If the Indiana Pacers didn’t draft Dale Davis in 1991, then there is a chance Roy Hibbert wouldn’t be with the Indiana Pacers today.
Confused? That’s understandable, so let me explain: Davis was drafted in 1991, then traded in 2000 for Jermaine O’Neal. O’Neal, along with Nathan Jawai, were then traded to the Toronto Raptors for a draft pick in 2008.
That pick became Roy Hibbert. It isn’t to say the Pacers couldn’t have come up with other trade packages to arrive at getting Roy Hibbert in 2008, but they still had to have those particular assets in hand to make the trade when they did. That is the series of transactions, or “transaction tree”, that took the Pacers from Davis to Hibbert.
As you can see, a number of roster moves in the past had a butterfly effect on the Pacers for years to come.
Welcome to NBA Chaos Theory.
Inspired by Grantland’s look at some of the oldest transaction trees in MLB, let’s see what led to the current Indiana Pacers roster. A big thank you to Basketball Reference and Real GM for making this task much easier.
While the Davis-O’Neal-Hibbert tree may be the oldest transaction tree on the Pacers, it is far from the most complicated. Just to make sure we’re all on the same page, for a player to be considered a direct part of a transaction tree he can be a product of the same linked sequence of trades.
When you are looking at these transaction trees, feel free to click on the trees to expand them for easier viewing. We’ll start off with the simple ones then dive into the twisted web of the older and more complicated trees.
Next: Draft Picks
Draft Picks
Only Solomon Hill and Paul George got to Indiana via the Pacers’ own draft picks.
Next: Free Agents
The Free Agents
Eight of the players on the Pacers rosters were brought in as free agents in recent years: C.J. Miles, Rodney Stuckey, Chris Copeland, Damjan Rudez, Shayne Whittington, Donald Sloan, C.J. Watson, and David West. Nothing exciting here other than most were signed in 2013 or 2014, with the oldest and lone exception of the group being West, who joined the Pacers during the lock-out in 2011.
Next: Luis Scola
Luis Scola
Here is where the transaction trees really begin, but this one is pretty simple.
Miles Plumlee joined the Pacers in 2012 via the draft while Gerald Green was picked up as a free agent that same summer. A year later the two were bundled together and traded to the Phoenix Suns for Luis Scola, Pacers fans favorite Argentine.
Next: George Hill
George Hill
Remember Erazem Lorbek? No? Me either. But he was a Slovenian player the Pacers drafted in 2005 out of Michigan State. He never played in the NBA yet remained an asset for the Indiana Pacers. Davis Bertans was a Latvian player drafted by Indiana taken in the second round. But Kawhi Leonard was the most important piece and he was drafted in the first round. All three players were packaged together and traded to the San Antonio Spurs for George Hill.
It isn’t a very old transaction tree, but thanks to the power of hindsight many fans ask what might the Pacers be like if they had kept Leonard.
That’s a big what if because there is no guarantee that he develops into the same player as he might have in Indiana as he would have been fighting for minutes with Paul George. Maybe neither player ends up being as good as they are now.
Either way, the only one where a trade asset did develop into more than the Pacers imagined when they made the trade.
Next: Lavoy Allen
Lavoy Allen
The beginning of Lavoy Allen‘s tree dates back to the 2005 draft when the Pacers drafted Danny Granger. Granger was a central figure in the rebuilding of the Indiana Pacers after the brawl in 2004, but injuries in 2011 rolled over into the next few season and made him less valuable to the Pacers as they tried to gear up for a deep playoff run in 2014.
Granger was sent to the Philadelphia 76ers for Evan Turner and Allen before the trade deadline in February. Turner would have mixed results and would be allowed to walk after the season, but the Pacers have held on to Allen and he’s played 22 minutes a game so far this season thanks to all the injuries the Pacers have been dealing with.
But here is where things start to get very, very, messy.
Next: Ian Mahinmi
Ian Mahinmi
This may be the Ian Mahinmi tree, but he is far from the most important figure. Who connects this entire mess? Troy Murphy.
Let’s start from the beginning…
On June 30, 1999, the Indiana Pacers traded their 2001 first-round pick (along with Vonteego Cummings) to the Golden State Warriors for Jeff Foster. Foster was a lifelong Pacer until 1999, but that wasn’t the last time we heard from Troy Murphy. He played with the Warriors until 2007 when Golden State traded Murphy, Ike Diogu, Mike Dunleavy, Jr and Keith McLeod to the Pacers for Al Harrington, Stephen Jackson, Sarunas Jasikevicius and Josh Powell (Powell was acquired along with Darrell Armstrong, Rawle Marshall in a trade for Anthony Johnson).
We’ll explore the Al Harrington branch here in a second, but let’s keep on the Murphy line for now.
Murphy was barely around a year before he was part of a four-team trade with the New Jersey Nets, Houston Rockets, and New Orleans Hornets that landed Darren Collison and James Posey in Indiana. Posey soon retired, but the Troy Murphy line would not die. Collison and Dahntay Jones were shipped to the Dallas Mavericks for Ian Mahinmi, where the line currently ends.
So long story short, there is no Mahinmi if the Pacers didn’t trade for Jeff Foster in 1999. Also, there is no Mahinmi if the Pacers never trade Al Harrington for Stephen Jackson in 2004.
Let’s start the way-back machine again…
On July 15, 2004, the Pacers and Atlanta Hawks swapped Harrington for Jackson. But Harrington ended up back with the Pacers on August 22, 2006, when John Edwards and Harrington were traded for a 2007 first-round draft pick that became Acie Law. Eventually, both Harrington and Jackson were packaged together with Jasikevicius and Powell in the trade for Collison and Posey, and that eventually leads up down to Ian Mahinmi once again.
We also have a now expired branch of this tree that should be mentioned. The Diogu-Dunleavy-McLeod led to Diogu and Dunleavy being packed in a trade along with Jerryd Bayless for Jarrett Jack, Josh McRoberts, and Brandon Rush from the Golden State Warriors in 2008. Rush was later traded for Louis Amundson (again, from the Warriors) in 2011. The branch ends with Amundson becoming a free agent in 2012.
Directly speaking, it took — at some point, in one way or another — Murphy, Jones, Collison, Harrington, Jackson, Jasikevicius, Powell, Armstrong, Johnson to get to Ian Mahinmi. But in all 23 players are involved as we get to Mahinmi through a total of nine trades, five draft picks, and three free agents to get to the current roster link.
Yeah, that’s a bit of a trip, but it is a perfect example of how pieces over time get traded along into different assets.
Next: Roy Hibbert
Roy Hibbert
The Roy Hibbert transaction free is by far the oldest, going back to Dale Davis being drafted in 1991. It is much less complicated than Mahinmi’s tree but does go through three generations of Pacers players. Dale Davis is drafted in 1991 and plays with the Pacers until 2000 when he’s traded for Jermaine O’Neal and Joe Kleine from the Portland Trail Blazers. O’Neal sticks around until 2008 when the Pacers package him with Nathan Jawai and sent them to the Toronto Raptors for a group of players including Marceo Baston, T.J. Ford, Rasho Nesterovic and most important, Roy Hibbert.
Next: Many Moves, One Team
NBA rosters are never as simple as drafting and free agency. There are dozens and dozens of moving parts involved to put together a basketball team.
Eleven of the current 16 players on Indiana’s roster joined the Pacers in free agency or by being drafted. But for Indiana to get the other five, including starters Roy Hibbert and George Hill, it took a number of transactions over the years to get all the parts needed to acquire them.
Here are all the transaction trees of the current Pacers roster, or click the image below to take a closer look.