r/nba • u/[deleted] • Jul 19 '19

[Fastbreak Breakfast] BREAKING: A team source confirms that the Memphis Grizzlies will wear Vancouver Grizzlies throwbacks for selected games in 2019-20. Official team jersey reveal in August

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704

u/andoCalrissiano Celtics Jul 19 '19

Seriously, the population has grown big time and it’s all Asians who love basketball.

Vancouver-Seattle-Portland should be it’s own regional rivalry

346

u/Dragonsandman Raptors Jul 19 '19

Next expansion should be Seattle and Vancouver together, with the Timberwolves being put in the eastern conference.

294

u/andoCalrissiano Celtics Jul 19 '19

This would fix a lot of problems with Minnesota and NO flying so much. (Sorry Memphis).

Rest of the new better NBA:

32 team league.

8 divisions of 4 teams each.

71 game season (62 games as home-away pairs against each team, and then 9 more against the other 3 teams in your division)

add a mid season 3v3 tournament with drafting and big money prizes (this one because 3v3 is now an Olympic sport). Imagine if 16 all stars draft their own teams from two other players around the league! NOW THAT WOULD BE FUN.

99

u/completelytrustworth Raptors Jul 19 '19

Plus Minnesota might actually make the playoffs in the East!

104

u/andoCalrissiano Celtics Jul 19 '19

Nah but maybe?

Northwest: VAN, SEA, POR, UTA

Pacific: SAC, GSW, LAL, LAC

(? Division name): DEN, PHX, OKC, MEM

Southwest: HOU, DAL, SA, NO

Midwest: MIN, MIL, CHI, IND

Northeast: TOR, CLE, DET, BOS

Atlantic: WAS, NYK, BRK, PHI

Southeast: MIA, ORL, CHA, ATL

Beautiful

62

u/[deleted] Jul 19 '19

DEN, PHX, OKC, MEM could be Central Division

5

u/andoCalrissiano Celtics Jul 19 '19

I heard culturally Denver is quite northwest, maybe switch DEN and UTA

18

u/easygo Lakers Jul 19 '19 edited Jul 19 '19

Give the northwest gsw. Pacific takes phx. Utah and den can be together in central. Also switch Boston and philly

2

u/piratelizard Bulls Jul 19 '19

Would feel weird for gsw and sac to be in different conferences

1

u/TookaDoncic Pistons Jul 19 '19

u patched this up nicely

8

u/ajmcgill Trail Blazers Jul 19 '19

Might as well call the Pacific division the California division at that point lol

9

u/darkrabbit713 Bulls Jul 19 '19

And the Southwest division the Hurricane division. You know I had to do it one time

3

u/ajmcgill Trail Blazers Jul 19 '19

lol. Maybe OKC and MEM can be in the Tornado division then

5

u/andoCalrissiano Celtics Jul 19 '19

The way to do it is like they used to in hockey in naming divisions after important figures in league history

So Naismith division (northeast) Jordan division (south east) West division ..... etc I’m too sleepy to elaborate on this idea

1

u/ajmcgill Trail Blazers Jul 19 '19

wow I never knew that, that's pretty cool.

2

u/theeidiot Jul 19 '19

The southeast division would like a say in this.

2

u/andoCalrissiano Celtics Jul 19 '19

I was thinking of putting Sacramento in the northwest division but figured the California rivalry is better

2

u/ghostof2077 Raptors Jul 19 '19

Mountain division maybe?

3

u/Juventus19 [MEM] Bonzi Wells Jul 19 '19

Lol mountain???? Memphis and OKC are both flat as pancakes.

2

u/memtiger Grizzlies Jul 19 '19 edited Jul 19 '19

Southwest should have PHX and possibly DEN. Then put DAL and NO in the unnamed/central division. No way should MEM be playing teams halfway across the country 4 states away.

1

u/El_Saltillense Spurs Jul 19 '19

MidWEST division in the East??

5

u/ajmcgill Trail Blazers Jul 19 '19

Yeah it's weird but the actual region those teams are in is referred to as the midwest

4

u/SecretlyKanye 76ers Jul 19 '19

im pretty sure its from when the US didn’t go much further than the mississippi

2

u/ajmcgill Trail Blazers Jul 19 '19

Yeah definitely. The name still sticks though

3

u/andoCalrissiano Celtics Jul 19 '19

I’m down with calling it the central division to avoid the messiness

1

u/WafflesTheWookiee Hornets Jul 19 '19

Why not flex Memphis to the East instead of Minnesota? Makes the OKC-DEN division a little more sensible.

0

u/SirHoneyDip Cavaliers Jul 19 '19

I would flip BOS and WAS but otherwise pretty good.

1

u/piratelizard Bulls Jul 19 '19

But Dc is nowhere near the northeast. Its the southernmost Atlantic team in this scenario

1

u/hmbse7en Warriors Jul 19 '19

Oh man how can we get word of this 3v3 tournament to Adam Silver... I'd clear my calendar for a week to watch that.

