By mid-September, summer had already ended, and star players everywhere were posting photos of their workouts on social media.
At this point, everyone was preparing for the new regular season, which was only a month and a half away.
However, while the rest of the league's players were training desperately, ESPN dropped a bombshell.
"Link will be taking all of his Grizzlies teammates and coaches on a week-long trip to Hawaii."
The news surprised everyone. With the new season about to begin, instead of getting straight into training, the Grizzlies were taking the whole team on a "team-building" trip?
What the hell was that supposed to mean!?
The outside world's confusion was entirely within Link's expectations.
After all, they did not know that most of the Grizzlies players had actually been training on their own since August.
While other stars were fishing, attending commercial events, and throwing yacht parties with beautiful women, the Grizzlies players were training.
And now, just as everyone else began posting workout photos on social media, the Grizzlies had already finished their training.
Moreover, everyone on the Grizzlies had an excellent professional attitude.
Therefore, Link believed that the upcoming preseason training camp would be enough to get everyone back into form. There was no need to start camp ahead of schedule.
More than getting everyone back into shape, Link believed it was even more important to forge close bonds among them all.
Not every championship team won in the same way.
You could not say last year's Warriors were similar to the Bulls of that era, nor did anyone think the Mavericks led by Nowitzki had much in common with the Grizzlies of the previous three years.
Every championship team had different leaders and different styles of play.
Yet there was one thing every championship team