Yahoo! Sports' Marc Spears has an interview with Allen Iverson today and also includes this nugget about why Iverson did not sign with the Los Angeles Clippers this summer:

A.I. almost a Clipper?

Iverson can ponder what might have been when the Grizzlies visit the Los Angeles Clippers on Saturday. Back in July, the Clippers seriously contemplated offering him a one-year contract paying up to $4 million so he could be a “Vinnie Johnson-type” player, a source with knowledge of the talks said. Denver Nuggets assistant Tim Grgurich, who was considered for a job on Mike Dunleavy’s staff over the offseason, also strongly recommended Iverson to the franchise.

The Clippers, however, were concerned about how Iverson’s addition would affect the development of second-year shooting guard Eric Gordon, along with other chemistry issues. The Clippers cooled on the idea after Iverson told Dunleavy in a phone conversation that he would have a serious problem with coming off the bench.

The possibility of signing Iverson became a dead issue once the Clippers acquired guard Sebastian Telfair and swingman Rasual Butler. But had A.I. been fine with coming off the bench, he could very well be with the Clippers now.

• Larry Kuzniewski
• Griz Advice? Feed beasts on the block.

1. Slow it Down, Pound it Inside: The Grizzlies three most dynamic scorers are O.J. Mayo, Rudy Gay, and Allen Iverson. But the team's most efficient scorers have been interior tandem Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol. Randolph is averaging 20 points a game on 56% shooting. Gasol is averaging 18 points a game on 60% shooting. Each player is averaging four offensive rebounds a game and shooting better than 78% from the foul line. They have also established quick chemistry together, hooking up on several high-low plays.

With Randolph so-far correcting the sloppy shot selection that had grown to infect his game in recent years and a slimmed-down Gasol making a mini-leap as an offensive threat, the Grizzlies suddenly have one of the best offensive frontcourts in the league. On most nights, this is where the team's advantage will be and the team has been at it's best when exploiting it. But with all the firepower on the perimeter, it's been too easy for the team to neglect feeding the beasts on the block. Wednesday night, in losing to the undersized Golden State Warriors, Randolph had only nine field-goal attempts, with 6 of those coming in a first half in which the Grizzlies were only behind by one point.

Slowing the game down a little and focusing on the interior game could also help the team's porous defense as the Grizzlies don't have great depth and have been losing track of outside shooters in up-and-down games.

• Larry Kuzniewski
• Allen Iverson: Butt getting sore.

Iverson's post-game public reaction to playing 18 minutes off the bench — “I had no problems (with the hamstring). I had a problem with my butt sitting on that bench for so long.” — was not a surprise, but was still preposterous.

Two specific reasons:

1. Even if his role were not in question and it were clearly established that he were going to be a starter, in his first game back from an injury after a dormant offseason and not a second of game experience with this team, Iverson was going to come off the bench and play limited minutes. It was inevitable that Iverson would complain about a bench role if the team tried to keep him there. But to complain about it after this game is an act of extreme self-absorption.

2. The comical "my butt hurts" quote has understandably gotten the attention. But I'm more bothered by this:

“If we’re winning games with me in that (reserve) role, I would be a (jerk) for fighting that,” Iverson said soon after pointing out: “I came off the bench and we still lost.”

Iverson cites this game as evidence that the team is better with him as a starter? Not only is this one game, but it's his first game back from injury, it's the second night of a back to back on the road, and the team lost in overtime. And this is somehow definitive proof of how he needs to be used and gives him license to be outwardly disruptive after the game?

Would like to do a preview for tonight's game but don't have time on a paper-production Monday, so some quick takes on Griz issues du jour:

Rudy's Extension: The Grizzlies and Rudy Gay have until midnight tonight to agree to a contract extension and have made some progress according to Yahoo! Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski:

Gay, a 6-foot-9 forward, has been seeking an extension comparable to the five-year, $60 million deal the Indiana Pacers gave Danny Granger(notes) last year. Memphis has offered $50 million over five years in recent days, sources said, but will still need to close the gap before the NBA’s deadline on Monday.

One league source says a shorter contract — three years for $33 million-$36 million — has also been discussed with Gay’s reps from Octagon.

My take: If the Grizzlies are offering 5 years and $50 million, Gay should snatch it up. I think that's a little too rich for what he's proven. Anything beyond that is silly. I like Gay, but he needs to upgrade his defense and integrate his offense into the team context a little better before he'll be worth a contract averaging eight figures per year.

1. Griz Win! Griz Win!:It seems silly to consider the second game in an 82-game schedule a "must win," but tonight's game felt that way for the Grizzlies since it was sandwiched between a demoralizing opening-night loss and rough five-game West Coast road trip. And it was a good win — the heightened energy level was palpable from the very beginning and the execution improved over the course of 48 minutes.

