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Gasol's big brother, Pau, added more intrigue Monday when asked why Marc had not yet signed a new contract with the Griz or another franchise since the NBA free agency period began July 1.

"He has not signed because the decision has to do a bit with the team," Pau told Spanish publication Marca during an appearance at his Popular Pau Gasol Academy.

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Grizz getting to hoist another championship banner....in the practice gym...for a summer league championship.

This time Orlando!!!

Didn't feel it actually meant enough to watch any of the games, but still a championship of any kind is worth celebrating!










Now onto the as important ... pre-season!!!

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I know this isn't the "right" place for this, but at all the Grizzlies games, they do a salute to military where they honor some local serviceman/woman from the area who serves (and I'm sure most teams do).

However at the Lakers game, they did an WW2/Iwo Jima vet instead named Jimmy Keep (who happens to be returning to Iwo Jima pretty soon, although I'm not sure he's all that excited about it). He's 88. I looked up a story on him in the paper, and like many other WW2 guys, he sounds pretty amazingly brave.

Here he is helping an officer out, and he said he remembers it because he remembers giving the officer an earful: "Because he was crying like a baby, saying he was scarred for life. I said, 'You're getting off this rock. I'll trade places with you.'"




Some other nuggets from a story in Commercial Appeal

"It was a slaughter ...," Keep said of the legendary five-week World War II battle that began Feb. 19, 1945, and claimed the lives of nearly 7,000 Marines. "It was a twenty-four-seven situation of kill or be killed."
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It was on Saipan that Keep manned a 50-caliber machine gun during one of the infamous banzai charges in which Japanese soldiers threw themselves at Marine lines in human-wave assaults. "It was the bloodiest thing you ever saw," he said. "The damn fools wouldn't quit coming."Afterward, a "spit-and-polish" lieutenant walked by and congratulated Keep because his "pile of bodies was bigger" than those of the other Marine defenders. The compliment enraged Keep."I was going to kill that son of a *****. I could still hear them (the Japanese) scream. I could hear myself scream. Something in me snapped."As the assault on Iwo Jima began, Keep and Cirulla were ordered to drive an amphibious tank across the narrow neck of the island below Mount Suribachi to scout the beach on the opposite shore. But an enemy shell disabled the vehicle, forcing the two to dash across the island on foot."Every Japanese soldier ever born was shooting at us," Keep said.Somehow, neither man was hit. From that point on, other Marines called them "rain-walkers" a name suggesting that if they could run through intense enemy fire without getting hit, surely they could walk through rain without getting wet.
"What was so bad about Iwo is that, early on, Marines would fall dead from gunshot wounds, and no one knew where it was coming from," Keep said."Turns out, there were tunnels under there huge tunnels, you could drive a car through them."As recon men, Keep and Cirulla were among those charged with the task of clearing the tunnels. Every other day for about two weeks, they descended into the darkness to flush out the enemy.

The close-quarter fighting was beyond terrifying. Once, when Keep and Cirulla neared a corner in a tunnel, they knew there were many Japanese troops on the other side they could smell them. "I imagine they could smell us, too," Keep said.The two Marines lobbed grenades, ricocheting them off the tunnel walls. The Japanese entire squad of 15 or so men responded by charging at Keep and Cirulla, only to be mowed down.



He's a Zach Randolph fan..."They're not afraid to bust your ass to get to the basket, especially (Zach) Randolph. Randolph's my man."



And Zach calls him Mr. Keep.


----now back to your regularly scheduled Grizzlies thread----

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