Eric Hasseltine | Memphis Grizzlies Radio PxP Announcer

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Subscribe to NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast. Eric Hasseltine is the longtime radio voice of the Memphis Grizzlies. Even as he joins us, he and I have already had a conversation. He's been turning down radio interviews.

This is not something that he can talk about as a team employee, but also because it's an ongoing police investigation. And so I already assured Eric we would stick primarily to basketball, just so you all know. This is why Eric is coming on the show. Thank you, Eric.

He said he trusts me and I appreciate that. But this is, I would say, some adversity for the Grizzlies. They've dropped three in a row. They've fallen back into a tie with Sacramento in the Western Conference standings. So, Eric, what is going on with the team after this loss in L.A.? Where are they right now? You know, I said this on our broadcast tonight.

They are struggling on the road. There's just no two ways about it. It started back with that incident that everybody saw with the Shannon Sharpe game. But it really coincides with Steven Adams getting injured in their next road game in Phoenix in January, and he hasn't been back since.

He just brings so much interior toughness and, you know, this guy setting a screen is like a building setting a screen. So it opens things up on the offensive end, and his pick-and-roll defense has been terrific. So losing him was huge, and they're 1-11 on the road since that trip. They had won 11 straight games going into that trip and were really a threat to try to overtake Denver at the top. And they had a couple games remaining with the Nuggets, and they really felt like, okay, if we do this and play the basketball we're playing right now, they could potentially challenge for that No. 1 seed.

Well, it's obviously gone the opposite way. They're not going to catch Denver. They're pretty much a lock for the 1 seed, and now the Kings, after tonight's loss, have caught them for the 2 seed. Now, they still have a cushion between, you know, 6 and 5 and even 4.

But the Suns, obviously, with the addition of Kevin Durant, are now threatening to move up that ladder. The problems basically have been the fourth quarter of this team for a couple of years, I think, was 31-0, when they had a double-digit lead in the second half, and they're 7-5 the last 12 times that's happened, and just things that hadn't really happened to them before. I don't know if it's getting a little too comfortable, a little too complacent, and Taylor Jenkins has alluded to it in my conversations with them that they are a known commodity. Whether that's for the good or for the bad, and I think you would agree with me, they've rubbed some fans the wrong way around the country for different antics. That's part of young and being a little on the arrogant side and also very good. If they weren't any good, no one would care. So, they're good.

People get flustered that they like to talk a little bit, and they have guys that get after you. The playoff series didn't necessarily always do the best thing for their image in terms of what happened with one of our guys and Gary Payton III. They're getting everybody's best. They're a benchmark win for young teams that are not playoff teams. They look at it as a stepping stone for teams that are fighting in the playoffs. They get a win against a team that's near the top.

That's one that maybe the field doesn't get. So, they've got to find that next gear that comes with maturation and a little bit more experience. As you and I have discussed, they hit the ground running.

They're ahead of their targeted schedule. We, around the team, really felt like next year would be the year they made the big push forward. They had the playoff series with Utah right after the pandemic year, and then the next year they're the number two seed.

That usually doesn't happen that way usually. Denver kind of did it, but they missed the playoffs for four years in a row. The Grizzlies never missed the postseason. They went to the bubble and lost in the play-in game with Portland when Jaron Jackson Jr. injured his knee in the game in the bubble. They thought if that hadn't happened and Thias Jones had been healthy, they probably would have been in a playoff series then as well.

Injuries kind of derailed that rookie season for Ja Morant and that crew. Then the next year you make the playoffs, you play Utah, you find out you probably need to condense the roster. Then last year, as I've told people, I truly believe, and it was a tremendous defensive play by Klay Thompson, in the final play of game one. If Ja Morant makes the layup in game one, the Grizzlies are probably at the Western Conference Finals. They've got game seven on their home floor, and they had just beaten the Warriors by 40 in game five. Now, the problem was they couldn't beat them in Oakland. Now, with that said, I also respect the heck out of Golden State's experience, and in a game seven, experience usually wins out. But they were playing so well at home, but that's what championship teams do. They make plays down the stretch and the Warriors did that and won the series.

