Conley wants to stay in Memphis, but says Grizzlies need to make moves

The Memphis Grizzlies got a taste of life without Mike Conley this season, and it was unsavory, to say the least.

As Conley missed the season's final 24 games with an Achilles injury, the Grizzlies - who were also without star center Marc Gasol, among others - floundered down the stretch, falling to the seventh seed in the Western Conference before being unceremoniously swept out of the playoffs.

Conley, the team's longest-tenured player, will be an unrestricted free agent on July 1. The Grizzlies have expressed confidence in their ability to re-sign him, but after such a disappointing season - marred though it may have been by injuries - Conley feels he needs some assurances from the franchise before he puts pen to paper.

"We need to be committed to doing the things, whatever it may be and however hard the decision may be, to do the right things in order to get us where we need to go," Conley said Monday.

The Grizzlies made the postseason for the sixth straight year, but their 42-40 record was their worst during that run. And even before they started dropping like flies, they looked like a shell of the bruising, intimidating defensive juggernaut they've been in years past

Conley, who's spent his entire nine-year career with the Grizzlies, would still rather not leave Memphis.

"This city is all I know," he said.

But he also cautioned against comparing his free agency to that of Gasol last summer. Gasol re-upped with the Grizzlies almost immediately, but those Grizzlies were coming off a 55-win season in which they pushed the eventual champs to six games in the Western Conference semis.

A year later, the franchise finds itself in far less certain territory, and the front office has some work to do if it wants to convince Conley it still knows where it's going.