Quote:
Originally Posted by mavs777
No, from my friend Matt Moore he suggested than Mayo didn't like to play point but Hollins forced it onto him, he is much better at the 2.
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This isn't true at all. It's the exact opposite.
Going into the draft, Mayo tried to market himself as a point. He worked out with Wade and Tim Grover in Chicago and they both believed/hoped that he could play point at the NBA level. Mayo met with Pat Riley on his yacht I think just days before the draft and Riley was close to drafting him to play next to Wade but he was talked into taking Beasley instead.
When Chris Wallace traded for him, Mayo was introduced to Grizz fans as the guy who would be transitioning into the pg position because that is what Mayo and his advisers thought would be best for him long term considering his lack of size at the 2. He is only 6'4, which is decent for a sg but not spectacular and he also has an average wingspan at best. So ideally, they wanted him to be a scoring pg who could take advantage of smaller points guards. That is why he was trying to model his game after Billups at one point. He's worked out with Billups before in the past and apparently Billups is the one who advised him to go to Dallas so I assume he still considers Billups to be a mentor.
In Memphis, he actually volunteered to go play in the Summer League in his THIRD season just to prove to Lionel Hollins that he was capable of playing the point. A guy of Mayo's talent don't just throw away his pride and go play in the Summer League about 2 days before his due to go work out with Team USA unless he really wanted it.
Lionel has publicly blasted him multiple times about not having any point guard abilities and the Gizzlies went so far as to bring in guys like Jamal Tinsley, Allen Iverson, Acie Law...just a bunch of scrubs who aren't even in the league anymore as options at pg because they had no faith in Mayo. Lionel said he hoped Mayo would "prove to himself that he couldn't do it" after he went to SL.
And now we see the same thing happening with Bayless. He is best suited as a backup 1 and 2, but Lionel doesn't trust anyone at pg besides Mike Conley and now today they're working out Mike Bibby. Bayless and Mayo are basically the same type of player and Lionel doesn't like those "combo" guard types so he was never for OJ logging any minutes at the point.