Monta Ellis and Rodney Stuckey Both Took Less Money to Play for Pacers

Rodney Stuckey is back. The free agent re-signed with the Indiana Pacers for $21 million over three years and is looking forward to continuing the sixth-man role that he slid into midway through his first season wearing blue and gold.

In fact, he was so set on staying in Indiana — to help “build something,” according to his agent — that he turned down better offers from other teams, according to Scott Agness of Vigilant Sports.

Stuckey received serious interest from about four other teams, and could’ve made more money. But he really wanted to stay with the Pacers.
— Scott Agness (@ScottAgness) July 5, 2015

I doubt he left a lot of money on the table.

For a guy with his inconsistent track record, there couldn’t have been a ton more cash out there. But there were reportedly about four other teams trying to sign him, and he stayed with the Pacers, per Agness.

Monta Ellis, too, took less to come to Indiana.

ESPN’s Chris Broussard reported that Ellis passed up an extra $4 million from the Sacramento Kings when he inked a $44 million deal with the Pacers.

Sources: Monta Ellis turned down more $ from Sacramento. Kings offered $48 million over 4 years
— Chris Broussard (@Chris_Broussard) July 2, 2015

The last 18 months have been depressing for Pacers fans.

The team was on top of the world in January 2014. Then, whatever magic elixir they had been drinking wore off and the team unraveled down the stretch. It was midnight for Cinderella. They kept it together enough to make a futile effort against the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals, but the vultures were out to pick at the carcass of their championship hopes. Then their star broke his leg, the team played dull basketball for a full season, and the guy who changed the culture by joining the team in 2011 decided to leave in free agency.

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But the part about changing the culture is a big deal.

David West turned down the Boston Celtics — a franchise that hangs 17 title banners in its arena — to come play for the Pacers. Things like that haven’t happened many times in Pacers history. West was no LeBron or Carmelo or Dwight Howard or even Chris Bosh. But the Pacers were building something that he saw and he wanted to be a part of it, and he passed up a chance to play with three Hall of Famers to come play in a state best known for corn.

A few years later, the franchise still hasn’t achieved its goal of winning a title — or even making a Finals. But a lot has changed. The Pacers aren’t exactly the Spurs, but there seems to be a sentiment in the league that Indiana has a franchise that operates well and can be trusted to act sensibly while always trying to win. They have a process and a way of doing things that now seems different from most of the NBA. In a league where seemingly half the teams are rudderless, unpredictable, and liable to make rash personnel decisions without warning or reason, the Pacers stand out for rarely doing any of those things.

There are the Sacramento Kings. And then there are the Pacers, a team that has essentially had two general managers over the past three decades and doesn’t just up and decide to liquidate its roster every two seasons and fire coaches on a whim.

It’s hard to know what effect comes from something like Larry Bird being a jerk to Roy Hibbert in public. Do players around the league care? Do they notice? Do they think less of the Pacers because that happened? The same goes for David West leaving. Do players see that as a steady veteran bolting from a franchise that is starting to come apart? Or do they just see his departure as simply just another older player chasing a title in his final years?

It’s hard to know, and any further speculation is probably just that.

But we do know that two coveted scorers both wanted to play for this franchise badly enough to turn down millions of dollars. The numbers thrown around in free agency this offseason — or any offseason — make it easy to see $44 million and $48 million as the same number. They are not, and the difference is an amount that most fans won’t earn in a lifetime. So it is significant.

So, however bumpy the ride has been as a once-mighty team has crumbled and is now transitioning to a new era, it should be comforting for fans to know that players — at least two of them — now want to come to Indiana to play. That isn’t something we’ve been able to say often.

Before he left, David West first chose to come to the Hoosier State. Then came Stuckey. And now Monta Ellis has jumped on the bandwagon.

Indianapolis will never be New York or Los Angeles or Miami, but we can no longer say that no free agents want to come play in Indiana. And the people leading the organization probably have more to do with that than corn becoming trendy.

Next: Was Signing Monta Ellis for $44 Million a Good Move?

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