The Grizzlies Migrate to Memphis - (Sport & Popular Culture) by Lukasz Muniowski (Hardcover)

About the Book

"In the 1990s, the NBA was trying to capitalize on the latter part of the Michael Jordan era and reposition the league for an international market. Expansion franchises were granted to two Canadian cities; but while Toronto thrived thanks in large part to the drafting of Vince Carter, Vancouver badly mismanaged its team, leading eventually to the team's relocation to Memphis. Author ¡ukasz Muniowski finds in the shifting fortunes of the Vancouver/Memphis Grizzlies a significant window on a volatile moment in NBA history. He first examines the failure, both financially and culturally, of a prosperous Canadian city to support an NBA expansion team before turning to the Grizzlies' explosive rise in a relatively impoverished southern city starving for national recognition"--

Book Synopsis

Following the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona and the success and celebrity of the Dream Team, the NBA became a global sensation. Around the same time, and despite ardent warnings from his parents, Arthur Griffiths purchased an NBA team that would become the expansion Vancouver Grizzlies. Who better to restore the Dream City, he thought, than the NBA?

Expansion franchises went to Vancouver and Toronto--the Canadian cities of choice as the NBA grew its international brand. But while Toronto thrived under the rising star of Vince Carter, Vancouver floundered under serial mismanagement. Six seasons wasted, the Grizzlies relocated to Memphis, where they clawed their way to victories both on the court and in the hearts of the city's eager fanbase. More than two decades later, the Memphis Grizzlies continue to win, claiming NBA records for defeating, as an eight-seed club, the one-seed San Antonio Spurs in the 2011 playoffs (only the fourth franchise to have done so) and for defeating, in 2021, the Oklahoma City Thunder 152-73, the largest margin of victory in NBA history.

So why did the NBA fail in Vancouver but thrive in Memphis? This is the question Lukasz Muniowski seeks to answer in The Grizzlies Migrate to Memphis: From Vancouver Failure to Southern Success. In his pursuit, he explores how the Vancouver Grizzlies came to be, the team's evolution and eventual relocation to Memphis, the success the Grizzlies found there, and the differences between the two phases of this NBA franchise.

Rooted strongly in media coverage of the Grizzlies franchise in both Vancouver and Memphis, The Grizzlies Migrate to Memphis offers a thoughtful blend of storytelling and analysis that will interest scholars and NBA enthusiasts alike.

Review Quotes

"Lukasz Muniowski documents how an unsuccessful NBA team in Vancouver found success in the unlikely small market of Memphis. The history of the NBA's expansion Grizzlies and the way the franchise made its way from western Canada to the mid-southern United States is one of importance for all true NBA fans as well as for historians of the game. This is way more than X's and O's; it's a look at the economic, political, and social forces that make the NBA work and, by extension, the forces that make free enterprise itself work."--Rick Telander, senior sports columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times and a member of the National Sports Media Association Hall of Fame

About the Author

Lukasz Muniowski is an assistant professor at Szczecin University in Poland. He is the author of four books on the history of the NBA, including most recently The Sixth Man: A History of the NBA's Best Off the Bench.