There's no hindsight or they got this or they got that. The Warriors beat them straight up. They came back from deficits in game four, an eight-point deficit late, and won that game. Then in game six, they just pulled away late because they knew how to make winning plays. So you kind of looked at that as the learning curve. Then this year, everybody said, well, maybe a step back because you lose some veterans with DeAnthony Melton going to Philly and Kyle Anderson going to Minnesota, guys that have been there and you're going to replace them with younger guys in the rotation that might hurt a little bit, and they come out and just are playing terrific basketball all the way until mid-January.

Now it's kind of falling off. This is the first time during the Taylor Jenkins era that they've really had a prolonged struggle. It's a struggle on the road and it's a struggle in the fourth quarter. It's really something I can't even explain other than that the ball doesn't move as well in the fourth as it does earlier in the game for whatever reason, whether they're trying to work the clock deeper into the possession. But they are one of the best first-quarter and third-quarter scoring teams. In the fourth, they're dead last in the NBA in scoring. The players aren't changing. They're not going into the locker room and bringing out new guys.

They're the same guys. So it's just something about the fourth quarter and tonight again against the Lakers. The Lakers made winning plays and the Grizzlies didn't.

Now they find themselves tied for second in the West. Eric Hasseltine is joining us from LA. He's the longtime radio play-by-play voice of the Memphis Grizzlies who have dropped three straight, including tonight to the Lakers. And it was a 17-4 run in the fourth quarter as I was listening to Eric, in fact, eight points in a row for the Lakers that grabbed the lead for them.

Eventually it's after hours with Amy Lawrence, CBS Sports Radio, jives away from the team for an undetermined period of time. What are they missing when he is not on the court? A run stopper.

A guy that you have to focus multiple defenders on. The ability to elevate, draw contact, get foul shots. Tonight they were hoping that Desmond Bain played terrific in the game Sunday against the Clippers. Tonight was just one of those nights that sometimes shooters have. He got good looks and they just rattled in and out. They didn't go. He didn't make a three.

It was 0 for 5. Jaron Jackson Jr. is becoming more of a guy that can get you that basket when you need it, but it's not a role he's been really accustomed to until this season. And Ja's kind of been that leader for them. And when you can play Ja and tie us together, that's huge. And now if you can play Ja and tie us together and have Steven Adams, now you got something. Now you got the ability to handle the ball against pressure.

Now when teams are trying to ramp up their defense, you can move it quicker. You've got one of the steadiest hands the league has seen. Tyus Jones has set the record in a single season for assist to turnover ratio in two years. He was 6.97 I think two years ago and 7.04 last year, which is just insane. And Sunday against the Clippers, he had double-digit assists and zero turnovers. That gives you the opportunity to put two playmakers on the floor if you want to take one of those guys out and leave Ja out there, then you bring Desmond Bain who can facilitate. So he just draws so much attention because of his abilities to put the ball in the basket and to really get going. I mean, the kid's amazing in terms of when he drives into the paint, you watch him elevate. And there are seven-footers that have no chance of blocking the shot.

And for a guy that's 6'1", 6'2", they list him at 6'2", closer to 6'3", the elevation is just special. And it's a loss. And the guys are all very tight. So they have his back and everybody's a little concerned about what he's going through. And so that's probably weighing on their minds. And on top of that, they want to be there to support them, but they've got basketball to play.

And that's kind of been their mentality. Then the next man up that they've kind of thrived with the last couple years with the injuries and now losing Brandon Clark for the season to a ruptured Achilles in the Denver game. And, you know, jaw out of the lineup and Steven Adams out of the lineup.

