The Indiana Pacers have signed a two-year, $20 million deal with former Kings point guard Darren Collison, per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
The Pacers have signed a point guard at last. According to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, former Sacramento Kings point guard Darren Collison to a two-year, $20 million dollar deal.
Free agent guard Darren Collison has agreed in principle to a two-year, $20 million deal with the Indiana Pacers, league sources tell ESPN.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 3, 2017
According to Sam Amick of USA Today, the second year of the deal will only be partially guaranteed.
The Darren Collison deal to Indiana (two years, $20 million), has a partial guarantee in the second year. ESPN first.
— Sam Amick (@sam_amick) July 4, 2017
It was clear that the Pacers needed to sign a point guard if they had any intention of remaining competitive in Paul George’s absence, especially once it became clear that Jeff Teague would not be returning. Point Lance is a delightfully intriguing idea, but wouldn’t be without its fair share of warts.
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Collison is serviceable. He’s immediately the best pure point guard on the roster, but all that really means is being better than Joe Young (who’s thrown some pretty impressive passes at Summer League so far. Don’t sleep on Joey Buckets).
Collison is 29 years old, and he averaged 13.2 points and 4.6 assists per game last season for the Kings. This upcoming season will be his ninth in the NBA.
$10 million per year is a good figure for a point guard that will start, even if I wouldn’t label Collison as “starter quality” without at least slight hesitation. He shot a very good 41.7 percent from 3-point range last season which raised his career average to 38.0 percent, but he shoots fewer than three per game, so you could hardly call him a 3-point bomber.
I would be interested to know if the Pacers communicated with George Hill’s camp at all throughout this process. It’s possible that one side or the other wasn’t interested in a Hill reunion, but Hill will suffer from a dryer-than-expected point guard market wherever he ends up, and the amount of guaranteed money he gets may not be significantly higher than what we’re seeing here.
Next: Jeff Teague, In Memoriam
Hill is objectively better than Collison, but again, there may be more to that story than just “who’s the best guy on the market?”