It was about a week after the Grizzlies had fired David Fizdale and he had just arrived at his Los Angeles hotel early last December after a cross-country trek. The past few days had been draining. He had known an end was near in Memphis on his drive back after his 101st and last game as the team’s coach.



A visceral but ominous feeling had built up inside him. The Grizzlies were struggling. An irreparable rift had built between him and Marc Gasol, his star. Fizdale didn’t know if he was about to be let go, but he knew something bad was coming. The next day, it was clear.



Fizdale was wrecked. His first chance as a head coach had ended in ignominy. He had achieved his life’s goal at 43 and found failure. Worse yet, he missed it all, the players and even the drudgeries of coaching still renting space in his head and taking a hold over his emotions.



They were no longer his, though. But when he stepped into the lobby of his hotel he saw it...