Rumor: Pacers Interest in Jeff Teague Is ‘Very Real’

In the latest from the Indiana Pacers rumors mill, one reporter calls the team’s interest in Jeff Teague “very real.”

We are nearly the NBA trade deadline, so that means the Indiana Pacers rumors mill is of course heating up. We heard last week that Larry Bird reportedly dangled George Hill in an offer to the Atlanta Hawks for Jeff Teague. And it seems as if Indiana is following up on this, as Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders mentioned last night that the Pacers “interest in Jeff Teague is very real.”

The Hawks are reportedly considering blowing up their core since they are having trouble replicating last year’s regular seasons success. They already lost DeMarre Carroll last summer and Al Horford becomes an unrestricted free agent in a few months. So if makes some sense for them to cut bait now on an aging, not-world-beating roster and start preparing for the future.

It isn’t so different from where the Pacers were when they had David West and Roy Hibbert holding player options that would dictate their future.

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But, still, no matter how much “interest” Larry Bird has in Teague, it still remains unclear how he would go about getting him. A George Hill for Teague deal is more or less a wash in individual talent terms. But Hill is two years older and fits better as a player that can make a good team better than one who can make a real difference on a poor team. And especially if the Hawks are blowing things up, what do they need with a 30-year-old combo guard who will be a free agent himself in the summer of 2017?

So Bird would likely have to add more to the deal.

What could that be? Good question. There isn’t much.

Bird could of course add a first-round pick from an upcoming draft. But that seems like too much to offer. The Pacers need young talent themselves, and Teague, like Hill, only has one more year on his contract. So you would be giving up a mid-first-round selection (which the Pacers know first hand can turn into the likes of a Myles Turner, Danny Granger, or Roy Hibbert) for a guy who could leave in 18 months. Teauge, again like Hill, is a hometown products, so Bird could be thinking he would be easier to re-sign than the average NBA players. But that’s still a large risk.

Is there anything else the Pacers have that would interest Atlanta? Not really. It’s possible they have been watching Joe Young closely and love the kid, but that seems unlikely. Even if they do like Young, chances are that one of the other 28 teams in the NBA want Teague just as much as the Pacers and have a better, not-as-tiny, more-versatile prospect to offer than Joe Young.

So if the Pacers best reasonable offer that isn’t going overboard (and including a pick for Teague constitutes as going overboard) is George Hill and Joe Young for Jeff Teague, then you should expect Atlanta to either (a) find a better offer from another team and take it, or (b) just keep Teague, who was an All-Star last season and is shooting a career-high from 3-point range this year, seemingly filling the key hole in what is otherwise a dynamic and at-times-explosive offensive game.