The Grizzlies had two big problems tonight — turnovers and defending Chris Bosh — and improved in these areas over the course of the game. The Grizzlies had 5 turnovers in the first 5 minutes, and 12 in the ensuing 43 minutes. The early turnovers were a bad product of good things, though — over-aggression and over-passing as a result of trying perhaps too hard to play team basketball. The Grizzlies gave up 25 points to Bosh in the first half. "Only" 12 in the second.

And most promising was how the team responded to late adversity. Going down 8 — their largest deficit of the game — two minutes into the 4th quarter, the team called a timeout, and then came back to outscore Toronto 35-19 over the final 10 minutes.

Okay, I'm live courtside at FedExForum for Grizzlies-Raptors as the Grizzlies tried to redeem their awful opening performance.

Not live-blogging this but am going to experiment with something new by trying to get my Twitter feed to run on this post and comment there occasionally. As always, I'll monitor any comments or questions on this post, or you can talk amongst yourselves. Let's do this.

Twitter feed seems to be working, but you have to refresh the page for new "tweets"

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The Grizzlies try to bounce back from their deplorable opening night showing as they host the Toronto Raptors tonight before heading out on a five-game West Coast road trip. A win tonight could help stablize the team, but a loss followed by a bad road trip could find the season unraveling before when it's barely begun.

Allen Iverson practiced with the team Thursday but still looks unlikely to play tonight. Look for him to make his Griz debut on the road next week.

I will not be live-blogging tonight but will set up the usual game template here for in-game comments and will likely be making occasional commentary via my Twitter feed. You can follow me on Twitter at @ChrisHerrington.

The Raptors enter the game on a high, having won their home opener 101-91 over Lebron James' Cleveland Cavaliers. Three potential keys to tonight's game:

1. "Interior" Defense: On Opening Night, the Grizzlies got torched by probably the league's best-shooting guard tandem in Rip Hamilton and Ben Gordon. Tonight they'll face a different but also similar challenge: Probably the league's best perimeter-shooting frontcourt tandem in Chris Bosh and Andrea Bargnani.

• Larry Kuzniewski
• The jury's still out on Mike Conley's upside and fit.

Two years and one game into his NBA career, Conley's outside shooting is ahead of schedule, but there are a couple of other aspects of his game that have lowered my initial expectations. One is his athleticism and the other is how he uses it.

Conley is certainly a good enough athlete to be a quality starting point guard, especially if his shooting progress continues, but he's not as electric as he seemed coming out of Ohio State. He now looks like a good athlete for his position, not a great one, and this limits his upside.

The other problem has been Conley's timidity. While not quite the athlete I first thought he was, Conley still has the quickness and handle to put a lot of pressure on defenses. But he doesn't do this nearly often enough. Conley should be breaking down defenses in the halfcourt and streaking past defenders in transition with at least some regularity, but these explosions have been too rare. If Conley can begin to use his speed more, he can still be a high-quality starting point guard. If he doesn't, then it's not going to happen.

Opening night couldn't have gone much worse for the Grizzlies, who treated an announced crowd of 17,212 to Allen Iverson in street clothes and a blowout loss to an Eastern Conference team likely to join them in the lottery next summer.

"I'm disappointed for our team and our fans," coach Lionel Hollins said in his post-game press conference, and that about sums it up. Now, the Grizzlies will play a Toronto Raptors team Friday that won its opener tonight against Lebron James' Cleveland Cavaliers and then embark on a five-game road trip. 0-7 isn't hard to visualize.

But first, tonight's game:

1. Backcourt Annihilation: Detroit is a guard-oriented team this season and their deep backcourt rotation completely demolished their Grizzlies counterparts tonight.

Alright. I'm courtside at FedExForum where we're about 25 minutes from the launch of festivities (but hopefully not Festivus).

Allen Iverson is not listed on the active roster tonight but was out shooting a few minutes ago and looked pretty good. GM Chris Wallace suggested earlier today that he would likely debut on the upcoming road trip.

I will be live-blogging tonight's game, so check back here throughout the evening as the Griz try to get off to a good start.

Let's do this.

Looks like Villanueva will start for the Pistons, so we'll get a look at that match-up with Randolph early.

Sam Young is dressed and shooting around, so it looks like he'll play. With Iverson out and Jaric in the wilderness, the Griz need him.

Your officials for tonight: Eddie F. Rush, Bennie Adams, and Joe Forte. I expect much less coaching rage (from both benches) than we saw in the preseason.

• Larry Kuzniewski
• This is not the Allen Iverson fans wanted to see on opening night.

Lil Rounds and Three 6 Mafia will be in the house tonight, and so will I. Though it will be the exception, not the norm, this season, I will be live-blogging the opener. So check back here around game time. And local readers be sure to pick up a print edition of the Flyer around town today, which features a preview piece on the team and a few predictions for the coming season.

