tjarks has been previewing and ranking the backcourts and frontcourts in each conference. Among West backcourts, he projects Mike Conley and Garrett Temple to be the team's primary backcourt and ranks the duo 9th in the conference. Tjarks notes that while Temple has the most sturdy floor, both Dillon Brooks and Wayne Selden have a higher ceiling. (Agreed). In the frontcourt, Tjarks projects JaMychal Green to start initially but still tabs Marc Gasol and rookie Jaren Jackson Jr. as the team's primary frontcourt duo, ranking them 8th in the conference. He likes the fit together.