Report: Pacers Want to Trade George Hill for Jeff Teague

The latest Indiana Pacers rumor has Larry Bird offering up George Hill to the Atlanta Hawks for Jeff Teague.

The Indiana Pacers have been playing middling basketball since around the time their hot November ended, and it looks like Larry Bird is willing to shake up the roster.

The Atlanta Hawks are reportedly toying with the idea of blowing up a team they think may have maxed out it’s potential, and according to an ESPN report the Pacers are trying to swoop in and acquire Jeff Teague.

The report, by Brian Windhorst and Kevin Arnovitz, says the Bird offered up George Hill for Teague, who is from Indianapolis, attended Pike High School, and has the local area code 317, plus the Naptown skyline, tattooed on his arm.

"The Hawks have been gauging the market for point guard Teague, who has started 345 games for Atlanta over the past four and a half seasons. Sources say the Indiana Pacers have made inquiries and have dangled guard George Hill as a possible swap. The Magic are also potential suitors for Teague, sources confirmed.Teague’s favorable contract, which will pay him $8 million in 2016-17, coupled with the potential shown by backup Dennis Schroder has rendered the seven-year veteran shoppable."

While the Hawks are down on Teague, he is having a career season in terms of scoring with 19.0 points per 36 minutes along with a career-best 41.2% from 3-point range. Never known as a shooter — the one-time All-Star is 35.1% from deep for his career, including 34.3% last year — that would seemingly be the biggest issue in a Pacers back court that swapped Hill for Teague.

Monta Ellis struggles to hit from long range as well, so having Teague and Monta together alongside Paul George on the perimeter would presumably hurt the offensive spacing, even if Teague’s has positives — younger, more aggressive, better scorer overall, more dynamic playmaker — that arguably make him better, in a vacuum, than George Hill.

Regardless of those concerns and benefits, a straight-up deal of this nature and, thus this Pacers rumor, seems unlikely to transpire. The ESPN report notes an important factor that makes it unlikely the Hawks would be interested in swapping Teague for any package based around George Hill.

"The Hawks won’t deny they’re tackling the difficult exercise of determining whether to forge ahead with the current core or to disassemble the roster in an effort to retool for the future. Sources close to the organization emphasize that if the Hawks become active in the next week, it will not be to “blow it up,” but rather an attempt to exchange their existing players for commensurate, if younger, talent."

While George Hill is not old for this earth, he will turn 30 in May.

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If the Hawks are serious about dumping Teague (and, more critically, Al Horford, who is also rumored to be on the block), they will want young talent who can help create their next core, not an aging, solid-but-unspectacular 29-year-old like George Hill.

It’s possible that the Hawks will commit to this strategy fully and not receive any better offers. Or perhaps Bird is so enamored with Teague that he could throw in a future draft pick, or young (though not super enticing) prospects like Joe Young or Glenn Robinson, III.

More likely, however, is that Bird just made a phone call and had a polite conversation with Atlanta’s front office that will ultimately go nowhere.