Joe Murphy (NBAE/Getty Images)
Tyreke Evans
The Grizzlies did not beat the Utah Jazz Wednesday, but compared to the beatdown they caught the previous night after a long layover in Atlanta (certainly not the first team to meet that fate), last night’s effort was much better. Utah is better than Atlanta, and the Griz barely fell short of beating them. But that’s not really what matters this morning: today is the NBA trade deadline.
The Grizzlies have already kept Tyreke Evans off the court since last Wednesday’s game at Indiana—an unusually long “don’t get hurt before we can trade you” sabbatical but not an unreasonable one. Reports continue to trickle out that Boston, Philadelphia, and Denver are all interested in Evans but don’t want to part with a first round pick. So what can we expect to see from the Grizzlies between now and 2PM Central, when it’s pencils down for the whole league?
★ There’s a path for the Grizzlies to keep Tyreke, but they shouldn’t settle. The extension Lou Williams signed with the Clippers shows how tight the free agency market will be this summer. The main reason the Griz have been so reluctant to take back additional salary for next year in an Evans deal is that they want to keep the full Mid-Level Exception open for next season, allowing them to sign a player somewhere in that $8M range. Evans came to the Griz with no Bird Rights, meaning Memphis is unable to go over the cap to sign him this summer, but they’d be available again if he signed for a two year deal or the “early Bird rights” would be available after only one more year. (So, for example, a two year deal with a player option after next season.)
All that is to say, if the Grizzlies think Evans will be available at the MLE this summer, keeping him isn’t crazy.
But. All it takes is a team with a better offer and he’s gone for nothing. Or, if he does have to take the MLE, which is certainly possible, there could be a team offering the same salary that he might rather play for. Keeping him at the deadline is by no means a sure way to keep him in free agency. So, assuming talks progress to the point that one of these teams (I think the Sixers and Nuggets seem more likely than the Celtics, and there may be other teams entering the fray today) is actually willing to return a first rounder and/or a second rounder and a good young player (Emmanuel Mudiay from Denver, for example, or Luwawu-Cabarrot from Philly), the Grizzlies should take that deal. They’ll still have the MLE to offer Tyreke this summer no matter what they do.
The Grizzlies have a storied history of letting guys walk for nothing. I’d hate to see that be what happens here, again, but after all this talk about how it’s imperative that they trade Evans, this Williams deal with the Clippers may have changed the thinking a little.
★ Brandan Wright is almost certainly gone if someone offers an asset. Wright has fallen out of the rotation, because the young guys need minutes. The Wright experiment in Memphis was a great idea at the time, but he’s been so hampered by injuries while here that it’s hard to say it’s been anything approaching a success.
The second someone offers a second round pick, or a young player, or a really nice set of encyclopedias, I expect Wright to be on his way out of Memphis. He can add value to another team needing frontcourt depth, and it would clarify the depth chart here—a win-win for the player and the team.
★ My assumption is the Grizzlies would like to do more than two deals. Evans and Wright are the obvious trade bait, but the Griz have other players that might interest playoff teams looking to add depth. What if the right offer comes in for JaMychal Green? Or if someone offers a late second for Jarell Martin? I expect the Griz to pursue those sorts of things, and also to see what it would cost them to move Ben McLemore (though I think they’ll probably be stuck with him, realistically).
All in all, this is an interesting day for the Grizzlies. How they handle the Evans situation will tell us quite a bit about how they think this summer will go, and if they can manage to pull off these other ancillary deals without giving up anything else of value, they’ll be in a much better spot flexibility-wise heading into next season. We can only hope that, unlike the fabled OJ Mayo-to-Indiana trade that was turned in to the league too late to go through, this time, the fax machines are working properly.
