The Utah Jazz, with their youth, brings a lot of promise next season but they already experienced a setback earlier this month when second-year guard Dante Exum was injured in an international exhibition. Now, the team is reportedly interested in bringing in Miami Heat's Mario Chalmers.
Exum, who is playing for Australia, tore his ACL while doing a jump stop move in their exhibition game against Slovenia.
The absence of the 20-year-old is a big loss to Utah since he is one of their main players and is a combo guard.
But the Jazz are trying to address that as they are rumored to be looking for a trade to acquire Chalmers from the Heat who are reportedly putting the veteran in the market together with center Chris Andersen to free up some cap space.
Chalmers is a proven veteran who has always been an efficient and reliable player since coming to the league in 2008.
The 29-year-old player has a wealthy playoff experience and is a part of the Heat team that went to the NBA Finals for four consecutive seasons winning two championships.
Unfortunately they were unable to make it to the playoffs last season and have struggled trying to adjust after the departure of LeBron James.
Chalmers played in 80 games (37 starts) last season; he averaged a career-best in scoring 10.2 points and also tallied 2.6 rebounds, 3.8 assists, and 1.5 steals per outing.
But he lost the starting job to Slovenian point guard Goran Dragić who was acquired via trade from the Phoenix Suns.
Having Dragić and a young point guard in Shabazz Napier, it is likely that the Heat will no longer play Chalmers as much as before if he stays with the team as the two already provide depth at the point guard position.
That is why a trade is a strong possibility for Chalmers this offseason. If the Jazz lands him, it would be a great move for the team in its campaign to become a contender in a very tough Western Conference.
