Grizzlies to retire jersey of the 'Grindfather' March 15

Marc Gasol, Zach Randolph and Tony Allen played together for seven seasons on the "Grit n' Grind" Memphis Grizzlies. After a short delay, Allen's jersey will hanging alongside his teammates in March.

Allen made the All-Defensive Team in six of his seven seasons with the Grizzlies, a period where the team made the playoffs every year, reaching the conference finals in 2012-13. Along with Mike Conley, the trio of Gasol, Randolph and Allen was the core of the team, playing a defensive-minded style predicated on toughness during a time when the NBA was embracing the three-point era.

The era was known as "Grit n' Grind" after a 2011 game where Allen shut down the Oklahoma City Thunder's Kevin Durant. Before the first question of his postgame interview, Allen said, "All heart. Grit. Grind." From then on, the Grizzlies' motto was "Grit n' Grind," with Allen the living embodiment of that spirit, known as "The Grindfather."

It's rare that a player who averaged just 8.9 points per game during his time with a team gets his jersey retired. But Allen was a rare kind of player, one whose identity wasn't based on scoring, or any numbers at all, except perhaps steals per game. He was driven by shutting down the other team's best player with physical, suffocating defense. Kobe Bryant called Allen "the best defender I ever faced" and even wrote that on a pair of shoes he gifted to Allen.

Allen's jerseys would have gone up earlier, but the former player was charged for his participation in a $5M medical fraud scam, where 18 former NBA players used fake invoices to get payments from the NBA's Health and Welfare Benefit Plan. Last summer, Allen pleaded guilty to the charges against him and was sentenced to time served, mainly because he returned most of the money before being arrested.

Now that the Grizzlies waited out the results of Allen's criminal case, they're going ahead with retiring his jersey on March 15. He'll be the third Grizzly in team history to be so honored, but Conley is a lock to become the fourth whenever his long career ends.

Memphis fans can finally honor the Grindfather.