The Indiana Pacers are expected to officially trade Roy Hibbert to the Los Angeles Lakers today, according to Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today. And he says it will be a straight salary dump: Indiana will get back only a second-round pick and some cash.
Roy Hibbert to Lakers trade expected to go through today. Lakers plan on sending future second-rounder, cash to Pacers, I've been told.
— Jeff Zillgitt (@JeffZillgitt) July 9, 2015
We have known this trade was coming, but we didn’t know all the details. But if Zillgitt is correct, this is good news for Indiana, even if getting nothing back for a former All-Star may sound strange.
Several days ago, the Pacers and Lakers agreed to the trade in principle that would ship Roy Hibbert to California. The full details were not disclosed — and reportedly not even certain — at the time, but the Lakers were planning to take Hibbert into their open cap space, which means they didn’t actually have to send back anything.
For the Pacers, this was fine: Their goal in unloading Hibbert was to free up salary space, some of which they used to re-sign Rodney Stuckey and some of which is still available for them to use in filling out their roster (presumably signing some semblance of a big man and/or backup point guard).
The Lakers, however, were wooing Brandon Bass, who agreed to a deal with them. But to free up more money to give Bass — or someone else in addition — speculation loomed that the Pacers would be agreeing to take back a player or two. Someone like Ryan Kelly (and his $1.7 million salary) or Robert Sacre (under $1 million) would have been an easy throw in for the Pacers to absorb. Another candidate — Nick Young and the $15 million left on his deal over the next three years — would be much more problematic for Indiana to swallow, particularly since his skill set overlaps with the newly acquired Monta Ellis and retained Stuckey.
But it sounds like Pacers fans have nothing to fear.
Nick Young and his fine-but-not-wanted salary will not be coming to Indiana. Neither will even the unwanted Kelly or Sacre.
Indiana is straight dumping Roy Hibbert for nothing.
And that’s for the best. It’s possible they could have held on longer and tried to get a low-level asset in a trade for Hibbert. But the front office clearly just wants this distraction over with and Hibbert off a team that is trying to transition from a so-called “smash mouth” style of play into a smaller, faster group.
The divorce is now final.