The Indiana Pacers Transaction Trees Get Much Less Complicated
By Ben Gibson
Jeff Teague
Jeff Teague’s tree is full of European players that never played in the NBA, as well as the infamous and often mischaracterized George Hill-Kawhi Leonard trade.
Leonard (or at least the draft pick he would become) was packaged with the draft rights to Erazem Lorbek and Davis Bertrans for George Hill. The Pacers picked the two-time defensive player of the year with the 15th pick of the 2011 draft and were later sent George Hill and the rights to Lorbek and Bertrans.
Of course, they were picking for the Spurs, not themselves, as they had Danny Granger at the time playing small forward.
It is a fun ‘what if?’, but ultimately is mostly misrepresented as some sort of obvious mistake made by the Indiana Pacers. But I digress…
Hill played five seasons with the Pacers, helping them to four playoff appearances (barely missing out on them two seasons ago), and was the Hometown Hero until he was swapped this summer for another hometown hero in the form of Teague.
Teague gives Indiana its first ‘pure’ point guard in ages, but there are still questions about how the team will perform as a whole with his arrival. But he is an All-Star-level point guard who knows how to distribute the ball while still finding ways to score for himself.
Next: Lavoy Allen