Tony Allen is the soul of Memphis’ grit and grind style. He’s one of the game’s best on-ball defenders, and he finds a way to get enough offense to make it work. It’s not always pretty, but it’s effective.
Allen has spent the past five seasons with the Grizzlies — last season he scored 8.6 points a game and improved to a respectable 34.5 percent from three — and he told the Commercial Appeal he wants to finish his career in Tennesee.
Allen is 33 right now, so we’ll see about five years. Allen has two seasons left on his deal at a very reasonable $10.7 million total. He will be a free agent in 2017, and a lot of teams likely will have interest in him — and with the spiked salary cap he could see a raise — but it sounds like Memphis will be able to keep him.
Allen was understandably frustrated with how the Grizzlies’ season ended. They fell to the Warriors in the second round, a series that turned when Golden State switched Andrew Bogut onto the injured Allen defensively (which allowed Bogut to patrol the paint and dare Allen to beat them with his inconsistent jumper).“When they pulled that strategy, man, I was hurt,” he said. “If they try that s---- again ...
“Had I been healthy, and they had somebody (like Bogut) on me, I probably would have showed up in a different way in a game as far as rebounding, steals,” Allen said. “Them putting Bogut on me simply affected our team because of injury.”He may well get a chance to prove his point. Memphis is going to need a healthy Tony Allen, plus Matt Barnes and the rest of the wings to knock down some outside shots, but they will be in the mix in a once again very crowded Western Conference.
