What Should the Indiana Pacers do with their fringe players?
By Tony East
Rakeem Christmas: How soon until he is gone?
The third Pacers second round pick still hanging around. Picked just a few picks before Joe Young, Christmas went on a wild journey in the summer of 2015 before ending up on the Pacers. He and Young signed almost identical contracts with similar total guaranteed dollars.
The difference is that Christmas’s full guarantee date this for 2017-2018 isn’t until August first, as opposed to Joe Youngs date of July 1. On July first, $50,000 of the Christmas contract becomes guaranteed. Christmas has played little for the Pacers, so it is more likely than not he gets waived all together before July first, but if the Pacers want to wait and see if they are in rebuild mode, they may hold on the Christmas for a very small fee for the month of July.
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There is almost no chance Christmas is on the Pacers next year. There are a lot of centers available because they market is so saturated, so replacing Christmas with a better player for around the same money would be easy. Barring an insane summer league performance or Rakeem somehow growing 3-4 inches, you can probably say goodbye to Rakeem Christmas in a Pacers uniform.