Mario Chalmers Just Can't Stop Himself

How do you solve a problem like Mario?

At this moment in NBA history, fans and players and industry deal-makers and talking heads and ABC/Disney figurehead Mickey Mouse all stand united in their foaming love-hate for World Star LeBron James. Last night's Game 2 of the Finals was a clinic in His Greatness—if that clinic was conducting experiments in psychedelics—from the humongous shots that have become so reliable they're almost boring, to the spin-drives through the Spurs' expertly woven defensive knots in the paint. King James capped off his 35-point, 10-rebound game with a selfless, stroke-of-genius pass to Chris Bosh, left open as Tim Duncan abandoned his post to help stop LeBron, for a game-clinching shot from the corner. "He's the most selfless player I've ever played with," Bosh said in praise of the King afterward.

Eric Spoelstra, the man who has call himself LeBron's coach, could only call this kind of visionary play "the theater of the absurd." Almost everything you'll read, hear, or say today about Game 2 will be along the usual lines of, "Love him or hate him …" because this, ladies and gentlemen, is just another episode of the LeBron James Show.

And then there's Mario Chalmers.

Best known for going off-script with unsanctioned, mostly unsuccessful heroics—and taking a lashing for it from uncles James, Wade, and Bosh—Mario Chalmers is that wayward, over-excitable, woefully errant puppy yipping at the King's ankles. He wants to help, but he's just an NBA normal who happens to find himself on the court with the gods. He doesn't have any superpowers. What he does have, however, are elbows. And if necessary, he WILL throw them. Throw them right into the sacred rib of Spurs Holy Trinity member Tony Parker.

Throwing 'bows is, of course, never necessary. This is the NBA, not NHL, and part of the appeal of basketball in this league is its capacity to play out viciously and voraciously without violence. Such a move is a move of last resort, if you're Mario Chalmers driving into Tony Parker, and on replay it looked exactly as desperate, and deliberate, a gesture as it was.

Collapsing into a fetal position on the floor and clutching his side, Tony Parker looked badly hurt, and he milked it for all it was worth, spawning the Spurs' own sequel to the #LeBroning meme, #Parkering. Deftly turning off his mic as he talked it over with Parker, Popovich pulled his star PG from the game, and Jeff Van Gundy recalled Dwayne Wade's knee to the head of Paul George in the previous series. It looked like this would be a decisive factor in the outcome of a game that had, for the most part, been tightly sustained at a low single-digit difference. It wasn't, as it turned out, the decisive factor. Whether it made any significant impact on the final score is debatable, since the Spurs had already shown a reactive-at-best defensive game that culminated in what was decisive: LeBron's brilliant, quick-thinking choice to draw Tim Duncan's defense like a moth to flame, and snap the ball to Bosh for the clutch shot.

If and when we call Mario Chalmers "good," we, or his teammates, mean it the way we say "good" to the ADHD kid who gets through second period without leaving his seat. We mean good behavior.Mario Chalmers is good when he does what he is just simply supposed to do, nothing more, nothing less. He's "good" when he stays on script.

This has become the de facto criterion for evaluating Chalmers precisely because he goes off script so frequently. By now, we've gotten used to seeing him humiliatingly scolded for it by his teammates. WHAT. THE. HELL, CHALMERS?

There's even a Tumblr for People Yelling at Mario Chalmers to catalog his career in Getting Chewed Out, and its archive is robust. If you ever find yourself screaming WHAT THE HELL, CHALMERS? at your TV—and if you have ever watched any Heat game ever, you probably have—it is a delightful reminder that you are not alone.

When he does his job, and only that job, praise for it comes in the form of a probably too-firm pat on the head. Good boy, Chalmers.

In the most love-hated team in the country, alongside what might well be the greatest player the NBA will ever see (*ducks, covers*), in a Finals series between the two Most Serious teams in the league, Mario Chalmers is the ultimate comic relief. He's the fool, who, tragicomically, just cannot stop himself from taking liberties, from throwing that 'bow, from taking that inadvisable-at-best shot or that completely inexplicable, definitely turnover-inducing, pass. What is the opposite of clutch? What's the term for the ability to make unthinkably stupid choices at unspeakably high-stakes moments? There's been no perfect word for that until "Chalmers." And on a team that evokes the ire and rage of defenders and haters alike, he's always good for a laugh.