Indiana Pacers trade deadline primer

Small Forward Trades

This is the easiest position to roll through when thinking about trades since it is hard to imagine one happening.

Trading Bojan Bogdanovic would significantly, and I mean significantly, hurt the Indiana Pacers scoring attack. Bogey can shoot the lights out and score off the dribble, flipping him for an asset would be a stupid idea for the team.

If they could trade him for an obvious upgrade, they already would have. Bojan isn’t going anywhere.

Meanwhile, Doug McDermott basically has neutral trade value, and his shooting is big for the Pacers second unit. He would probably only be moved in a huge trade as salary filler. Something like this would be a reason to trade McDermott (this trade was sent to me by a college friend, and I like it. Thanks, Ben!):

There’s a lot here. The Rockets take on some money but get better, something they really want to do since their title window is now. Bazemore is good, and McDermott’s shooting with James Harden would be insane.

The Hawks turn Taurean Prince, Vince Carter, and some bad money into some better contracts and two draft picks. That’s a positive value for them if they are ready to move on from Prince.

The Pacers would get Eric Gordon to add guard depth and replace Evans, Prince to add youth, and Carter to add wing depth. They would have to give up a 1st round pick and McDermott to do it, but they would improve their team in the immediate.

And Carter represents something that the Pacers could use anyway – wing depth. We will discuss this in a later section, but the Pacers trading a middling asset to add depth behind McDermott and Bojan would make a lot of sense. That’s the only thing I can see happening at the small forward position.