Indiana Pacers Trade Damjan Rudez for Chase Budinger

The Indiana Pacers have traded Damjan Rudez for Minnesota Timberwolves small forward Chase Budinger according to Yahoo Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski.

Budinger averaged 6.8 points and 3 rebounds in 19.2 minutes a game last season in Minnesota. Indiana will be sending away Rudez and his 4.8 points a game, but Damo was beginning to find his 3-point shot towards the end of last season. Rudez ended the season shooting around 40% on the year while Budinger is a career 35.8% 3-point shooter.

“We’re very glad to have Chase,” said Pacers president Larry Bird. “He’s a guy we think will fit in our rotation. He can shoot and drive to the basket, which works with how we want to play. Damjan was a special guy. He was great to have as part of our team. He will be missed by all.”

There is little excitement around the move from Pacers fans thanks to Budingher’s poor play and underwhelming statistics from last season as he’s recovered from a pair of knee injuries. With that in mind, it is worth looking at Zach Harper’s post-season review of Budinger on A Wolf Among Wolves to get a better understanding of what Bird and the Indiana Pacers see in Budinger going forward.

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"Through the first four months of the season, things were not good for Budinger, once again. He played in 46 games (MOTHER OF PEK the Wolves were 6-40 in those games) and averaged 14.6 minutes, 4.3 points, and 2.4 rebounds. He shot 37.2% from the field and 33.8% from 3-point range. His presence equaled annoyance to a lot of fans and it was hard to see him out there. I don’t know that a lot of fans disliked Chase, but from my interaction it seemed like a lot of fans were sick of watching him try to play.But then something cool happened. Shortly after the All-Star break, things started falling into place for Budinger. The strength in Budinger’s knee seemed to finally comeback after he wondered at the end of the 2013-14 season if it ever would. Remember that his meniscectomy procedure in October of 2013 came after surgery in November of 2012 to repair a lateral meniscus tear. The odds of returning to form after the lateral tear haven’t been historically great and added the removal of his meniscus a year later really made those odds of returning to form plummet.In his final 21 games of this season, Budinger started to have his bounce once again. His legs looked like they were returning and so did his jumper. During March and April, he averaged 12.3 points, and 4.5 rebounds in 29.3 minutes. He also made 49.7% of his shots and hit 39.1% of his 3-pointers. This was the Budinger the Wolves acquired back in the summer of 2012. This was the guy they re-signed in the summer of 2013."

Budinger’s injury history is certainly of concern but if those last 21 games were any indication there is hope him being a significant improvement over Rudez. Rudez contributed in his limited minutes and was improving but I don’t know if anyone expects him to become more that a solid rotation player. Budinger takes up $5 million in cap space compared to Rudez’s $1.1 million, but the Pacers had room to work with after parting ways with both David West and Roy Hibbert this offseason.

If nothing else this is another move made by Bird to prove he’s serious about Indiana being a smaller and faster team in the 2015-16 season.

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