Tuesday, July 1, 2008
JaVale McGee is guaranteed $2.4 million, Alexis Ajinca: $2.1 million. Nicolas Batum: $1.8 million, George Hill: $1.7 million.
Mario Chalmers isn’t assured a single cent.
The former Kansas guard, who rode his championship-game heroics out of college and into the NBA Draft one year early, fell past the no-names into the second round and out of a guaranteed contract in last Thursday’s draft. That’s not the way this whole early entry thing is supposed to work.
“There’s absolutely no reason for a guy to leave early to be a second-round pick,” Kansas coach Bill Self said. “I’ve said that all along, and his family would say that. But now that the decision was made, you live with it.”
Mario’s miracle shot pulled Kansas to a national title, left Memphis devastated and pulled him into the national spotlight. But it might have dented Chalmers’ pocketbook.
Chalmers is a long-armed ball of energy with springboards for legs and elite defensive instincts. He was the perfect college two-guard. As a junior, Chalmers shot 51 percent from the field and 47 percent from three-point range. He averaged better than two steals per game in each of his three seasons. Chalmers isn’t short on athleticism and skill.
But he is short. At 6-foot-2, he’s too small to thrive as a shooting guard in the NBA, where he would match up against players 6-foot-5 or taller. To boot, Chalmers didn’t play a lick of point guard at Kansas. With Russell Robinson and Sherron Collins on the roster, Chalmers never ran the show.
Chalmers’ inexperience as a floor general may have compelled the San Antonio Spurs to spend their first-round pick on George Hill, an under-the-radar player from IUPUI. Hill may not have Chalmers’ name recognition, but he has three years of service at point guard. Boston, which could have used the final pick of the first round to make Chalmers its new reserve point guard, opted for Jayhawk expatriate J.R. Giddens.
If Chalmers hadn’t bitten the NBA hook after his junior year, he would have had his senior season to audition at point guard. Junior Sherron Collins would have soaked up some of the minutes at point, but Chalmers would have become the focal point of Kansas’ offense.
Last season, Chalmers competed with Brandon Rush and Darrell Arthur for the ball and only took 19 percent of the Jayhawks’ shots. With Rush and Arthur gone, Chalmers could have claimed scoring opportunities aplenty.
But “The Shot” guaranteed Chalmers would not return to Kansas. He graced the cover of Sports Illustrated and led off TV highlight packages for weeks. Chalmers’ face value inflated while his basketball value hit a plateau. Most mock drafts placed him in the mid-to-late first round, but NBA teams didn’t ask ESPN’s experts for advice come draft night.
“Those mock drafts — those guys know about as much as I do,” Self said. “Anybody can sit around and pretend.”
Self said he thought Chalmers’ agent worked hard in the weeks leading up to the draft to accurately gauge teams’ impressions, but the snub was disappointing. Self also said Chalmers was fortunate to drop into a favorable situation with the Miami Heat.
“I think Mario will latch on with Miami,” Self said. “From what I understand, they’re high on him and feel like he has a real good chance to make their roster.”
Chalmers doesn’t have much competition for a roster spot in Miami. The team’s incumbent starting point guard, Jason Williams, is a veteran in decline. The current backup point guard is Chris Quinn, a fringy third-year pro without a shade of Chalmers’ athleticism.
If the former Jayhawk makes the team, it’s an ‘All’s well that ends well’ scenario. If he doesn’t, it’s the ultimate cautionary tale.
— Edited by Matt Hirschfeld
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