On February 8, 2011, the Memphis Grizzlies played a routine regular season game against the Oklahoma City Thunder. But his defense and championship experience made the franchise a winner and gave it an identity it will carry along for the rest of its existence. Sure, the Grizzlies never made a single Finals appearance with Tony Allen. 500 mark in each of the seven seasons Tony Allen was on the team, winning 50 or more regular season games in three instances, including the all-time franchise best of 56 games in 2012-13 where they went all the way to the Western Conference Finals. Prior to Allen’s tenure, Memphis only had three winning seasons in 14 years of NBA existence. The team went to the NBA playoffs for seven consecutive seasons, advancing past round one in three occasions. Their much improved defense complemented their offense. Save for the 2015-16 season, the Memphis Grizzlies became a Top-10 Defense when Tony Allen came to town. Those were the Grizzlies’ rank in Defensive Efficiency in the next six seasons with Tony Allen on board.
They zoomed up to #8 in that same category during Allen’s first season with the team. Those were the league ranks of the Memphis Grizzlies in Defensive Efficiency in the four seasons prior to Tony Allen’s arrival. Right off the bat, Allen and the Grizzlies were a perfect match. Getting a defensive specialist in Tony Allen was the cure. The Grizzlies had missed the playoffs four season in a row mainly because of poor defense. It is best if we tell the story of the franchise to know it’s history and how one man’s arrival changed all that, for the better.Īfter playing a key bench role during the Boston Celtics’ 2008 championship run, Tony Allen signed a three year deal worth $9.7M with the Memphis Grizzlies. Honestly, it’s hard to put a criteria on that nor is it easy to list down the qualifications to achieve such feat. So how much more for defining a franchise?ĭefining a franchise is such a very vague phrase. Heck, one doesn’t even have to play in the NBA to be accorded the merit. A player doesn’t have to play for the team to deserve such honor. One doesn’t have to average sexy numbers to have his jersey raised in the rafters. So you see, a player doesn’t have to be an All-Star to get his number retired. Both were never All-Stars and Loscutoff averaged 6.2 points and 5.6 rebounds per game during his 9 year NBA career. Even the legendary Boston Celtics retired the numbers of Cedric Maxwell and Jose Loscutoff. Non All-Stars like Larry Steele, Lloyd Neal and Bob Gross were retired by the Portland Trail Blazers. The Dallas Mavericks retired the jersey of Brad Davis, who never made it to an All-Star team. The Orlando Magic and Sacramento Kings even retired their jersey number 6 in honor of their fans. The Miami Heat retired #23 in honor of Michael Jordan even if Jordan didn’t even play a single game for the franchise. There is no laid out criteria or qualifications for having one’s jersey number to be retired. But those people were of course, not from Memphis and do not know what Tony Allen means to the franchise, to the city in general. Aside from 6 All NBA Defensive Team awards and winning one NBA title, Allen hasn’t achieved anything else nor has he put up significant numbers to probably deserve such honor. When the Memphis Grizzlies announced that they were going to retire Tony Allen’s #9 jersey, many people were surprised.