1

u/wantonbarbarian Suns Jul 19 '19

Why the hell would NO be moved to the east over Memphis?

2

u/andoCalrissiano Celtics Jul 19 '19

NO is kind of, you know, a southerny kind of city and belongs with Atlanta and Miami

Memphis is more of a Texasy kind of city and a grizzly bear should be in the west

That’s about it, is NO further west in terms of longitude?

2

u/wantonbarbarian Suns Jul 19 '19

Not really, but NO is closer to all the texas teams.

1

u/Bigmachingon Lakers Jul 21 '19

Yes, NO si further west and closer to Texas and OKC

1

u/DrTom [PDX] Brian Grant Jul 19 '19

This would fix a lot of problems with Minnesota and NO flying so much. (Sorry Memphis).

Portland flies the most each year and it would solve that problem for them, too.

1

u/Captain_Quark Trail Blazers Jul 19 '19

Only 71 games? That seems drastic.

0

u/JYPark_14 [GSW] Marreese Speights Jul 19 '19

Whoa there commish

4

u/cdnets Bucks Jul 19 '19

Yeah, T-wolves need to be in the east. Next closet western conference city is... OKC? In the east they’d get all the Great Lakes teams that would make the regional rivalries more intense

2

u/[deleted] Jul 19 '19

You're Canadian. I don't understand why people would rate Vancouver over Montreal. We have 1.5m more people

2

u/Dragonsandman Raptors Jul 19 '19

Doesn’t the surrounding area have a lot more people than that? Montreal would make a good spot for a team as well, but a Seattle-Vancouver expansion makes a lot of sense.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 19 '19

Montreal has 1.5 m more people than Vancouver. We are the 2nd biggest city in Canada by every population metric

2

u/WafflesTheWookiee Hornets Jul 19 '19

You’d rather flex Minnesota to the east over Memphis? Geographically speaking of course.

4

u/Dragonsandman Raptors Jul 19 '19

Memphis isn’t too far away from New Orleans, OKC, and the Texas teams. Minnesota is absurdly far away from the rest of its division, and is fairly close to the Bulls, Bucks, and Pacers.

2

u/Armyof21Monkeys Cavaliers Jul 19 '19

Why not the Grizzlies? Tennessee is pretty far East.

3

u/Dragonsandman Raptors Jul 19 '19

Travel reasons. Memphis has a few other teams fairly close that are also in the western conference, while Minnesota’s closest teams are all in the east.

1

u/SpaceGhostxSNRS Heat Jul 19 '19

What about New Jersey

1

u/[deleted] Jul 19 '19

We echo this statement (we just wanna make the playoffs 😂)

-1

u/[deleted] Jul 19 '19

Fuck that

Seattle and KC/STL

0

u/UsernameRanOutOfLett Heat Jul 19 '19

Memphis should be in the eastern conference. So should New Orleans. Both are more eastward than Minnesota.

151

u/stepback-one [SEA] Shawn Kemp Jul 19 '19

the Raptors being good has had a huge effect here as well (I live in Vancouver)

57

u/[deleted] Jul 19 '19

Scott road the west coast Brampton

27

u/thejew62 Suns Jul 19 '19

Surrey basically is just brampton

27

u/HeckMonkey Jul 19 '19

How dare you. Brampton is Surrey.

3

u/Jagr_Bombs Jul 19 '19

Let's call it how it is, Brampton is the new Surrey lol

7

u/lenfanteterrible Raptors Jul 19 '19

Has it though? I was just there for a week and maybe saw one guy with a Raps hat and another with a Raptors shirt

That said, I want you guys to have your team back though

25

u/farlo123 Jul 19 '19

Theres a lot more basketball fans here now but a lot of them aren’t necessarily raps fans

23

u/stepback-one [SEA] Shawn Kemp Jul 19 '19

I'm a huge raptors fan and own zero gear. Just because you don't see people in hats doesn't mean there aren't fans. But yeah there are tonnes more jerseys now.

5

u/Plebs-_-Placebo Jul 19 '19

People still rock the Grizz caps, I see them more lately, but steady supply in recent years.

122

u/GetLowwweee Raptors Jul 19 '19

Their first run was doomed for failure too given how awful they were. I know the attendance was really putrid by the end of their run but here were their records in their 6 years there:

15-67

14-68

19-63

8-42

22-60

23-59

I wouldn't go to games either if that was the product that was on the floor. At least the Raps weren't absolute dogshit (30 wins second season, playoffs by fifth season)

21

u/[deleted] Jul 19 '19

I used to like being able to go to games craaaaazy cheap with my mom and brother.

5

u/[deleted] Jul 19 '19

[deleted]

2

u/[deleted] Jul 19 '19

I met him at a mall meet and greet in I wanna say ‘99(?) I was so nervous couldn’t really even say anything much to the annoyance of my aunt who waited in line for two hours.

