Austin Rivers tenure with the Suns is over. It was a magnificent two day marriage. Per Woj, both “sides concluded Rivers fits better on an older team that’s pursuing [the] playoffs.” Sound like anyone you know?

After the “new phone, which Brooks is this?” trade debacle that will forever be the gift that keeps on giving, it’s only fitting Rivers maybe ends up in Memphis. While Rivers was not in the original trade, he became a part of what got Ariza to Washington. He also fits a need for the Grizzlies. The signing has reportedly happened, so the universe has come full circle. But it also reportedly is not happening, so yay chaos!

The Theory of Rivers

Rivers has not made much of an impact in his career. This guy was once upon a time viewed as a better high school recruit than Anthony Davis. Their careers have gone in, uh, different directions.

Entering the season, Austin Rivers had a career Wins Added total of -4.75 ranking 3,245th of 3,259 players in my PIPM database going back to 1973-74. He has 0.07 Wins Added so far this season.

— Jacob Goldstein (@JacobEGoldstein) December 18, 2018

But there is ability there. Something made him the top high school recruit in the country. Here are his career offensive grades, excluding his rookie season, according to our grading database.

For a team devoid of any none Mike Conley offense, Memphis can use Rivers’ skillset. The Grizzlies got a taste of life without Conley last night against the Warriors. In that game Memphis posted a 93.6 offensive rating. For the season, with Conley on the court the Grizzlies are posting a 105.8 offensive rating. That number plummets to 96.5 when Conley sits.

Memphis needs more shot creation and playmaking. In fact, according to Jacob Goldstein [editor’s note: hi!], the Grizzlies present the archetype landing spot for Rivers.

Ideally I think it's a 6th man type on a bench with another ball handler to ease the creation burden, but that can be a hard pairing to find.

— Jacob Goldstein (@JacobEGoldstein) December 18, 2018

In Memphis, Rivers can come off the bench to provide more firepower. He can also share the backcourt with Shelvin Mack so he doesn’t have to be the primary ball handler.

What Can He Bring?

This whole thing is about scoring. Rivers has never been the most efficient scorer, with a career eFG% of 47.9 percent and a career true shooting of 50.5 percent. He’s also arguably spent way too much of his career miscast as a point guard. To date, he has spent 30 percent of his career minutes as a point guard.

Last season Rivers was a decent enough catch and shoot shooter. He shot 36.3 percent on 2.4 catch and shoot threes per game. His eFG percent on all catch and shoot shots last year was 54.1 percent. He was off to a better start this season with the Wizard, albeit on fewer shots. He was hitting 38.8 percent of his catch and shoot threes on 1.7 attempts per game, for an eFG% of 58.2 percent.

Where Rivers can really help is late in the clock of a non-successful possession. On tightly contested field goals last season, Rivers shot 51.1 percent on 3.9 attempts per game. That is better than Bradley Beal’s 49 percent last year and so far this year, on the same type of shots.

Last year with the Clippers Rivers shot 38 percent on 3.1 pull up threes per game, and posted a 51.9 eFG peercent on all pull up shots. The 2016-17 season was similar, with Rivers hitting 37.7 percent of 1.4 pull up threes per game, with an overall pull up eFG percent of 50.3.

This could be a very cheap mid-season add for the Grizzlies with no downside. It hits a need of bench scoring, and brings the most ridiculous instance of a trade falling apart at the 11th hour to a wonderfully gift wrapped conclusion.