The Grizzlie Truth

I went into this film with low expectations. How could a 90 minute documentary about a "failed" Canadian NBA team be remotely interesting? Seems all pretty cut & dry.

But I'm so very glad I suspended my pretention and gave it a shot.

I wouldn't look at this as a sports documentary, but a documentary about people that share a mutual love and experience about a sport & sports team.

This film does a fantastic job at illustrating the relationship between people from all walks of life and cultures, sharing a mutually accessible passion. A passion that this film shows has not and cannot be taken away, despite the disheartening and blurry circumstances surrounding the departure of their much-beloved Vancouver Grizzlies.

Despite what I already knew about the demise of the Vancouver Grizzlies, there was so much suspense throughout this film.

Don't go into it expecting a silver bullet, or an answer to the "why".

The lessons woven in throughout this film, the continuity of those lessons in the differing perspectives. The way it's presented to us visually... The filmmaker has really, truly demonstrated their mastery of documentary filmmaking, and sincere, balanced storytelling.

Thanks for the creators and participants of this film for sharing your perspectives, your lessons, and your love in this rollercoaster. You really hit this non-sports fan hard.

The main lesson that hit home for me is that failure really is subjective.

And that Vancouver does deserve another shot at having an NBA team - and it doesn't have to be the Grizzlies.

Following up on her passion project on former Grizzly Bryant "Big Country" Reeves, documentary maker and obsessive Grizzlies supporter Kathleen Jayme takes a fan's look back at why her favorite team was shifted from Vancouver to Memphis.

Jayme certainly shows some moxie and determination, tracking down "villains" like beleaguered ex-exec Stu Jackson and star Steve Francis - the high draft pick who didn't want to play in Canada. One of the best parts of the film is having Francis try to explain exactly why he rejected the city as a younger man - it's a little vague but the word "taxes" does creep into his explanation

Her film also looks at issues such as the horrific exchange rates on the Canadian dollar, Toronto's deeper pockets (on why the Raptors survived) and dwindling fan support after the team struggled year after year.

However one vital part of the story was not touched on. Late in his tenure as NBA Commissioner, David Stern admitted that one of his few regrets on the job was allowing the franchise to move from Vancouver to Tennessee. And while Jayme devotes plenty of time to the passion of manic fans in both cities (including her own), she fails to probe the meatier story of the league's corporate decision to allow moving the franchise - something that's much more difficult in the modern era. Without covering those backroom decisions, the full story is yet to be told.

In one of the ending scenes of this documentary, the director stages a scene where she pushes a stack of papers from her desk in frustration, then says "turns out the answer is a lot more complicated than I thought".

No, it's not. You just showed me an hour-plus film proving that it's not. The answer is: Vancouver lost the Grizzlies due to poor performance, bad draft picks, and financial naivety. The end.

The film is (at minimum) thirty minutes longer than needed, padded with nostalgia. It's best when sticking to the facts. Yes, Grizzlies had a bad GM, and prospective superstars didn't want the burden of salvaging a team with a 30% winning rate. That's a fact bigger than Steve Francis, who undeservingly becomes the scapegoat far too often in this story.

If you didn't already know all of this, you will learn a few things from this film and it's worth a skim. But otherwise it's a film distracted with its own insular bias. Not that it's bad to provide a local narrative and share us the cozy memories of fans, but come on... in the end, numbers talk. The NBA is a business and there's no conspiracy here.

Despite this documentary being from the perspective of a mega-superfan, it was very informative and well worth watching. I particularly liked the airing of the many perspectives (from Stu Jackson, Steve Francis, Michael Heisley, etc) that provide one with a fuller picture of what happened. My one disappointment was the conspicuous absence of anything about the head coach, Brian Winters. Surely his role, including his strengths as well as his weaknesses, needed to be included in this story. Nevertheless, when coupled with the director's first documentary on the Grizzlies, Finding Big Country, which incidentally I liked even better than this one, The Grizzlie Truth (cute title, by the way) helped salve a festering wound I've had ever since the Vancouver abandonment.

Just saw this documentary on TSN.

While the topic was very interesting, having the film maker the central figure made this a tough viewing. This includes regularly outlining how subjects in the film were interviewed (who cares - that's part of the process of making a documentary right?).

The gold standard for sports documentaries is ESPN, including 30-for-30 and The Last Dance currently airing on TSN. Simply riveting!

If you approached this differently, it could have been a very good documentary. Instead, I found it tough to watch in one viewing (fortunately I taped it).

Former Grizzlies GM Stu Jackson also asked a good question: Why now? Not sure we ever got an answer.