Your next men up are guys that don't have a lot of experience and some nights it's showing. Steven Adams, of course, being a big body in the middle, not just about the defense, but you think about what Anthony Davis did tonight. They're missing that big presence who at least can take up space, but also can get rebounds if nothing else. Well, he can box out two guys at a time and they were one of the top rebounding teams last year. They were the number one rebounding team and they were one of the top rebounding teams all year long since he's been out. They've been getting they've been getting hurt and hurt on the glass. It wasn't it was prevalent tonight, but not like it was against the Clippers.

But you think about it this way. If he sets the screen and rolls, if you don't if you don't follow him, that seven footer is going to finish at the rim. And he's got more offensive skill than people realize, and they finally got him to believe that he can really help the team by scoring as well. Where before, because he's played with some of the best scores and all around players in the game when he was with Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, and then, you know, spent time with Chris Paul and guys that, you know, you're going like, okay, you played with Paul George. He's just been there to defend and rebound.

Well, now he's knowing that John Morant really liked it when he was scoring double figures because it's it's a system that opened things up for him. So he was playing with a little bit more confidence. And then, like you said, on the defensive end, as we said on our broadcast tonight, Xavier Tillman has just done everything asked him of this team. But he's still a six foot eight, six foot nine, you know, undersized center. And in the early part of that fourth quarter, Anthony Davis was just trying to steal him out, steal him to the high side, lob it over the top, and as hard as Xavier will play, he's not going to, it's going to be really hard to stop that. And if you put Jaron Jackson Jr. on him one on one, you run the risk of getting in foul trouble, which he did. And now you've got a problem because now you have one of your better offensive players and weak side help shot blockers, a guy leading the league in blocked shots, you know, possibly coming out of the game for an extended amount of time. So Adams just gives you so much more of a presence in the middle that they don't have when he's not there. That it, you know, he may not even get every rebound. He's one of the league's leaders. But there are times where you see him box out two guys and it's just an easy rebound for one of the other guys to come in and swoop in.

So it's a big loss. And, you know, he's been a blast to be around for the last couple of years. There's a reason they gave him a two year extension prior to the season starting. They want him to be around long term and he really fits what they like doing. And, you know, they miss him dearly right now and I think he'll be back sooner rather than later. But it couldn't come soon enough because if you just look at the record and look at the numbers during the stretch, especially on the road, you can see that his presence not being there is felt dramatically. And his leadership as well. You point out the number of places he's played, the time that he's logged in the NBA.

That stable force is also necessary for this young Grizzlies group as they go through adversity. Eric Hasseltine is with us after hours here on CBS Sports Radio. I actually heard you talk about the other Gasol, Mark Gasol, who was walking by your broadcast perch. Yeah, I'm going to have to have words with him.

He didn't say hello. I was a little upset at him. His brother Powell's number is hung in the rafters, an emotional halftime ceremony. There were a ton of A-listers there. For someone like you who loves basketball, how cool was that to be part of? It was special, especially because Powell was part of the first year in Memphis and my first year full-time in the NBA. I mean, I'd spent three years in Sacramento working my way up the ladder, but my first real full-time job was the 0-1-0-2 season when the Grizzlies moved from Vancouver and Powell was a rookie. And told the story of, I remember going to the first open practice and I had heard about him, you know, here's this kid drafted third overall. This was before YouTube and all these things that now we can see a lot more of the European players and what they're capable of. And here's this seven-foot kid and he looked like a kid. And in the first practice, I'm watching him go at some of our guys and I'm like, whoa, this kid's got some, he's got some game.

He's just got to figure out the NBA style. And remember back then, European coaches would kind of hold guys back. They wouldn't give them a ton of minutes because they didn't want to lose them to the NBA right away. They wanted to try to hang on to him for a year or two more.

