Zach Kleiman Details Grizzlies Pursuit Of Marcus Smart
The cancer of Malcolm Brogdon was gone until he wasn’t. The original trade to bring in Kristaps Porzingis was a home run for the Celtics. That was until Memphis jumped in and snagged gritty Marcus Smart for themselves. Grizzlies general manager Zach Kleiman detailed Memphis’ pursuit of Smart.
“When you come out of the season, you take a step back and you start to put things up on the board,” Kleiman told reporters in Las Vegas. “What are the aspirational best-case scenarios for who we could potentially add to this group? How do we elevate the approach that we’re taking? Who are the individuals who can really drive winning and fit in a meaningful way with our group?”
“When we started to put names up on the board, there was no one higher than Marcus. And this is, early on, this is the pie in the sky if there happens to be a way that Boston would engage on this. And obviously, there was a transaction that didn’t happen earlier in the day before the trade was agreed to with Boston. And you never know what could have happened if that possibility didn’t come together, but we had expressed a very high level of interest and Boston knew that Marcus is someone that we have felt passionately about being able to bring into our group.”
The trade makes a ton of sense for Memphis. It’s also eerily similar to what they did years ago bringing in 29-year-old Tony Allen. Both Smart and Allen were Oklahoma State products and were the exact same age when Boston sent them to Memphis. Smart fits right into that grit Memphis aspires to be and is someone that hopefully can get Ja Morant back in line.
