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Tuesday morning, the Memphis Grizzlies announced that their starting point guard Mike Conley, who is fresh off signing a five-year, $153 million contract, the biggest overall deal in league history, would miss six to eight weeks with a fractured vertebrae in his lower back.
Conley, who sustained the injury in the third quarter of the Grizzlies’ loss Monday’s to the Charlotte Hornets was enjoying a career year averaging 19.2 points on 44.0 percent shooting from the field, 46.7 percent from three and 5.7 assists per game.
Collectively, Memphis was off to a solid 11-7 start despite injuries to fellow free-agent signee Chandler Parsons, who has only played in six games this season and Brandan Wright, who is expected to miss around two months after undergoing ankle surgery.
The sky is falling in Memphis in a hurry with Zach Randolph and James Ennis also missing the Grizzlies’ last few games, but the situation developing in the former Grit ‘n’ Grind capital of the world is something that directly impacts the Nuggets and their outlook this summer on two fronts.
Playoff positioning
With Conley out anywhere from six to eight weeks, which could cause him to miss close to 23 games, Memphis’ playoff chances take a significant hit.
The Grizzlies were one of the teams expected to rival the Nuggets, among other contenders for the eighth and final seed in the Western Conference and it will be a struggle for Memphis to survive a torturous schedule without their floor leader.
Losing Conley for this significant amount of time immediately vaults Denver’s chances to grab the eighth seed up a level. The Thunder, Trailblazers, Jazz, Lakers, Kings, Pelicans, Timberwolves and any other team with their sights on the playoffs, now gets a dose of confidence and a chance to gain significant traction on the Grizzlies in the coming weeks.
Memphis is rumored to be interested in former Pelicans and Heat guard Norris Cole, who’s playing in China with an NBA-opt out clause, to fill in for Conley. Cole was also with Miami when first-year Grizzlies head coach David Fizdale was an assistant with the Heat.
Mario Chalmers and Xavier Munford, two other former Grizzlies could be brought in as well, but none of those three will come close to replacing Conley’s production and leadership.
Summer outlook
The other side of the coin to Conley’s injury and the effect it will likely have on the Grizzlies outlook this season is that Denver currently owns Memphis’ first-round selection in next summer’s draft.
That draft pick, which is top-5 protected, meaning if the Grizzlies completely fall off the map and garner a top-5 pick in the 2017 draft they’ll keep the selection. That pick came to the Nuggets via Cleveland and the trade that sent Timofey Mozgov to the Cavaliers in January of 2015.
Denver could find themselves in a similar spot to last summer’s draft when they entered the night armed with two first-round picks in the top-15; their own, and Toronto’s. The Nuggets, of course, used the No. 7 pick to draft Jamal Murray and the No. 15 pick to select Juancho Hernangomez.
The Memphis pick Denver currently holds gives the Nuggets more ammo heading towards this season’s trade deadline and next summer’s draft if they hold onto the selection.
