The Grizzlies’ trade for Justin Holiday in early January, their attempt to make a “playoff push”, didn’t really work out. The playoffs were not pushed. Not even close. Acquiring him kicked off a stretch where they won 2 out of 16 games, pushing them from “not really in the playoff picture but maybe” to “where’s tank commander MarShon Brooks when you need him?”.
And not only did the Grizzlies utterly fail to improve after the acquisition, but Holiday on an individual level also sucked. 20 points in his first 6 appearances combined. He’s been better recently but is still shooting under 30 percent from deep on way fewer attempts than with the Bulls. This is the “shooter” that the Grizzlies wanted. The “shooter” that they gave up two players and two picks to get.
I don’t even know what went so wrong. Theoretically, it was a decent pickup, because Holiday had shown that he could chuck threes with no remorse at a decent clip. The idea of making the playoffs was always hilariously optimistic, but with a semisweet-shooting wing scoring maybe like 13 points per game, it wasn’t as hilariously optimistic.
Just saying, if they want to renew their playoff push one last time, Luke Babbitt is still a free agent.