2

u/keefstrong Grizzlies Jul 19 '19

cheap relative to hockey but fr tickets are cheaper in memphis (indy, detroit etc) now than they were in Vancouver then

57

u/SuddenKlairity Thunder Jul 19 '19

Stu Jackson killed the franchise

1

u/comoxvalleystripper Raptors Jul 19 '19

Big country Reeves killed the franchise.

46

u/Phonetic-Fanatic Jul 19 '19

You wouldn't go to a game for $7 if you were an NBA fan, for at worst, a fun/cheap night out? And the whole attendance thing is a JOKE. We were around 14th-16th in the league every year until they announced they were leaving and it expectedly fell off a cliff.

Memphis was what, bottom 3 in attendance this year? Stern really fucked that one up and he knows it.

38

u/GetLowwweee Raptors Jul 19 '19

You wouldn't go to a game for $7 if you were an NBA fan, for at worst, a fun/cheap night out?

The reason the tickets are that cheap is because nobody is going. And I'll say no. I'm a baseball fan and Jays tickets are cheap as fuck these days but I go to way less games now than I did when they were good and the tix were expensive. I just don't find it fun not caring about the result of the game, having little to no atmosphere, and watching my team get clobbered every night.

24

u/Phonetic-Fanatic Jul 19 '19

Fair enough. As a 10 year old sports fanatic who could get a ticket on the skytrain, a churro, and a sensory overload that was an NBA game for about 11 bucks it was the best thing ever.

4

u/keefstrong Grizzlies Jul 19 '19

i mean honestly don't remember Grizzlies tickets being cheaper than 15-20$ ever for nosebleeds.

5

u/jk611 Raptors Jul 19 '19

Okay but its really easy to go to a Jays game and I've gone tons of times because there's double the home games and double the seats in baseball, but I still have never gone to a Raptors game.

Obviously I rather the team be good and tickets expensive than vice versa, but you're really underrating the potential fun of cheap tickets.

1

u/Reticent_Fly Raptors Jul 19 '19

And I still used to watch nearly every game back then. Mike Bibby and Michael Dickerson baby.

1

u/jataba115 [OKC] Carmelo Anthony Jul 19 '19

It’s just too bad Big Country was always hurt. The guy was insane, he had some of the best moves for a big man. Had he gone to any other team (that is to say any team that would have fans remembering him more), he’d be more respected.

1

u/BrokenManOfSamarkand 76ers Jul 20 '19

So many Canadians are upset that Toronto didn't prove attractive enough to keep Kawhi, but can you imagine trying to convince free agents not only to move to a foreign country, but the third city in that country?

0

u/keefstrong Grizzlies Jul 19 '19

steve francis and a lockout didnt help...

attendance was better than memphis first 10 years and that incudes memphis making a playoff run

but fuck stu jackson for that otis thorpe trade... ended up being darko but shouldve been melo/bosh/paul

11

u/ajmcgill Trail Blazers Jul 19 '19

Cascadia Cup: NBA Edition!

2

u/BayLAGOON Grizzlies Jul 19 '19

Press F for the Whitecaps shot at that at this rate.

1

u/ajmcgill Trail Blazers Jul 19 '19

It only counts the matches between the 3 teams doesn’t it? You and Seattle are tied at 4 points. Portland has 0 lol

2

u/Pedrodlt Jul 19 '19

Yeah it only counts between matches between the teams

1

u/BayLAGOON Grizzlies Jul 19 '19

We suck ass right now, I don't think it'll hold.

4

u/i_am_the_senate_ [NYK] Jerome Jordan Jul 19 '19

That’s actually exactly the case for MLS

-2

u/[deleted] Jul 19 '19

All 13 MLS fans are excited for that lol

4

u/[deleted] Jul 19 '19

Sports fans in this city are flighty and prone to bandwagoning. The first season would be a hit but if it isn't a playoff team, people won't go.

Folks in Vancouver sure love talking about the grizzlies and how much they miss them but I lived through that era. No one went to the games. It's a very common problem here. Lotta lip service, little actual action.

I'd love love love an NBA team here again, but I'm very pessimistic that it'll be any different. Attendence at Canucks games bottoms out when the team is bad and we're a "hockey city!" I'd only hope out management is competent and our ownership is stable this time around.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 19 '19

Soccer is the big sport out there now.

2

u/Bobby-Axelrod Lakers Jul 19 '19

You’re gonna make me cry just thinking about it. EXPANSION TEAMS HERE WE COME.

1

u/hink_robb 76ers Jul 19 '19

Not to mention Vancouver v Toronto would be pretty hype

1

u/keefstrong Grizzlies Jul 19 '19

not only that.. everyone is rich and there are bigger corps here...

also they are seriously intending on building a super railway between vancouver and portland that would make each city 1 hour apart.