Last season, just two persons in the world thought that trading Memphis' best player, Pau Gasol, to the Lakers for Kwame Brown, Javaris Crittenton, Aaron McKie (who retired) and the draft rights of Marc Gasol would be a nice deal: Grizzlies GM Chris Wallace and the team's owner Michael Heisley. After this bizarre trade which made the Lakers so much stronger that made them go to the NBA finals, Memphis gave a clear sign that renovation is the team's goal right now and that it will take some time until the Grizzlies can actually be competitive once again.

Besides the problems the Grizzlies have as a team, they are part of the strongest division of the NBA: the Southwest division, together with San Antonio, Dallas, Houston and the Hornets, which have had 50 wins or more last season and had a combined total of 218-110, so even this factor won't help the young team of Memphis at all this season. I remember on the last two seasons the Grizzlies went 4-28 in divisional games, with 0-16 on games played on the road.

The expected starting team of the Grizzlies is surely the youngest on the league: Conley, Mayo, Gay, Warrick and Gasol, with the average being at 23 years old and Warrick being the oldest player with 26 years old. This will naturally mean the Grizzlies will be an inconsistent team, which may enter a serious losing streak if they start lacking confidence at a point of the season.

Marc Iavaroni may be the perfect coach for this team, as he is a former assistant coach of the Phoenix Suns and his favorite system is run and gun, which fits perfectly on the characteristics of the Grizzlies roster. The lack of power on the frontcourt will need to be compensated with an higher pace of game and the Grizzlies have players quick enough to adapt themselves to Iavaroni's system.

Obviously Iavaroni would love to have someone like Steve Nash to conduct his run and gun system, but the hopes of the team will be on Mike Conley Jr.'s hands, who isn't coming from a great rookie season. Conley was injured part of the season, playing just 53 games and averaging 9.5 ppg and 4.2 apg. It's weird that Conley while being a 4th choice on the draft didn't have opportunities at the beginning of last season. How was he supposed to improve if Iavaroni only put him on the field 7.1 minutes/game on the first 10 games of the season? Conley should have much more minutes this season, but his task won't be easy, as being the starting PG on a run and gun team requires a lot of effort and vision. Kyle Lowry will be his backup and he will be extremely useful for the team, as Lowry is a really quick player, something which will benefit the team. Lowry had 9.6 ppg and 3.6 apg last season.

O.J. Mayo was so desired by the Grizzlies that they gave away Mike Miller and Kevin Love just to have him. We are talking about a big contender for the rookie of the year award, not only due to his great ability, but especially for the huge number of minutes he will play this season and for a team with no expectations in terms of results.

Without Pau Gasol, it will be in theory Rudy Gay who will lead the team and this is going to be an huge challenge for him. Gay was the team's best scorer last season with 20.1 ppg and 6.2 rpg and his athleticism is amazing, however will he be capable of leading a NBA team with just 22 years old? His development was amazing last season and he was the team's "franchise player" since Gasol left for LA, which helped him in improving all his numbers from his rookie season: minutes, points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks and %FG!

The frontcourt of the team seems to be their weakest link just like last season. The team finished in 26th last season in terms of rebound margin with -2.89 reb/game and they lack powerful players in the paint, especially when they have opponents on their division like Tim Duncan, Yao Ming, Dirk Nowitzki and David West. However, the Grizzlies have a new player for the paint: Pau Gasol's younger brother, Marc. But I need to make one thing clear: Marc is no Pau, but he will be important for the team improve a little bit on the paint and gain a couple of more rebounds per game. Marc is physically more powerful than Pau, but he doesn't have Pau's scoring ability, even though he has improved a lot in this area recently. It seems likely that Marc will start for the Grizzlies already on the beginning of the season.

For the center position, the Grizzlies have Darko Milicic and the Iranian Hamed Haddadi. Milicic is involved some trade talks, but he is a player who can still be useful to the Grizzlies, especially on the defense. He had last season on 23.8 min/game, 7.2 ppg and 6.1 rpg and he may offer some quality minutes to the team. On the other side, the Iranian Haddadi was the only player to average a double double on the Olympics (16.6 ppg and 11.2 rpg) and his height (7-2′) will make some damage in the future, however his lack of experience on a big league like the NBA will prevent him from having a lot of minutes this season.

Memphis won't have a lot of expectations for this season, even though they have potential to do better than the 22-60 record they had last season. The lack of experience of the Grizzlies will be crucial for them in some ball games, but they will surely be one of the most exciting teams to watch this season.

Get Andre Gomes' 1st Half NBA Season Package at Pregame Pros!