Vince Williams Jr.

That'll be a downer.

All right, uh, let's talk about how we got to where we are in terms of the Grizzlies roster, and I wanna start with the trade deadline last year where we actually made the biggest move thus far, which is trading Jaren Jackson, uh, as well as John Konchar, RIP, Vince Williams, and Jacque Landale for Walter Clayton Jr, Taylor Hendricks, a couple of other fillers, a 2027, uh, first-round pick, which is the most favorable of Utah, Cleveland, and Minnesota.

We also got a 2027 Lakers, uh, top four protected pick, and a tw- the crown jewel of the trade was the 2031 Suns, uh, first-round pick unprotected.

We also generated $28.8 million trade exception off of that, and that signaled that we're, we're turning the page as an organization.

One of them is flourishing in the NBA.

His name is Vince Williams.

And that's – I don't want to compare him to that because that's an unfair comparison to put on him because Vince Williams was such a wonderful player at VCU and has busted his rear end to get to the NBA.

But I see some of that, I'm going to do whatever it takes to win even if it means I'm not scoring because that was always the thing with Vince Williams and now with Brandon.

Brandon Jennings is another one I think that fits that bill.

It's like, okay, if I'm – I might be two for ten from the field, but somehow, someway, I'm going to get you, even if it's whether it's grabbing rebounds, getting steals, assists, whatever it is.

Like, of course, they're gonna make note, like, "Desmond Bane is back," I'm sure, you know, you know, "Desmond Bane," and all that good stuff.

But the tribute video, uh, the whole, you know, thing, the standing over, he'll get all of that, uh, that again, we've seen with Jaren Jackson Jr., Vince Williams, and John Konchar to a lesser degree, Dillon Brooks.

Like, he'll get, uh, some of that stuff later on.

Now, speaking more to the Grizzlies side, uh, I just wanna see how much, uh, can you carry over, you know, from that first game, uh, from a continuity standpoint, right? We did mention, yeah, it's a bummer that Isaiah Stewart, uh, isn't available.

By the time Ty Jerome was playing, Zach Eady was hurt and done for the season.

We saw Cam Spencer and Vince Williams throw up 15 assist games with Zach Eady.

And that's no disrespect to them, but could you imagine what Ty Jerome would have did in those type of situations? So the point that I'm making is getting back to Tomas Islo in all of this is, to me, for the most part, you have what you need to get the direction of this thing going.

You can discount last season, and he said this in so many words because, you know, when you're a coach, you – it's frowned upon when you when you make excuses in a way uh when when they're not directly like when you're not saying you're the reason for whatever it is like coaches can't take all the blame but of course it's the right thing politically to do or whatever but sometimes he would come out and say it when we talk about you know the shooting issues and whatnot and the creation he was like we don't have a three level score it's like man it's probably true but you don't hear many coaches just saying these dudes can't do that so um Getting to the point here, I think we talk about Tumas Isolo.