The Indiana Pacers Can Have Enough Cap Space This Summer to Chase a Big Fish

The Indiana Pacers will have to decide the fate of four free agents this summer, and how much cap space they want this offseason.

When free agency rolls around this summer for the NBA, the Indiana Pacers will have several important decisions to make to regarding the the future of the franchise. Though the small-ball experiment didn’t exactly pan out, the team has to figure out what sort of identity they want going forward.

One important factor in this is which of their upcoming free agents they keep and who else they target in free agency.

According to Basketball Insiders, Indiana could have between $7.3 and $30.2 million to work with this off summer based on a salary cap projection (it still isn’t set in stone yet) of around $90 million. (There is a good chance it actually hits $92 million — or more.)

If they have all of that $30 million available, they can sign virtually any free agent available to a max contract. While that sounds great, they are one of about 15 teams in that position, so there are more teams with the ability to hand out massive contracts than there are players deserving of them.

For that reason, the Pacers need to decide what they want to do with their own free agents first before they really start fishing from the NBA-wide free agent pool.

The Pacers have four players on expiring contracts who will enter free agency this Summer: Chase Budinger, Jordan Hill, Solomon Hill, and Ian Mahinmi.

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So far we know they don’t plan to resign Solomon Hill. Earlier this season, they declined a contract option on him for next season that would have paid him just $2.3 million. Nothing that has happened since would make you think Larry Bird has changed his mind about Solomon Hill’s long-term future in Indiana.

We also know that Chase Budinger was reportedly being shopped at the trade deadline, so it seems unlikely they will bring him back. Larry Bird rolled the dice that Budinger could return to his early-career highs — and gave up Damjan Rudez to do so — but he has shown little in a Pacers uniform.

Both Solo and Chase have failed to be the 3 and D threats the Pacers likely hoped they could be. They aren’t bad end-of-the-rotation players, but their ceilings are limited, and the Pacers have plenty of younger wings with more potential at the moment.

Assume they won’t wear a Pacers jersey again after this season.

According to the salary data from Hoops Hype, that clears up $6.4 million for the 2016-17 season.

Where things get a bit trickier is in the front court. Both Jordan Hill and Ian Mahinmi made $4 million this year. Both have exceeded the limited expectations.

Ian Mahinmi went from an so-so backup center to more-than-solid starting center for the Pacers. He works well out of the pick and roll and pairs very well with rookie Myles Turner. Since Myles’ role was expanded around January 17, when Mahinmi is on the court the Pacers have a defensive rating of 91.3 and with Turner a 98.4. That number shoots to 106 for both when they aren’t on the court.

Ian Mahinmi Career Points, Rebounds and Assists per Game | PointAfter

In short, Ian Mahinmi has been fantastic this season, getting better as the year goes along, and can now be credibly called on of the best defensive centers in the NBA.

While there is no guarantee that the Pacers will keep Mahinmi — and the Pacers haven’t said anything about this publicly — the probably want to keep him around and it stands to reason that he would like to return to a team where he is all but guaranteed a starting role going forward.

The complexities of retaining him are a bit arcane, but the Pacers can do so easily without jeopardizing much of their cap room. How it works: He has a cap hold of $7.5 million this offseason, and with his Bird Rights, the Pacers can spend around $23 million of their remaining cap room to sign other players and then go over the cap to re-sign Mahinmi (at any amount, not just $7.5 million per year). That is because they have his Bird Rights. (In case you need a reminder, Bird Rights allow a team to go over the salary cap to sign one of their own players, while there are many intricacies to the rule, that’s the basic idea.)

For Jordan Hill, the question of whether the Pacers will keep him is harder to predict.

While’s he’s been a good producer at times for the Pacers, he isn’t in the same realm of “must retain” status like Mahinmi is (at least in my mind). Jordan Hill’s defense is suspect at best, but he is a good shooter and overall he’s been a positive addition to the Pacers. He has had some nice stretches in games where he goes into the post and scores three buckets in quick order. He is crafty around the hoop, he can hit a jumper, he passes well, and generally seems to get all the team concepts that Frank Vogel is trying to instill.

But he is still just Jordan Hill.

Like Mahinmi, he would have a $7.5 million cap, and if the Pacers re-signed him for that figure, they’d have roughly $15 million left to spend in free agency. Unlike Mahinmi though, the Pacers do not have Bird Rights on Hill.

That’s cutting into their space quite a bit so for the sake of this exercise, let’s assume they don’t sign back Jordan Hill and head into the offseason with around $23 million in cap space.

With that $23 million they would need to address a few team needs created by losing two wing players and a big man.

Let’s throw out any chance of the Indiana Pacers getting LeBron James or Kevin Durant, because there is no chance of that happening. Looking at the available free agents, I don’t think it is out of the question that Indiana could sign a Nicolas Batum (and make it two Frenchmen playing for the Hick from French Lick?). But who knows how much he’ll want, and if the Pacers can afford him while adding some big man depth with Jordan Hill possibly gone. If Batum can demand a max contract, then the Pacers likely couldn’t afford him. Perhaps Chandler Parson could be brought in, but even if the money is there, that doesn’t mean everything else fits.

The same goes for other high-value targets like Al Horford, Mike Conley, DeMar DeRozan (who has a player option), and Hassan Whiteside.

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Whatever the realistic chance of getting any of these guys, the Pacers are in the race.

They will have plenty of cap space to work with even if they do retain Ian Mahinmi. And if they really want to go nuts — renouncing both Jordan Hill and the big Frenchman to put all their eggs in the free agent basket — they can have around $30 million to chase a big fish with a full max contract.