Matthes' Manifesto: Which guards should the Pacers target in trades?

As part of Jonathan Matthes’ offseason manifesto, we look at which guards the Pacers can realistically — and unrealistically — trade for this offseason.

If the Pacers are going to add a secondary scorer to help take the load off of Oladipo, it will most likely come via trade.

The good news is, the Pacers have more than their fair share of assets.

Not only does Indiana posses all of their picks for the foreseeable future, including both this year. Furthermore, Indiana has eight players that are either on the last year of their current contract or currently on unguaranteed deals (Bogdanovic, Collison, Jefferson, Joseph, Poythress, Stephenson, Joe and Thad Young). Indy also has cap space to absorb other player’s contracts.

Who should the Pacers look at?

Key to before: age in 2018-19, Points, FG%/3P%/FT%, either assist/turnover ratio or rebounds, current contract

Goran Dragic, PG, Heat: 32 yrs,17.3, 45/37/80, +2.6 A/T, $37.3M/y

Dragic is a reigning all-star and the leader of a Heat team that feels like it’s already peaked. The Heat was one of the more disciplined and defensively stout in the NBA but got eviscerated by Philadelphia in five quick games, where Miami was outscored by 54 points.

Unless something dramatically changes, the Heat will be a taxpayer next year and there isn’t much relief on the horizon with $48.2M committed to Kelly Onlynyk, James Johnson, Josh Richardson and Dion Waiters; plus another $62.7M dedicated to Tyler Johnson, Hassan Whiteside and Dragic. And the Heat own only seven of their future draft picks over the next seven years (with none this year or in 2021).

It’s going to take a Houdini-level slight of hand to get someone to take Whiteside’s bloated deal (has a player option for $27.1M for 2019-20) off their hands after he dropped a 5.2/6 in the Philly series. The easiest way Miami could gain some financial relief, begin a little reset, and add to their depleted draft pool, is to move Dragic.

He would fit extremely well in Indiana.

Kemba Walker, PG, Hornets: 28 yrs, 22.1, 43/38/86, +3.4 A/T, $12M/1y

This is the most common name linked to the Pacers. Our Jacob Breece wrote a strong defense for how he would work in Indiana.

In short, the Pacers would deploy a similar backcourt rotation to Houston, where the Rockets stagger the minutes between Chris Paul and James Harden. That way they overlap a minimum amount, taking turns controlling the game and avoiding stepping on each other’s toes. And it’s true, Walker is brilliant when he has the ball in his hand.

But there is also where the problem lies.

Walker is only brilliant when he has the ball. Where a player like Dragic or Collison can remain effective off the ball, moving, staying involved in games, Walker is listless both on defense and when the play is rotating away from him.

You could fill an article with hyperlinks to plays where Walker just stands around and does nothing while his team plays 4 on 5. That’s not saying that he can’t change and become more of a team player, but the evidence doesn’t show it.

Another hangup is he might not be all that easy to get for the Pacers. Walker is on the last year of his contract. The Pacers could offer expiring contracts but Walker is on an expiring contract himself; and he only makes $12M so moving him wouldn’t provide much relief to financially-screwed Charlotte.

The Pacers shouldn’t make Turner or Sabonis available for him unless there’s a guarantee that he signs an extension, and even that might be a stretch. Other teams surely have more to offer Charlotte that Indy can, one would think.

Dennis Schroder, PG, Hawks: 25 yrs, 19.4, 44/29/85, +3.5 A/T, $46.5M/3y

Atlanta’s German point guard has already mentioned that he’d like to play for Indiana or Milwaukee.

More from 8 Points, 9 Seconds

Schroder does have his moments. He moves well off the ball, possess a quick first step, and is an adequate defender. He can also light up a scoreboard like he did when he went for 41 against Utah. He also has a reasonable contract for the next three years, so there are the positives.

The downside is that he’s painfully inconsistent. Sure he had the big game against Utah, but he also scored in the teens 30 times. While he posted career high points last year, he also did it with a very high usage rate (30.4) which is slightly higher than Oladipo’s (30.1). There’s no way he’d get to control the ball as much in Indy.

Also all of his shooting percentages fell between 2016-17 and 2017-18, meaning his uptick in production was a result of volume not precision. While acquiring Schroder would be achievable, it’s no guarantee that he would actually be an improvement, or that he’s anything more than a good stats-bad team player.

Pacers’ Pipedreams

OAKLAND, CA – DECEMBER 11: Klay Thompson #11 of the Golden State Warriors shoots over CJ McCollum #3 /

Klay Thompson (SG Warriors: 28 yrs, 20, 49/44/84, 3.8 Rebs, $19M for 1 year) would be perfect. He’d play at small forward in Indiana, but it wouldn’t be that much different because he has the size and basketball acumen to handle it.

His shooting would blend masterfully with Oladipo. It would cost at least an arm and a leg -and since Golden State will be hitting the luxury tax really hard soon- the arm and a leg will have to be cheap.

Even if Indiana was willing to include one of the centers, there’s no guarantee that Golden State would even remotely consider it. It should behoove the Pacers to check on his availability, even if they get the phone quickly hung up in their face.

C.J. McCollum (SG Blazers: 27 yrs, 21.4, 44/40/84, +1.5 A/T, $82.8M for 3 years) would not be perfect. McCollum is like the middle-classed version of Oladipo. Vic is better at everything. McCollum scores well, but things would get hairy in the postseason. New Orleans took Lillard out of the series, and while McCollum scored well, he didn’t compensate by involving his teammates more.

There would be worse players to add to the Pacers backcourt, that’s for sure, but there are better ones as well.

Next: Matthes' Manifesto: Which forwards should the Pacers target?

If you want to go navigate back to the beginning of Matthes’ Manifesto, click here.
To check out how the rest of the NBA affects the Pacers, click here.
To look at Indiana’s realistic targets in the draft, click here.
To see which guards they should target in trades, click here.
To see which forwards they should target in trades, click here.
To see which free agents they should target, click here.
For a modest proposal, click here.

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Matthes’ Manifesto: Which guards should the Pacers target in trades?

By Jonathan Matthes | Jun 19, 2018