Mario Chalmers to Grizzlies: Latest Trade Details, Comments and Reaction
After eight years and two NBA titles, Mario Chalmers' time with the Miami Heat has ended. The team reportedly dealt the 29-year-old point guard to the Memphis Grizzlies on Tuesday as part of a four-player deal between the two clubs.
The Heat announced Chalmers and James Ennis will be heading to the Grizzlies in exchange for Beno Udrih and Jarnell Stokes.
Once Miami committed $90 million to Goran Dragic this offseason, Chalmers looked to be on shaky ground. The team was well over the luxury tax, and shedding the $4.3 million owed to the point guard will help ease that burden a bit.
Heat coach Erik Spolestra commented on the transaction, per the Heat's Twitter account: "Rio can hold his head high, he will always be remembered as a two-time champ. He will always be welcomed here. We're adding an experienced guard (Beno Udrih) who fits into how we want to play."
Zach Lowe believes Chalmers improves the Grizzlies slightly but won't transform the team:
CBSSports.com's Matt Moore wonders whether fans might be a little slow to warm to Chalmers after he denied the Memphis Tigers a national championship in 2008:
The price to acquire Chalmers wasn't all that significant for Memphis, so in that respect, you can't blame general manager Chris Wallace for pulling the trigger.
Chalmers is an upgrade over Udrih, who is a free agent at the end of the season anyway.
Memphis also has an abundance of players—Zach Randolph, JaMychal Green, Brandan Wright and Jeff Green—capable of playing the 4. Stokes may grow to be a proficient rebounder and inside scorer in the NBA, but that wasn't going to happen in such a crowded frontcourt.
Meanwhile, Chalmers potentially brings some much-needed range to a team that has historically struggled from beyond the arc.
With that said, Kirk Goldsberry provided a great visual representation on Grantland of how Chalmers failed to provide the same value from beyond the arc after LeBron James went to the Cleveland Cavaliers. The trend is also visible when you look at his numbers with and without LeBron, courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com:
| w/ LeBron James | |||||
| 2010-111 | 10.2 | .399 | .359 | .506 | .538 |
| 2011-12 | 12.4 | .448 | .388 | .549 | .578 |
| 2012-13 | 11.6 | .429 | .409 | .545 | .576 |
| 2013-14 | 11.8 | .454 | .385 | .531 | .567 |
| w/o LeBron James | |||||
| 2014-15 | 12.4 | .403 | .294 | .458 | .521 |
| 2015-16 | 9.9 | .313 | .091 | .328 | .437 |
Chalmers can help Memphis, which is off to a slow 3-5 start with all sorts of scoring issues. But he'll have to prove that last year's decline was simply a confluence of bad things happening around him.
He boasts a ton of experience, both in the regular season and postseason. Most importantly, he can be counted on to start in the event Memphis needs someone to fill a void in a pinch, such was the case last year in the playoffs with the injury issues for Mike Conley and Tony Allen.
In terms of a backup point guard, the Grizzlies need production behind Conley, but The Starters' Tas Melas foresees Chalmers and Conley on the court together for stretches:
With regard to the bigger picture, Chalmers still doesn't make the Grizzlies an NBA title contender.
Memphis could potentially defeat one of the Los Angeles Clippers, Oklahoma City Thunder, Golden State Warriors or San Antonio Spurs in a seven-game playoff series, but it would have a hard time maintaining that level of play over an entire postseason.
Until the team decides to fully move on from Randolph, Memphis will be stuck in the same position it has been in over the last few years.
Trading the two-time All-Star wouldn't necessarily need spark a full rebuild for the Grizzlies, but his departure would at least allow the team to change tactically, specifically emphasizing the perimeter game more.
Whereas acquiring Chalmers is a win-now move for Memphis, Miami is taking a more long-term approach.
While getting Chalmers' salary off the books was a major consideration for the Heat, one can also understand why the Heat felt trading him would be a smart basketball decision, given his recent scoring struggles.
"We're excited about the trade," said Head coach Erik Spoelstra, per Manny Navarro of the Miami Herald. "It cleans up a lot of things for us in our backcourt."
Spoelstra cited Josh Richardson and Tyler Johnson specifically as two players whom the staff wants to see play regularly now that Chalmers is gone, per Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
Jason Lieser of the Palm Beach Post also assumes Gerald Green's return to the court is imminent after being hospitalized last week; otherwise, this trade makes less sense right now:
Winderman wondered if the Heat would be done dabbling in the trade market if a Chalmers deal went through, identifying Chris Andersen as the next veteran who could be on the way out.
Having Wade and Chris Bosh ensures Miami will be a playoff contender in the Eastern Conference, but the franchise's shift to the younger generation of stars such as Tyler Johnson, Justise Winslow and Hassan Whiteside should benefit the Heat over the long term.
