NBA Trade Rumors: Are The Memphis Grizzlies Shopping OJ Mayo?

The San Jose Mercury-News is reporting that Memphis has offered O.J. Mayo for Golden State's Monta Ellis.

The paper is also reporting that the Warriors turned down the deal. Tim Kawakami wrote, "This deal was first offered at the start of the season and possibly is still on the table, in Memphis’ view, and still rejected by the Warriors."

I am sure I wrote that Memphis should not do anything dumb like trade Rudy Gay before the trade deadline. Well, I guess I should have included Mayo as well. I am also surprised that Golden State did not jump at the deal.

I like Ellis, who is currently sitting out because of a sprained knee , but he does not give you anything more than Mayo does for Memphis now. The deal also includes "contract fillers". Translation: that means Golden State's useless players with big contracts will be coming to Memphis.

That is not the way to increase the depth of Memphis' bench. A much better option is the talk about adding San Antonio's Roger Mason to the roster , as reported by Yahoo! Sports, Adrian Wojnarowski.

To finish out the mid-season grades from last time:

Front Office C-: They cut ties with Iverson when I did not think they would admit that they made a mistake.

Bench D: By far the weakness of the team. Darrell Arthur is coming back from an injury that kept him out the entire first half of the season. Arthur coming back will help team depth. But reserve players are either very young or castoffs from other franchises. 

Rookies Incomplete: Sam Young and DeMarre Carroll have shown potential, but we still do not know a lot about either one. It is likely we won't until they get a significant amount of playing time. Second-overall pick Hasheem Thabeet has also gotten limited playing time, but has a long way to go before he is a regular contributor.

Second half projection: It is hard to say which Memphis team will show up in the 2nd half. Will it be the team that beat Cleveland and the Lakers? Or will it be the team that lost to Minnesota? I am guessing that it will be somewhere in the middle. I wrote before the season that the Grizzlies would be just below .500.

They might crack .500, but they will not get much higher and will miss the playoffs by 2-3 games. But that is better than a lot of people thought going into the season.