Miami Heat could bench Mario Chalmers
Miami Heat guard Mario Chalmers virtually disappeared in the NBA Finals last year, and his standing with the team still isn’t all that great.
With the departure of LeBron James and a new era beginning in Miami, while Chalmers is back with the team, it looks like Mario might be in danger of losing his starting job at point guard.
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The Heat already had Norris Cole on their roster who had a decent year last year and some thought should have been the starter going into this season. They also drafted Shabazz Napier out of Connecticut to compete for minutes running the point in South Beach.
Chalmers clearly has more competition for the starting role than he ever has since he won the job a few years back and now Miami Herald reporter Joseph Goodamn is speculating that Chalmers could very well be benched by the Miami coaching staff in favor of one of the other options.
Goodman had this to say on the situation:
"“Is Mario Chalmers benched?I raise this question based on purely anecdotal evidence, if you even want to call it that.After a long day of practice, in which the team ran over its scheduled stopping time by at least an hour, Chalmers posted this to Instagram:“After the day of negativity I had it’s good to b around some positive energy…” “"
If you follow Mario Chalmers on Instagram you know he has a history of writing cryptic messages about different things, including one he sent out after LeBron James decided to return to Cleveland which he later denied was aimed toward James.
It’s very possible that Chalmers could be reduced to a bench player in the Miami rotation if not no then before the start of the regular season. Norris Cole is a significant upgrade on the defensive end and seems to be progressing at a steady rate.
Napier might need a little while longer to grasp the offense but in the first preseason game for the Heat against the Pelicans he looked like the Shabazz we saw at UConn, knocking down ridiculous step back jumpers and making threes.
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