8p9s Roundtable: The Pacers lock up Myles Turner for 4 more years
By Ben Gibson
How does this affect the Pacers future plans?
Gibson: Looking towards the future, if Turner gets to an All-Star level, can the Pacers still sign Sabonis and a free agent that could truly turn them into a contender?*
Furr: Can the Pacers sign a difference-making free agent? Sure. That doesn’t happen all that often. Maybe Victor Oladipo and his love of Indiana can act as a recruiting agent that Paul George never could. If Myles Turner becomes a borderline All-Star and Sabonis continues to develop, this team becomes mighty attractive to a lot of free agents. With Bird rights on Sabonis, the Pacers can afford to sign someone next year, then sign Sabonis after.
That all depends on someone wanting to come to Indiana, though. Snagging high tier free agents is not exactly a Pacers tradition, which is why the Sabonis/Turner fit is even more important. If the Pacers are going to win, it’s probably going to have to be with the talent they develop.
Gibson: A lot of that depends on what they do this season. If Indiana is going to snag a top or second-tier free agent, they have to make a run in the playoffs. With LeBron James out of the Eastern Conference and the West loaded, the Pacers might strike gold if they look like their a player away from making the Finals.
I wouldn’t rule out Kevin Pritchard making a move with some of the veteran expiring contracts. Contenders might want a solid starter like Darren Collison and non-contenders might value Collison’s expiring $10M deal.
This signing, unfortunately, makes me question what Thaddeus Young’ future is with the Pacers.
Ethan Krieger: I definitely think there’s still room for the Pacers to build around Oladipo and Turner, keep Sabonis, and add a guy that’s able to get the team to the next level. It’s Indiana, so it’s not going to be a super splashy acquisition, but I’m still holding out that a player like Tobias Harris or Khris Middleton will catch wind of what the Pacers have going on in Indiana and will want to join in.
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Say you snag one of those guys to add to the core, then one of your young guards, Sumner or Holiday, step up to fill the potentially vacant spot at point guard if there’s no cap space left to retain Collison or Joseph. Dipo/Turner/Sabonis combined with the possibility of a Harris/Middleton-type and a rising young guard sounds pretty exciting to me. And as mentioned above, Sabonis doesn’t even necessarily need to be a starter in this scenario if we learn he and Turner really can’t co-exist.
I’m fine paying him a decent chunk of money to anchor the bench and get a double-double every night. He’d still be on the floor plenty to warrant a decent contract, in my opinion.
Gibson: Not to get too far in the weeds on this, but a lot of what the Warriors and other superteams are doing now is a combination of luck and good timing as far as contracts, cap smoothing, etc. Would Indiana be able to build a 2005 Detriot Pistons-like title team once the market gets closer to normalizing in a few years? Is a team like that the template? Is this what Kevin Pritchard is thinking?
Krieger: Hmm, that’s an interesting thought. I mean, I doubt Pritchard specifically has the 2005 Pistons in mind (but who knows), but I like the comparison. Obviously, the team Indiana would wind up with in this scenario isn’t a direct mirror of that Pistons team, but it would be similar in the sense that it’s a team that’s built on hard workers that are all accepting of their roles and do what they need to do to win, bottom line.
Like, clearly Myles Turner is a way bigger outside threat than what Ben Wallace ever even believed was possible for a starting center, but I can see what you’re saying here. It might not necessarily be a team of superstars that ultimately dethrone Golden State, but maybe a team of great players that execute their roles to a T.
I like those comparisons, specifically Victor being a leveled-up Hamilton. If we can get TJ Leaf to bleach his hair, we might be able to pass him off as Darko, though I sure hope his career turns out better. — Ethan Krieger
Gibson: Sabonis and Turner can be the evolved Wallace ‘Brothers’. Oladipo is a leveled-up Rip Hamilton. I don’t know who ends up being Darko, though.
Krieger: I like those comparisons, specifically Victor being a leveled-up Hamilton. If we can get TJ Leaf to bleach his hair, we might be able to pass him off as Darko, though I sure hope his career turns out better.
Gibson: Darko owns a commercial farm in Serbia now. Indiana has plenty of corn fields. We can make this all work.
Furr: That Pistons team is definitely what every team lacking a top 5 guy looks at the end of the day, hoping and crossing fingers that they can replicate that lightning strike. I think — assuming that both Turner and Sabonis develop, and guys like T.J. Leaf/Edmond Sumner/Aaron Holiday are useful players — the Pacers would still be 1 upper echelon signing away.
The team will need a Chauncey Billups. They’ll need some kind of grizzled vet/leader, who also happens to be around an all-star level. I’m not sure what Tobias Harris is/isn’t as far as leadership goes, but the Pacers could absolutely use a player like him, and getting someone with his high-level swiss army like skills could put the team over the hump (if almost everything else goes right along the way)