The art of the rebuild: trade deadline season
By Ryan Eggers
First, let’s categorize the current Pacers roster based on their trade value and future with the team.
Category 1 – (Basically) Untouchables:
Victor Oladipo
Myles Turner*
Lance Stephenson**
*Yes, Myles Turner is untouchable. You don’t throw away your biggest project in a rebuild.
**No, I’m not saying he’s the 3rd best player on this team. But for obvious reasons, the Pacers will not consider any offers for him, nor would they likely get any anyways.
Category 2 – Realistic future pieces of the team, probably not trade chips:
Domantas Sabonis
T.J. Leaf
Glenn Robinson III
Category 3 – Solid tradeable veterans, likely not part of long-term future:
Cory Joseph*
Bojan Bogdanovic*
Thaddeus Young
Darren Collison
Al Jefferson**
*I could see these guys sticking around for a few years.
**Would likely only be tradeable in a case similar to the Kemba trade (salary buffer)
Category 4- Prospects (will likely be irrelevant this deadline season):
Joe Young
Ike Anigbogu
Alex Poythress
Edmond Sumner
Now that we’ve got all of that organized, Pritchard has a few different options for a move to make before Feb. 8. My fear? What’s best for the long-term future of the team and what he (and many Pacers fans) likely wants to accomplish are two different things.
Pritchard has the assets to make a deal that could secure the team a decent playoff spot- something like the Kemba trade (though I doubt they land a name as big as Kemba). Simply put, a deal where the 2017-18 Indiana Pacers improve.
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Sure, this season has been full of excitement and fun. Seeing the team make the playoffs and make a run for a playoff series win would exceed the expectations of any Pacers fan last July. But the 2017-18 Indiana Pacers do not have title aspirations. The 2020-21 Indiana Pacers might. And they need to spend the next 3 to 4 years building a squad that can contend as Turner, Sabonis, Robinson, and Leaf are entering their primes and before Oladipo exits his.
The ultimate rule Pritchard should adhere to if he tries going this route: do NOT trade any of the players in the first two aforementioned categories, unless the return package is a player 25 years old or younger who they can guarantee will be a Pacer for at least the next 4-5 years. Which leads me to the next and best scenario: trading vets for young talent.
Pritchard has to get thrifty. There will be teams that want to make a push post-All-Star-break and could use a guy from Category 3. There will be teams that want to clear out salary cap space for this summer. If a team like the Lakers wants to chase multiple max-contract players, they’ll have to drop Luol Deng.
No team is going to take Luol Deng unless the Lakers slide a little incentive next to him in one of their young pieces. The Pacers missed their opportunity to do this with D’Angelo Russell, but there are plenty of other options and other teams to make such a move with if Pritchard keeps his eyes open.
But, if the Pacers get younger and lose one or more of their veterans, won’t their playoff hopes go down? Yes. It won’t be in the organization’s nature to do this, but if the team wants to be competitive in 2020 and beyond, they have to rack up young guys and lottery picks. It will suck. But having to do it only 1 or 2 years is better than being perpetually stuck in no man’s land, a la the Jim O’Brien era.
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It’s likely that neither of these types of trades will get done by the deadline, though, as the Pacers usually do a lot of talking but not a lot of dealing in February.
It won’t be for lack of trying on Pritchard’s part, but he’s shown that he’s going to be patient on rebuilding moves, and probably isn’t afraid to wait until the summer to get to work if he can’t nab anything enticing before the deadline.
This scenario ends with the current team gelling a bit more, which likely culminates in a first-round playoff exit rather than a lottery pick. Which, for draft purposes, will be a huge bummer. But don’t get me wrong, competing and winning are great things- as long as eyes are kept forward on the future.
The most important part of the 2017-18 season is developing the guys in the first 2 categories, but also ensuring that a core is being built, not patched together.
Next: Who’s to blame for the Pacers recent struggles?
With that, I’ll rest my case. Now that we’re only a month away from the trade deadline, scenarios and rumors will be popping up every day and it’ll be easy to get caught up in the excitement. Enjoy it- it’s part of what makes the NBA so much fun.
But keep this in mind: this rebuild should be a marathon, not a sprint. If the Pacers enter Feb. 9 as a younger, albeit slightly worse team, that might not be so bad. And if they enter Feb. 9 as a better team with limited future prospects, well, that might not be so good.