Pacers Trade Deadline: Mr. Pritchard, Tread Lightly
Whenever the NBA Trade Deadline looms Pacers and NBA fans get all hot and heavy, “ohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh,” hopefully Pacers’ President Kevin Pritchard is a little more measured.
Oh Trade Deadline, it’s wonderful to see you again. Like Willy Wonka, you whisk us away to a fantasy land where everything seems possible. But all too often you’re a pipe dream, the gobstoppers aren’t everlasting and that freaky floating-soda-bubble-thing once again spells our doom. Sure, let’s abandon our entire future for this guy who doesn’t make the Pacers all that better, YOLO and such.
This article isn’t about Kemba Walker per se, it’s about all the Kemba Walkers of the world. All those teases that twinkle your eye when they walk by. He’s an All-Star (yep) and hit that one gigantic shot seven years ago, too. He’s a pretty good player who has had just enough accomplishments for us to disregard all common sense.
Do we forget how valuable Darren Collison has been? Collison’s shooting nearly 50% from the field, he’s north of 43% from deep, he can both handle the ball and still allow Victor Oladipo room to flourish. That is a rare gift from a role player. Trading him and TJ Leaf (who’s flashed promising offense) and Al Jefferson for Walker or only of the Walkerish players, would be, at best, a serious miscalculation, in my opinion.
You’ll have heard it said that it’s a star-driven league and you’ve got to acquire stars when you can. It’s the conventional wisdom, that’s for sure. And, I don’t know about you, but I’m sure glad Oklahoma City followed said conventional wisdom when they traded for Paul George.
The Pacers have three things going extremely well for them. One is Victor Oladipo. Two is their style of play: tremendous teamwork paired with great shooting and multiplied a passion tailor-made for the Hoosier heart. Three is their youth.
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If you’re going to acquire a real star like Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo, or San Antonio’s Kawhi Leonard that would be one thing. Acquiring a real difference maker would be perfect. Walker, or DeAndre Jordan, is not in that class. It’s not worth uprooting the foundation you’re building on the change that they might fit in and might play well with Myles Turner and Oladipo.
So You’re not going to find any defense for those types of trades in this article.
However, there are other, more clever, ways that you can capitalize on this trade deadline that the Pacers should consider.
As things stand today. Indiana has 14 players on the roster along with two two-way players in Edmond Sumner (who’s just coming back from injury with the Fort Wayne Mad Ants) and Ben Moore. That means Indiana has a roster spot open.
The Pacers’ core is strong and something (unless an actual superstar becomes available) you should leave untouched. So, take Oladipo, Turner, Domantas Sabonis, Collison, Lance Stephenson, Thad Young, Bojan Bogdanovic and Cory Joseph out of the equation.
If there’s anything the Pacers’ should have learned from the Sabonis-Oladipo experience, it’s more than a little foolish to give up on young players before you actually know what they can be. So Indy should probably hang on to Leaf and Ike Anigbogu and to a lesser extent Alex Poythress and Joe Young.
Glenn Robinson III has still yet to return from his injury, and when he does he’ll be a huge boost to the rotation. So, take Robinson out of the equation.
That leaves one piece that is tradeable: Al Jefferson.
In Turner’s absence, Jefferson has demonstrated that his tank isn’t empty. On top of that, his $10M contract for next season is partially-guaranteed (only $4 million), which might be the biggest asset of all. There are two types of teams that Jefferson might appeal too.
First, there are the playoff teams that don’t have a center on the roster (Milwaukee and Cleveland). Both have rumored interest in DeAndre Jordan. If they don’t have rumored interest, they should. Neither is a real Championship contender if they can’t rebound the ball or stop anyone and while Jefferson has never fooled anyone as a defensive mastermind, the loser of the Jordan sweepstakes will still need to find an available big somewhere.
Second are the teams that are at the bottom and have either given up or want to clear out as much salary as possible to be able to lure big money free agents in the Summer. It is this option that should be the most alluring to Kevin Pritchard and the Pacers. Both the Orlando Magic and Los Angeles Lakers are reported to be looking to shed some contracts for financial flexibility, the exact type of flexibility that Jefferson’s partially-guaranteed contract would provide.
In any trade, the big area the Pacers need to address is their rebounding. This will be especially important if Myles Turner keeps wanting to space the floor and let fly from the top of the key. And while you can never add enough wing players, Indiana must get rebounding help. It just so happens that both Orlando and Los Angeles could have young post-players available for the picking.
In their need to clear out salary: Julius Randle, Jordan Clarkson (the guard who dropped 33 on Indy last Friday) and most interestingly Larry Nance Jr. have been reported available, per Adrian Wojnarowski. Then a player like Nikola Vucevic might be obtainable from Orlando. Since a trade for Vucevic/Jefferson would have to be a straight up one to work out cap-wise, let’s not dwell on it too much further.
The Lakers though offer up options. Nance would be a huge get. Nance hustles, rebounds well (14.5 per 100 possessions) and has played decent off of the bench. He’s still in his mid-20s and would be an inexpensive addition to the ledger ($2.3M next year, with a $3.4M qualifying offer for 2020).
With as inexpensive as Nance is, Indy (remember, the open roster spot) could add in an extra guard like Jordan Clarkson (who’ll cost $12.5M in 2019 and $13.4M in 2020). Clarkson’s just 25 years old and has demonstrated the ability to score off the bench (again, he scored 33 against Indiana).
A trade sending Jefferson to the Lakers for Nance and Clarkson would work salary-wise. For the Pacer, it would give them another wing option to increase the depth and add a rebounder to the post rotation of Turner/Sabonis/Young. For the Lakers, it’s already a lost season, but acquiring Jefferson would allow for them to be able to create the extra cap space needed in the offseason to make their long lusted run at LeBron James and/or Paul George.
Next: Point Guard Mondays: Mark Jackson, the master distributor
A trade like the one I just proposed, would have a legitimate chance of continuing to improve a Pacers team that has already gone toe-to-toe with the best in the east (Celtics, Raptors, and Cavaliers) and come out ahead (4-3, should’ve been 5-2). It would also be a trade that adds proven youth to the roster while preserving long and short-term financial flexibility.
Maybe it’s not the gigantic splash that would lure a wide-eyed fan into a river of chocolate, but it just might be a way to keep the Pacers on the path toward ascension.