That all has changed now. But we saw him and he didn't start his first two games and he started every game after that, went to the Rookie of the Year, had a big dunk over Kevin Garnett, which Garnett literally the entire way of his career never forgot and tried to go at Powell every night. But it was a situation where as good a player as he was, and he's a Hall of Fame player, he didn't have somebody to take the pressure off of him in Memphis the way he needed. And it was just allowing, he was going against double and triple teams every night.

Well, fans get frustrated when you pay a guy max money type deal and he's not scoring 25, 30 a night. And it was unfair. And they had an opportunity to kind of break away from it. Their playoff run had kind of come to an end.

They went three straight years, got swept every year. Shane Battier was gone, Lorenzen Wright before all the other things later happened. But he was one of the better perimeter defenders. Eddie Jones was a good perimeter defender. They were all gone and Powell's there and he's kind of like the lone guy.

And you're going, OK, you know, you've got to try to get something for him. And, you know, there are a lot of people that didn't like that trade that felt like the Grizzlies kind of gave up. It didn't get enough in return. But at the time they weren't getting as many offers as people thought. And a lot of the offers kind of stopped coming because they had heard that Powell was, you know, wanting to move on to a different place where he had a chance to win and went big. And it did give them the opportunity to get financial flexibility and get Zach Randolph and then eventually draft a couple guys to help them.

They got his brother Mark in return. And, you know, seeing him thrive there was nice. And in all my dealings with him as a player for the Grizzlies and then as a player for the Lakers and Spurs, there was just never a I never saw him not smiling. And he was always very pleasant with me. And I felt like we had a nice relationship. We'd always catch up. You'd always ask me how my family was doing.

It's just a really good guy. And the Lakers brought him in. And as Kobe said, and they played a tribute there. And that I mean, there were there weren't many dry eyes in the building when Vanessa Bryant did a video tribute, then came out onto the court.

They've had a video of Kobe saying, you know, one day Powell's number needs to be up next to mine because we don't win those two titles without him. I think anybody that saw us knows that. And I can't wait for that night. I'll be there full force.

And obviously he's not. So it was awesome. And, you know, loving this game and loving this league, no matter whether you work for a single team or not, you have to respect the greatness that comes through. And those were great teams. You know, it was hard to watch them just come out and, you know, basically dominate the Grizzlies when you're calling a game because it doesn't make it as fun to do a broadcast when you're down by 25. But you did respect the greatness in the way that they were coached in the way that they played. And, you know, watching a young guy go from a 21 year old rookie that was, you know, a multiple time All-Star for the Grizzlies to a superstar where he, you know, you're like, hey, he's going to be in the Hall of Fame if he keeps on this pace. And, you know, I was happy for him to win two championships, just like I was happy for Mark to win one with Toronto. And guys that have left the Grizzlies and gone on and found success, Jason Williams, James Posey with the Heat.

We'd like to see that happen in Memphis. But when you're around guys on a daily basis, you don't necessarily become their best friends, but you know more about them than just as basketball players and you want the best for them. And this is what was best for Powell. Seeing him now as a father with two young children, he kind of played out his career before he went down that path. He's just an all around good dude. And to see the emotion on his face tonight, that was really special, to say the least.

A black veil lowered during that halftime ceremony and it revealed his number 16, which is directly beside Kobe's numbers in the rafters there. Eric Castle time, the longtime Grizzlies radio voice joining us from Los Angeles. A little bit of adversity, a bumpy road here for the Grizzlies.

We'll see if they can pull out of it before the end of this regular season, which is coming quickly. It is always good to catch up with you. Thank you so much for a couple of minutes. You know I love coming on the after midnight all hours party with Amy Lawrence. It's just my favorite. You know I love teasing you about the name.

No, it's always great to hear from you, my friend. I know what a fan of the league you are and I know that you're fair about it all. Look, it's a time where, yes, the Grizzlies are struggling, but as I said on our broadcast, I still think when they're right and they get healthy, they're a really good team. This may change the path a little bit of the playoff picture, but they're still going to be a really tough outcome at Western Conference.

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