Wanna talk Grizzlies basketball? No better time than during the game.

Tonight, from courtside, I will be doing a live blog on the Grizzlies-Wizards game. If you’re watching the game — or even if you’re not and just want to keep up with what’s going on — come here to TheMemphisEdge.com and join the fray. Feel free to comment — make it witty, insightful, whatever — and I’ll include your thoughts as I bring you game details and observations from FedExForum.

Game time is 7 p.m., but I’ll get on by about 6:45 p.m. So come join me as we watch the Grizzlies and the Washington Wizards. See ya there.

LAHAINA, Hawaii — From a Memphis viewpoint, there are two distinct ways to look at this game against Georgia Tech, regardless of the outcome.

1) Memphis vs. Thaddeus Young — If Memphis wins, there will be a good bit of glee coming from the Tigers fan base (and privately, a good bit within the program). If Memphis loses, it will be hard to ignore the obvious question: How much different would the outcome have been if Young was in a different jersey.

2) Two top-25 teams trying to establish a pecking order early in the season — If Memphis wins, I think John Calipari and staff will feel very good about their trip here, no matter what happens in the final. Should the Tigers lose, however, the pressure will definitely be on in the consolation game against either Kentucky or UCLA because nobody wants to leave here 1-2. Though games this early in the season certainly are be-all, end-all kind of games, this test should give Memphis a pretty good idea whether that preseason top-15 ranking was justified.
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Here’s an interesting view from a Griz fan:

Dear Coach Fratello:

I don’t care if we win 10 games.

I don’t.

I really don’t.

Just as an observer, never as a player of any magnitude, here is my opinion of how you build an NBA basketball team. You get a combination of some veteran players; players who know the game. You get some young legs, some very talented young legs, and give them two or three years to develop a chemistry, an identity. Every team who has ever won an NBA championship knew who they were. They were not NBA champions, initially. They were a combination of veteran leadership and young legs, albeit young talented legs. They had patient ownership. They had patient coaches who knew that the most important goal was teaching. If, they had the magical combination of youth and veteran leadership, they reached the promised land.
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Dajuan Wagner’s NBA career suffered yet another bump in the road this weekend when the former University of Memphis star agreed to a buyout with the Golden State Warriors. Wagner, who sat out last season after having his colon removed in 2005, was an early training camp favorite of coach Don Nelson. He started six of Golden State’s seven preseason games, twice leading them in scoring. But Wagner, 23, was eventually passed in the rotation by players like Monta Ellis and former Grizzly Anthony Roberson. He only played in two regular season games, scoring four points in a blowout win against Detroit.
The former No. 6 overall pick of Cleveland will be paid handsomely for his release, though. He agreed to a buyout of his two-year contract. His salary of $798,112 this season was fully guaranteed.

Lahaina, Hawaii — I’ll try to blog as much as I can over the next few days to give you a little flavor from the event. It’s really a cool thing because the Maui Invitational really overwhelms the community here, and everywhere you go people are wearing T-shirts from their school. At dinner last night, all our waiter wanted to talk about was basketball.

The trip was pretty uneventful, but definitely long. It was about 12 hours from takeoff in Memphis to touchdown in Maui. And because I’d only gotten about four hours of sleep Thursday night after the Jackson State game, I was really tired when I got here.
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You gotta admit, the Griz are getting more entertaining with each passing game. They played well against Sacramento before losing and were fun to watch against Dallas tonight. Even with Rudy Gay in foul trouble and of no consequence against the Mavs, the rest of the young crew made significant strides, especially in the first half. And Kyle Lowry definitely ratchets up the intensity when he’s in.

In a way, that was the problem tonight. Lowry helped key a strong second quarter, then made only token appearances in the second half. The only way to learn is by playing. The team line (and I don’t know what the team line is, just surmising) may be “well, he made some mistakes when he was in the game in the third quarter.” But they went on and lost anyway. Didn’t have THAT much to do with Lowry.

But overall it was a step forward, even though the loss was by double digits. Keep playing the kids. Keep letting Hakim Warrick develop. Get Lowry in more.

There’s been a little bit of buzz already among Tigers fans about Sports Illustrated’s college hoops preview edition, which does not include Memphis in the NCAA Tournament field.

SI’s Luke Winn, who wrote the preview capsules, e-mailed me last night and said it was an honest mistake, though a regrettable one. He explains and apologizes on his blog:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_blogs/basketball/ncaa/2006/11/memphis-gaffe.html