NBA Rumors: Miami Heat Eye Rookies for Dwyane Wade Retirement, Goran Drajic, Mario Chalmers Trade

Sep 01, 2015 07:47 AM EDT

The departure of LeBron James from the Miami Heat left the NBA team at a loss. Soon after the Cleveland Cavaliers star left the team, a number of fans and followers of the Miami Heat crew began to speculate whether or not Dwyane Wade, Goran Drajic and Chris Bosh would follow suit. With multiple rumors stating that other NBA teams have been aggressively pursuing the Miami Heat stars, the future of the team appears to be getting increasingly bleak.

The latest Miami Heat star to face trade rumors is Mario Chalmers. While the Miami Heat have yet to actually confirm or deny the news that Mario Chalmers is definitely up for trade, NBA teams such as the Boston Celtics, Toronto Raptors, Phoenix Suns and Los Angeles Lakers have been reportedly vying for his attention. The holdup though, comes from the Miami Heat themselves as the NBA team continue to look for an offer that will match the financial investments they made on Mario Chalmers.

With the offseason coming to an end and the NBA training camp set to begin soon, the Miami Heat are reportedly aggressively searching for NBA teams to acquire Mario Chalmers in an effort to curb the luxury tax bills they will incur by the end of the year. However, the Miami Heat began to change their tune when the NBA team realized that trading Mario Chalmers would mean diminishing the number of veteran NBA stars in the roster. With the retirement rumors hounding Dwyane Wade and the immense pressure from other NBA teams to acquire Goran Drajic, trading Mario Chalmers might cripple the Miami Heat and cause them to become the laughing stock in the NBA community.

Hence, the Miami Heat are reportedly gauging the capacity of the newly recruited rookies in the team. Bearing in mind that Mario Chalmers offer both skill and experience to the Miami Heat roster, the NBA team intend to guarantee first whether or not the new players could take on the vet's post as effectively and notably in the games. A particular Miami Heat rookie eyed as the potential replacement of Mario Chalmers is Tyler Johnson.

"And with Tyler Johnson also cleared to return from his broken jaw sustained in Summer League (he has been working out in Delray Beach), the Heat is back to full strength a month before training camp," wrote Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald. Apart from Johnson, it appears that Dwyane Wade, Goran Drajic and Chris Bosh could expect support from another Miami Heat rookie: Josh Richardson.

Jackson stated, "The Heat, incidentally, wants to take a long look at Johnson and Josh Richardson in training camp before deciding whether to make a renewed attempt to trade Chalmers." Hence, it could be reasonable to assume that the future of Mario Chalmers depends greatly on the capacity of both Johnson and Richardson to deliver and impress the Miami Heat bosses.