What could the Pacers get in return for their first round draft pick?

This is the Grandaddy. No fancy graphic because it’s a three-team deal. Pacers receive: Pick No. 15, Pick No. 20, Pick No. 26, Noah Vonleh, and Evan Turner. Blazers receive: Paul George, Monta Ellis, Pick No. 57. Nets receive: Pick No. 18, Allen Crabbe.

I hope you’ll listen to some reasoning on this one. I know that it sucks to give up Paul George, but there is a lot to this trade to dissect, but if we go one team at a time, it will seem like a win-win-win.

Let’s start with the team that easily accepts right from the start, the Brooklyn Nets. All the Nets have to give up for this trade is their late second round pick, No. 57, in exchange for pick No. 18 and Allen Crabbe. Crabbe is young and can shoot, and everyone in the world knows that the Nets need better draft picks, so they would gladly take the 18th pick. The reason this trade is such a no brainer for the Nets is that they have the cap space to simply take in Allen Crabbe, meaning they don’t have to send any salary back to the Blazers/Pacers to make this trade work. Due to this, they get an exceptional return for their 57th pick, because they are taking bad salary away from the Blazers.

For the Blazers – before we talk about how elated they are to get Paul George, let’s talk about some other roster problems they have. As described in the other Portland trade in this article, they have more picks than roster spots going into next season. They also have some awful contracts on their team between Crabbe, Meyers Leonard and Evan Turner. They would love to get off as many of those contracts as they could. So in this trade, At the expense of all three of their first rounders and young role player Noah Vonleh, they get two of those bad contracts off of their team.

Oh, and they get Paul George. Monta Ellis needs to be included to make the salaries legal in this trade, but what is one year of Monta Ellis to the Blazers if they get off of Turner AND Crabbe AND get Paul George? Not a lot, that’s what.

Finally, for the Pacers, this trade pretty obviously represents the end of the Paul George era, because he would be off the team. But it actually poses a pretty good return for him. His value goes down every single day he is still on the team, as there are less days remaining he doesn’t have control over his next team. Getting three first round picks and Noah Vonleh (an IU alum) would give the Pacers tons of young players to grow with Myles Turner and newly acquired Noah Vonleh, and Evan Turner would be the new primary ball handler on the team. His salary is pretty large, but without PG and Ellis, the Pacers would need that salary to get to the salary floor. This trade could be a perfect return for the Pacers.

(There is one problem with this, and that is that Crabbe can’t be traded to the Nets until July 9 because he signed with them last year as a restricted free agent. That means that this trade would have to be agreed upon before the draft, so the teams could still get who they want with the picks, then on July 9 the trade would become official).