In the spur of the moment, podcast host JJ Redick, on Old Man & The Three, agreed with retired NBA forward Evan Turner's assertion that the league must relocate the Grizzlies franchise a couple hundred miles east from Memphis to Nashville. But now, the retired sharpshooter out of Duke is backtracking on his initial agreement.
On the most recent episode of Redick's podcast, he earnestly apologized to Memphis fans about entertaining the idea of moving the Grizzlies to Nashville.
“I cosigned [Evan Turner's idea that the Grizzlies franchise should move from Memphis to Nashville] and that was a mistake on my part. And for all of Memphis and for the Grizzlies fans, let me apologize, and I mean this sincerely,” Redick said. “The Memphis Grizzlies have a great, great fanbase. They're a great organization. Memphis has a soul, a culture. The Grizzlies should never leave Memphis. I should not have cosigned that. I made a mistake.”
Props must go to JJ Redick for acknowledging that he made a mistake. He didn't exactly have to do this, as he was merely expressing an opinion that holds no weight whatsoever in any decisions the league or the Grizzlies ownership group make. But it takes a lot of courage for an individual to retract his previous statements and acknowledge that a mistake, indeed, was made.
Nevertheless, the topic of which city (other than Seattle) must have an expansion team, which Redick and his podcast guests, Evan Turner and Andre Iguodala, discussed on a recent episode of Old Man & The Three, is certainly an interesting one. Turner's justification for saying that the Grizzlies franchise must move to Nashville came out of his observation that plenty of people are moving there from LA, making that move a potentially “big splash” as “a lot of people are waiting for a team like that out there”.
But with expansion talks heating up in NBA circles in recent times, there surely is room for an NBA franchise in Nashville without having to uproot the Grizzlies organization from Memphis, especially when the Nashville area is one of the fastest growing metropolitan districts in the United States.