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Grizzlies' Mike Conley will keep wearing a clear protective mask
Memphis Grizzlies fans long ago took Mike Conley in as one of their own. They showed patience through the point guard's early struggles after Memphis drafted him out of Ohio State with the No. 4 pick in the 2007 NBA draft. They supported him as he took the Grizzlies' reins and slowly, steadily developed into the kind of two-way player not only well worth his five-year, $40 million contract, but capable of leading this franchise to its greatest, most sustained successes.
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It was this past spring, though, that Conley went from well-regarded rallying point — perennially overlooked and underappreciated, never seeming to sniff the All-Star squad despite playing for the team with the league's fifth-best record since 2010 — to full-fledged Memphis legend ... even if only for a night.
An inadvertent forearm to the face from C.J. McCollum knocked Conley out of Game 3 of the Grizzlies' first-round playoff series against the Portland Trail Blazers. Tests and a CAT scan revealed he'd suffered a blowout fracture — not merely a broken bone in his face, but damage to the walls of the orbit around his left eye, carrying with it what sounds like an almost unimaginable level of pain — that would require surgical repair. The insertion of a metal plate into the area left his face badly bruised and swollen.
And yet, after missing Memphis' loss in the opening game of its semifinal series with the top-seeded Golden State Warriors, Conley decided to give it a go in Game 2. Just eight days after going under the knife, Conley took the floor wearing a clear protective mask and authored a stunningly brilliant performance, scoring 22 points on 8-for-12 shooting with three assists and just one turnover in 27 minutes, propelling the Grizzlies to a shocking upset at Oracle Arena. It was, as Memphis Commercial Appeal columnist Geoff Calkins put it, "a story we [will] tell ourselves again and again," and it earned the soft-spoken 27-year-old point guard a couple of nicknames from one of his, um, less-soft-spoken teammates.
“One-eyed Charlie,” said Tony Allen. “The Masked Assassin.”
The Grizzlies won the next game, but the Warriors won the next three, and went on to win it all. Nearly five months after Game 2, Memphis once again enters the season ranked among the Western elite. But even though Conley's wounds are healed, it sounds like "The Masked Assassin" might be here to stay. From Teresa M. Walker of The Associated Press:
For Mike Conley, the decision to keep wearing a clear mask is easy, even with his left cheek fully healed from the elbow that inadvertently smashed his face last April.
"I'm going to keep it for a little bit," the Grizzlies point guard said. "I feel more comfortable with it on whenever I'm playing because I already know I get hit in my face all the time. I'm a little dude, so I'm around elbows and stuff all the time.
"So I'm going to wear it until I feel comfortable."
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That seems just fine by the Grizzlies, who saluted their point guard's gutsy performance by depicting him, mask in tow, on a massive promotional banner hanging outside FedExForum in Memphis:
How quickly Conley elects to cast off the mask — or, for that matter, whether he chooses to follow in the footsteps of Richard Hamilton, who donned a mask after breaking his nose during the 2003-04 season and kept wearing it until his retirement nine years later — remains to be seen. But while he's grown comfortable with the mask itself, Conley seems a bit less comfortable with what came after he put it on, according to Ronald Tillery of the Commercial Appeal:
"It put everything to the forefront for everybody who didn't know who I was and what I was about. They learned I was tough," Conley said, referring to observers of his game outside of Memphis. "I hate it had to take my face to be broken for people to recognize me. People are saying what a great player I am, but I've been good. ... I'm looking forward to another good year. My thoughts are completely on this season and on the team. We have unfinished business."
There's an admirable defiance in those quotes — an arch of the eyebrow in the direction of those who'd looked past years of improvements as a table-setter, shooter and elite perimeter defender, most of which came away from the national spotlight, only to begin gushing over his game after he was branded a warrior on ESPN and TNT.
That's surely music to the ears of Grizzlies coach Dave Joerger, who'd love to see Conley translate some overflow aggression into more frequent drives to the basket, and to teammates like Allen, who look forward to seeing the beast unleashed. More from Tillery:
"Any point guard that comes to face him, I'm pretty sure they're reading their scouting report and they're getting their rest before the game because Mike Conley is a force to be reckoned with," Allen said. "I've been playing with him for five straight years and every year he's gotten better." [...]
Conley's dedication and talent on the court, and work ethic off the floor isn't all that's music to his running mates' ears.
"He stopped listening to Usher and he's listening to Tupac, Future. ... He's turnt up now, so his whole preparation before the game is seek and destroy now," Allen said. "I like that ambition about him."
With "unfinished business" on his mind and a golden opportunity to stamp himself as one of the top maximum-salary-worthy targets in next summer's free-agent class, Conley could well be poised to bring the best ball of his career to a gym near you this season. When he does, though, try not to let him hear you ask, "Who's that masked man?" From where he's sitting, you should already know.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!
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