Memphis Grizzlies: What’s next for Tyreke Evans?

The 2018 NBA Trade Deadline has come and gone, and Tyreke Evans is still on the Memphis Grizzlies. Let’s examine what it means for Memphis.

The Memphis Grizzlies sat out Tyreke Evans for the four games prior to the 2018 NBA Trade Deadline with the team hoping to move him. The trade deadline came and went, and general manager Chris Wallace did not move Evans, who will be on the roster for the remainder of the season.

The analogy here goes as follows: If there is a flight leaving in five minutes, an airline will lower its prices to nearly zero to get whatever money it can instead of getting nothing. The Grizzlies should have operated like an airline and lowered their price for Evans as the deadline approached.

They did not, keeping their asking price high. As a result, they got nothing for him.

This is truly a disaster for the Memphis Grizzlies. They could have gotten an asset that would help the roster in the future, but instead, they will more than likely lose Evans in unrestricted free agency for nothing this summer. Given how well he has played this season, the Grizz should have gotten whatever they could for him.

The offers were reportedly there. The Washington Wizards reportedly offered two second round picks:

It is understandable why the Grizzlies declined this offer. The Wizards are a good basketball team, and it is likely that both of those picks will be late in the second round. The opportunity to sign Tyreke Evans next summer and trade him with early Bird Rights is probably worth more than two picks in the 50s for Memphis.

However, other, more lucrative offers were reportedly out there for the Grizzlies, including one from the Boston Celtics:

Like the Wizards offer, the second-rounders don’t really offer a ton of value here. They may even be worse picks than the ones from Washington. But Guerschon Yabusele, the 16th pick in the 2016 NBA Draft, does offer value. He is a quality young player with tons of potential.

The Grizzlies should have pounced on this deal, as they could have added a young, cost-controlled player and two second round picks for Evans.

But wait! There was reportedly an offer even better than both of these!

An expiring contract and two seconds should be exactly what Memphis wanted. Two decent second round picks probably in the 45-50 range combined with no future money would’ve been perfect for the future of the franchise. Even if Chris Wallace took the deal including Emmanuel Mudiay, they could have gotten a talented young point guard and a decent second-rounder. Both of these returns are better than trying to keep Evans and trading him in the future.

The only hope for Memphis now is that they re-sign Evans using their mid-level exception next summer and acquire his Early Bird rights. This would allow them to trade him next year, and the acquiring team would have the means to re-sign him, so it would be a win-win.

But that scenario is predicated on Evans re-signing, and surely another team would offer Tyreke the MLE given how he has played this season. Memphis is thus banking on him choosing Memphis over other suitors in the summer to get value out of him.

Next: Biggest winners and losers of the 2018 NBA Trade Deadline

With all of that being said, the Grizzlies still have Tyreke Evans, which looks to be the wrong decision. Maybe they can re-sign him and try to trade him next season, but there is a big change Memphis regrets this decision for years to come.