Memphis Grizzlies: Mario Chalmers Trade Marked The Turning Point
The turning point of the Memphis Grizzlies’ 2015-16 NBA season may have been the arrival of Mario Chalmers.
When the Memphis Grizzlies started the 2015-16 NBA season with a 3-6 record, it didn’t take long for hands to start flying toward the panic button. With the team’s two best players on the wrong side of 30 and a plethora of wings that provided some shooting, some defense and some scoring, but not all three at once, it felt like it was finally time for the grit-n-grind era to fall off the map.
Mario Chalmers may not have been the sole catalyst behind Memphis’ drastic turnaround, and he may still be despised for the three-pointer he buried against the Memphis Tigers in the 2008 NCAA national championship game that helped the Kansas Jayhawks win in overtime, but ever since the Grizzlies traded for him, things have gone back to normal down on Beale Street.
In a deal with the Miami Heat, Memphis shipped off backup point guard Beno Udrih and the rarely used Jarnell Stokes in exchange for Chalmers and forward James Ennis. By upgrading their secondary backcourt with the edgy play of a two-time NBA champion like Chalmers, they’ve strengthened their depth and help the rest of the team find itself at the same time.
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Again, Chalmers’ arrival hasn’t been the sole cause of the turnaround, but it’s a little eye-opening that the Grizzlies have won eight of their last 11 games with Chalmers on the floor.
In those 11 games for his new NBA team, Chalmers is averaging a career high 11.5 points per game, along with 2.8 assists and 2.4 rebounds. He’s only shooting 39.7 percent from the floor and 32.1 percent from three-point range after cooling off near the tail end of November, but he’s since followed those games up with a couple of double digit outings.
In his third game for the Grizzlies, Chalmers scored a season high 29 points in a big win over the Oklahoma City Thunder, going 6-for-13 from the floor and knocking down 13 of his 15 free throw attempts. He was aggressive, knocked down four of his seven three-pointers and his poise at the foul line helped Memphis close out the big home win in the end.
Speaking of the foul line, it’s worth mentioning that his team-leading 5.7 free throw attempts per game fit right in with the Grizzlies’ grinding-to-a-halt pace.
Memphis is the league’s most efficient free throw shooting team, converting 87.5 percent of its 26.2 attempts per game. At this point in the season, the Grizz have scored 22.6 percent of their points from the foul line, and Chalmers aggression in getting to the line has fit in beautifully.
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He may not be knocking down his own three-pointers at an effective clip, but the spacing he provides has helped open things up for the Memphis offense, which has given Marc Gasol more space to operate from the high post and turned the league’s worst three-point shooting team (25.8 percent before the trade) to a more respectable one from long distance (34.9 percent).
Chalmers has reached double figures in the scoring column in seven of his 11 games for the Grizz thus far, he’s chipped in 1.4 steals per game, and he’s leading the team with a point differential of +4.5. It’s also worth noting that his career high scoring numbers have come in a meager 19.2 minutes per game off the bench.
Eleven games is a small sample size, but Chalmers is taking the insult of being traded away in stride, using it as fuel to his competitive fire and helping the Grizzlies rekindle their own in the process.
It’s not just that Chalmers’ individual numbers have improved either, since his arrival has bolstered the Grizzlies’ defense too. Before he suited up for Memphis for the first time, the Grizz were surrendering 104.5 points per 100 possessions, ranking them as the league’s 21st best defense.
Since Chalmers took the court in Memphis for the first time, the Grizz have improved their defensive rating to 101.8 points per 100 possessions — the 18th best mark in the NBA over that stretch. The defense still has a long way to go to improve, but his arrival has also contributed to the offense’s drastic improvement.
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Pre-Mario Chalmers, the Grizzlies were putting up 93.4 points per 100 possessions, ranking them dead last in offensive efficiency. Since his arrival, that number has skyrocketed to 104.2 points per 100 possessions, the fourth best mark in the NBA over that span.
Obviously that has as much to do with Marc Gasol waking up and Mike Conley coming around as anything else, but the Chalmers trade seems to have provided us with a proper turning point in the Grizzlies’ early 2015-16 campaign. If anything, the arrival of another playmaker and scoring threat off the bench has helped Conley open up his own offense with opposing defenses having to worry about both of them.
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He’s by no means the sole factor in Memphis getting back to its grit-n-grind success, but the experience, defense, toughness and perimeter threat that Mario Chalmers has provided seems to have helped snap this aging team back into its winning ways.