In the meantime, here are few things to think about relative to tonight's game:

1. No Iverson: It looks like Allen Iverson will miss the team's opener as he still hasn't been able to conduct a full practice with the team. This will somewhat dampen the excitement of opening night and will mean Iverson will miss one of two chances this season to play against the franchise he had such a bad experience with a year ago.

This also would have been a good game to see the Grizzlies work through all their possible backcourt combinations, as the Pistons are likely to play some three-guard sets and probably some minutes with a small backcourt, perhaps with Will Bynum and Ben Gordon on the floor together.

As it is, with Iverson out, Marko Jaric not with the team, and Sam Young perhaps questionable, the Grizzlies will face off against a backcourt-heavy Pistons team with a rather thin group of guards. Look for the team to use a double-point-guard backcourt of Mike Conley and Marcus Williams some in this game, and for Conley's ostensibly improved three-point shooting to get an early test.

• Larry Kuzniewski
• What will O.J. Mayo be? Shooter? Point Guard? Do-It-All?

This is an important question in that the answer should help determine much of what the Grizzlies do with the rest of their roster, and one of the problems I had with the team's offseason is that the franchise itself didn't seem to be operating with a clear idea of where Mayo was headed and kind of players would help him maximize his skills.

Is Mike Conley a good fit alongside Mayo long term? If not, was there a guard in the draft — Tyreke Evans? James Harden? Stephen Curry? — who made more sense? The answer, pardon the pun, is surely not Allen Iverson.

The way the Grizzlies build their backcourt going forward should be contingent on where and how Mayo needs to play and what teammates can best help him do that. The Grizzlies — with a GM who seems intrigued by the idea of Mayo at point guard and a coach who seems unusually opposed to even testing that notion — don't seem to have a strong handle on the question.

After a stellar rookie season, there's more info to draw from in analyzing Mayo, so let's take another look at which direction Mayo's career could head, breaking down the three general types of player he could become:

The NBA season tips off tonight. My divisional preview series got sidetracked by other work, but I hope to finish those up — in somewhat abbreviated fashion — by the the end of the week. I also have a few other Griz-specific season preview items I hope to post here before the team's opener tomorrow night, one of which — on O.J. Mayo — should be up this afternoon.

In the meantime, let me get on the record here with my predictions for this NBA season:

Western Conference:

1. Los Angeles Lakers
2. San Antonio Spurs
3. Dallas Mavericks
4. Utah Jazz
5. Portland Trailblazers
6. Denver Nuggets
7. Phoenix Suns
8. New Orleans Hornets
9. Houston Rockets
10. Memphis Grizzlies
11. Los Angeles Clippers
12. Oklahoma City Thunder
13. Golden State Warriors
14. Minnesota Timberwolves
15. Sacramento Kings

• Larry Kuzniewski
• The more time Randolph spends in the paint — and not around the three-point line — the better it will be for the Grizzlies.

On the court, Randolph is well known for two primary problems: Listless defense and selfish shot selection.

Based on the preseason games I've seen, the defense has been the same as ever — I can still see Randolph getting burned on consecutive possessions by the Hawks' D-Leaguer Courtney Sims. And I can certainly remember a couple of ill-advised fade-away jumpers against double teams.

But there have been a couple of very encouraging signs with Randolph's game.

One is his three-point shooting, or the lack thereof. Last season, Randolph fell in love with his outside shot, averaging a ridiculous 1.9 three-point attempts per game. His percentage (33%) wasn't deplorable, but it still isn't a shot you want Randolph taking with any regularity. This preseason, he's taken 3 three-pointers in 8 games, or roughly .4 attempts a game. Factor in his reduced preseason minutes, and it's more in line with his career average of .6 attempts per game. This is still too many as far as I'm concerned, but it's a number the team can live with. Hopefully, this is a sign that Randolph has come to his senses regarding three-point shooting or that the coaching staff has reined in this inclination.

• Larry Kuzniewski
• Allen Iverson will start the season on the Grizzlies' bench...

Owner Michael Heisley, general manager Chris Wallace, and coach Lionel Hollins have all provided different accounts of their meeting with Iverson this summer, but none of them have said definitively that the team discussed in specific terms what Iverson's role would be. As for Iverson, he's said all the right things except when asked about coming off the bench. In those instances, he's responded with variations on the refrain that no one would even consider such a thing if not for his problems in Detroit last season.

Iverson is an all-time great, no doubt. But in this instance I think he's completely wrong. Iverson is a small guard who is much more of a scorer than a distributor. He's a wobbly outside shooter whose game is dependent on quickness yet he's 34 years old and coming off a hamstring injury. In his prime, his outlandish ability triumphed over the peculiarity of his game. But those days are gone. I would argue that any team that would sign Iverson at this stage of his career would want to use him as an instant-offense sixth man, a la Jason Terry or Nate Robinson. A rich man's Flip Murray. Of course, the Grizzlies were apparently the only team this summer that was serious about signing Iverson, which, itself, tells you plenty.