Grinding through all the grit, Mike Conley Jr. just last November broke so many bones in his lower back that if the team physician picked him up and shook him it would have sounded like the last ice chips in a just slurped super sized soda hurled from courtside.
The man who signed a contract bigger than all that he needed a fountain pen bursting with ink just to make the dotted line was meant to be out for almost 8 weeks. He came back in just 17 days. And like Mike after that Conley had the biggest year of his career. All coming for the veteran after an injury that should have crippled him and his day job. Not give them born again, new life.
Now the grit-N-grind era of his Memphis Grizzlies franchise he lead from the Point may be all about over. But just like suede shoes in this Presley city will always be blue, this guard and his big man rock rolling partner off the pick, Spanish brother and centerpiece Marc Gasol will always be reliable for 20 points and 10. Whether rebounds or assists. Even without the likes of Zach Randolph, Rudy Gay and Tony Allen…or even Vince Carter. Sorry Chandler Parsons and Tyreke Evans.
So why hasn’t Mike Conley Jr.’s all prototype Point Guard play made an All-Star game yet?
Out West call all that MVP Westbrook, best three-point shooting champion of all-time, Steph Curry and the Houston Rockets have two in The Beard and CP3 under Mike D’Antoni B.S. all you like but the pure point of Conley junior, ‘The Conductor’ is an All-Star type of player already. So it’s damn high time to make him one. Even already Los Angeles Lakers Rookie Of The Year candidate Lonzo Ball doesn’t deserve a spot before Mike who really big balls without a brand name.
Sure the wild west once known for bigs like Aristotle has become a place for freewheelin, P.G.’s that like to shoot like they should move a position over like D’Angelo Russell. But Conley is full court, front and center part of this classic collection of those with the ball. So it’s only fair you give him his. Sure out in Timberlake’s Tennessee at times hoops seem so secondary that the Grizzlies may aswell grin and bear it back in Vancouver like Steve Francis. But Mike Conley is a superstar and hero of this franchise like Flashes in Miami or Supermen in wherever Dwight Howard calls home these days. Did you not see his indescribable suits at the Grammy like ESPY’s and NBA award Oscar shows that only perhaps the weird and wonderful acting great Jeff Goldblum could rock?
This mans a player. Lets make him one on Valenties weekend this February.
You know what to do with the ballot paper. You know where to punch. Even if none of his playing association peers do so now with all the power in this captains pick first new format of the midseason NBA classic. One that now discounts East and West and is just a player powered performance that will now see Mike battle with the likes of traded Kyrie and Isaiah, let alone Dame Lillard and Eric Bledsoe. The post-30, pre-primetime about to expire star has still got plenty of years, but time to give him good and ready all of that in terms of how many times left he can call himself one of the Wests best for real. Even if he’s already un-officially been performing like so since the moment they tossed the ball up on opening night of his rook year.
And will do, All-Star or not all-team until they drag his body off the hardwood, bone by bone as he earns every red cent of that grandchildren offspring serving contract.
But your respect?
Time to pay all due.
