Miami Heat Are Winners In Mario Chalmers Trade

The Miami Heat were finally able to find a trade partner for Mario Chalmers in the Memphis Grizzlies, and came out as winners in the deal.

The Miami Heat have been shopping point guard Mario Chalmers for a long time, and have finally found a taker. Last week we discussed rumors between the Heat and Memphis Grizzlies, and those rumors came to fruition Tuesday, as the Heat finally found a taker for their experienced guard.

Chalmers will be sent to the Grizzlies, along with small forward James Ennis, in exchange for point guard Beno Udrih, power forward Jarnell Stokes and a second round pick. People will look at this deal and wonder why it is a big deal, as the two teams are essentially exchanges bench pieces that have fallen out of favor.

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But for the Heat, this deal goes beyond on court production and is a win for them.

The biggest thing to come out of this trade for the Heat is the money that they will save. By moving Chalmers’ contract, the Heat will save $2.5 million in player salaries, but will save even more in taxes. Since they fall into the repeater tax penalty, the Heat will actually save about $6 million in luxury taxes according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports.

If the Heat were to waive Udrih and his $2.2 million contract, the Heat would save even more money. At this time, it does not seem like that is the plan for the Heat, as Pat Riley gave praise to Udrih and said the team has plans for Stokes.

While the offcourt motivation is clear, on the court this is also a positive for the Heat. Ennis looked like he had promise as an end of the rotation forward, with with Justise Winslow falling into the Heat’s lap in the 2015 NBA Draft, Ennis became expendable. In his place, the Heat are replacing him with Stokes, someone they could have use for.

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Outside of Hassan Whiteside and Josh McRoberts, the Heat have no other big men on the roster younger than 31 years old. Stokes was a rebounding machine in college at Tennessee, and that continued when he played in the D-League as well, averaging 11.3 per game in 32.1 minutes per game with Iowa last season.

He could carve himself out a role as the Heat are playing Chris Bosh about 32 minutes per game as they do not have a viable backup option.

While Udrih will probably pick up some minutes backing up Goran Dragic, some motivation in dealing Chalmers could have been the play of Tyler Johnson. Johnson has been a pleasant surprise for the Heat off the bench, and has thoroughly outplayed Chalmers across the board.

It will be worthwhile for the Heat to give him some extended run to see if the good start is a fluke, or someone worth making a building block of their bench.

While many people look at this trade and say it won’t push the needle for the Heat much on the court, they are probably right. But this wasn’t a trade made to improve the on-court product, it was made in large part to lower the luxury tax hit, which they succeeded in.

They also picked up a young player in Stokes, and $2.1 million trade exception they can use to absorb another contract in a separate trade if they so choose to.

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This is a solid trade for the Heat, as they moved a player they had no plans for and received some relief and pieces that could help them down the road.