The Memphis Grizzlies? Gone till November.

It’s to the Memphis Grizzlies’ great credit that the team wasn’t regarded as a laughingstock in NBA circles this year. The team was never widely mocked for fielding 28 players this season, for being swept by an average of 22 points per game in the first round, or for relying so heavily on Vince Carter and Jordan Farmar in the postseason.

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Sure, there were some (enthusiastic, really!) jokes flying around Twitter when that website was alerted to the fact that Lance Stephenson, Tony Allen and Zach Randolph would all now be working on the same team, but beyond that there was nary a diss to be found. There might be plenty of silly GIFs of Lance and Tony floating around – and, in his day, black and white YouTube clips of Zach – but the NBA absolutely loves those three. And the league respects these Grizzlies.

And it has no idea what comes next, in Memphis.

By virtue of a series of “we’re exhausted and we just can’t do this tonight, sorry” regular season blowouts, the team’s point differential ranked alongside that of a team several games below .500 in 2015-16, but Dave Joerger’s crew still managed to top out at 42 wins and once again make the postseason. It was quite the accomplishment for Joerger and his players, especially when considering these Grizz lost a total of 88 games due to injury from Randolph, Allen, and (most damning of all) Marc Gasol and Mike Conley.

The Conley and Gasol injuries – an Achilles strain and mid-foot fracture – were not only season-enders, but rather frightening. Perimeter dashers have made it back from nagging Achilles pain and 7-foot plodders have returned to All-Star form after broken feet, but these are the sorts of injuries that can shift careers. In one strong sense, setbacks like these are in the interim more destructive than hand fractures and quad injuries suffered at the worst possible time – these are setbacks to worry about heading into seasons beyond this one.

Add in the disparate nature of Gasol and Conley’s current contract structures, and you have more and more weight to add onto things.

Gasol, who turned 31 in January, played just 52 games in the first season of a five-year, $110 million deal. He was an All-Star-solid boon when he did work, but the thought of him making just under $25.6 million in 2019-20 (even for his biggest fans) puts a little wrinkle around your dimples.

Then there’s Conley, coming off of his first big contract and about to hit unrestricted free agency. The Grizzlies are in a position to Conley, who will turn 29 in training camp, to a five-year $125 million deal, and they appear keen to. Conley’s game figures to age well, provided the Achilles issues will be past him by fall, but he will be courted by scads of franchises that will see their free agency dreams dashed in what will be many teams’ first year with significant cap space in ages, and the point guard will act as a fallback plan for many.

Or, as things whittle down by the time July hits, the top overall free agent choice. Once Kevin Durant is secured and Dwight Howard dismissed, a great point guard about to enter his prime year (even if the next few seasons might see him dip down incrementally) should be a target. Memphis will have to pony up, using the advantages allowed to them by the small market-minding collective bargaining agreement.

Whether this is a good thing for Memphis is up for 2018 to tell us. Sigh.

If the Grizzlies decide to max out Conley and the point guard decides to stay (after experiencing the first fully unrestricted free agent run of a career that started in 2006), the urge would to bring the whole crew back. To work as they’ve done before – searching for the eighth offseason in a row in its attempts to find someone, anyone, who can act as a consistent threat from behind the arc.

Maintaining the Memphis Quo would involve keeping Zach Randolph, whose $10.3 million expiring contract would look rather nice in the face of a $92 million cap, but someone whose game has to be minded in the mug of a game that isn’t as keen on re-entry passes to low post scorers as it once was.

The right team would have to make the right offer for the left-handed Randolph, and that’s not even considering what the Grizzlies would need to get back in return for the player that scored more points and rebounded more caroms in total that anyone else on Memphis in 2015-16. If Gasol and Conley are going to be making over $43 million combined next season, you’re going to need some win-now guys in return.

Before any of this can take place, even, the Grizzlies will have to figure out what to do with Lance Stephenson.

There’s the basketball end of the thing – Lance did well to act as a wild card in Conley’s absence, his turnover rate dipped by a wide margin and between his time in Los Angeles and Memphis he shot well above his career norms in three-point percentage – and the financial fit. Stephenson has a team option for $9.4 million next year, a workable amount considering his production in 26 games with the Grizzlies this season, and a frightening amount (even with the outsized cap) considering just how far off the rails he can take a team’s chances during just a brief second quarter run.

Bringing the whole crew back, including Allen and Vince Carter’s sensible $4.2 million player option, leaves the Grizzlies just about out of juice. And squeezing the limited 2016 free agent market into affordable shooters with such a top-heavy salary structure will be rough.

And even after that, when you step back: Marc Gasol, Michael Conley, Zach Randoph, Tony Allen, Lance Stephenson, Vince Carter and a returning Brandan Wright? Perhaps some ascension from 26-year old second-year man JaMychal Green? Does that strike fear into the West’s upper tier?

Well, of course it will. These are the Grizzlies, after all. And with Randolph, Allen and Carter coming off the books in 2017, there is room to try it all over again when the cap jumps up another level in the next offseason.

Gasol will be 32 by then, coming off yet another season of deadening work in the high and low post. Conley will be about to hit 30. That’s an attractive twosome to pair alongside, if you’re a free agent, but the free agents in question will have to be better players than these fringe All-Stars if the Grizzlies truly want to once again turn into championship contenders.

This will be one to watch. As the Memphis Grizzlies always are.

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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KDonhoops