Despite being on a bad eight-game losing streak, the Memphis Grizzlies' decision to fire head coach David Fizdale last month was met with a huge surprise around the NBA. Several players, including LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, expressed their anger at seeing Fizdale lose his job in Memphis and essentially become the fall guy. The 43-year-old had established himself as one of the promising young coaches in the league last season as he led the Grizzlies to the playoffs and played out a hard-fought first-round series against the San Antonio Spurs. There were mitigating factors for the team's bad run before his firing as point guard Mike Conley and Chandler Parsons were out injured. But as well as the losing sequence, it became apparent that Fizdale had a fractious relationship with star player Marc Gasol which played a big role in his departure. General manager Chris Wallace openly admitted that there was "tension" between the pair and Gasol has since admitted that they didn't see "eye-to-eye".Much of the explaining has come from within the franchise but their former head coach has finally had his say on the matter. Coach Fiz appeared on an episode of ESPN's 'The Jump' and stated that it's common for this sort of thing to happen in the league. "That's the league," he said. "I mean, the best player and the coach aren't always going to get along. You know, that's just how it goes sometimes."

The former Miami Heat assistant also said he doesn't take the organization's decision personally and ultimately understands why they chose to relieve him of his duties.

"This is the business we've chosen," Fizdale said. "We were struggling. We had lost eight in a row after having a great start. We were really battling and I was more dug into the film and trying to get our team to win games more than worrying about my job.

"They had to do what they had to do and they felt that they had to do that. I only wish them the best."

Memphis began the campaign 7-5 and had secured wins over the Golden State Warriors and Houston Rockets. 

But those victories came with Conley in the lineup and things went downhill as soon as he suffered an Achilles injury as they're now 2-15 in his absence. 

"Oh, I missed him," Fizdale said jokingly. "Can we just blame Mike Conley on all of this?"

The Tennessee-based franchise has one of the worst records in the west at 9-22 and is increasingly likely to miss out on the playoffs for the first time in seven years.