How the Pacers can re-sign Wesley Matthews

Wesley Matthews has played well for the Indiana Pacers. That has many asking if the team can bring him back next year.

Wesley Matthews has fit on the Indiana Pacers about as well as one could reasonably expect a midseason addition to fit. He’s added a three-point dimension to the team, his defense has been awesome, and he’s stepped into a position of need.

Fans are starting to love this dude, and rightfully so. The way he battles every night is noble. His fit into the locker room culture has been seamless. His postgame interviews with JJ are grandiose. And as already mentioned, he is a quality basketball player.

Somehow layered on all that is a feeling of trepidation. In this short era of Pacers basketball, the Victor Oladipo era without Victor Oladipo, most fans are looking ahead to next season, when Oladipo will return from injury. And when looking at next season, Wesley Matthews isn’t an obvious part of the picture.

More from 8 Points, 9 Seconds

• 2 Studs, 1 dud from gut-wrenching Indiana Pacers loss to Charlotte Hornets
• Handing out early-season grades for Pacers’ Bruce Brown, Obi Toppin
• 3 positives, 2 negatives in Pacers In-Season Tournament win vs. Cavaliers
• 2 positives, 3 negatives from first week of Indiana Pacers basketball
• Should Isaiah Jackson’s days with Indiana Pacers be numbered?

When Matthews hopped on board with the Indiana Pacers, he signed a one-year minimum contract after being bought out by the New York Knicks. Matthews himself has admitted there were multiple suitors for his services, though most (if not all) of those teams could only offer the same deal as Indiana, a minimum contract. Matthews chose the Pacers because he could step into the starting lineup and get big minutes, which would give him the biggest opportunity to show off his skills and get one more decent sized contract in his career.

That one year deal is why he isn’t clearly in the picture for the 2019-20 Pacers. He could sign anywhere he wants, and since he is playing well, he should have a fair number of teams competing for his services.

But let’s suppose the Pacers do want to bring him back. He does fit in the organization superbly both on and off the court, after all. I bet, given that information, they do want to bring him back. Can they?

The answer is a resounding yes — but it isn’t as rosy of a decision as just saying yes makes it seem. Let’s break out the collective bargaining agreement to explain why.

CBA 101

By signing Matthews to a one-year contract, the Indiana Pacers acquired his “non-Bird” rights. This, technically, gives them a method to re-sign even if they stay over the salary cap. However…

Non-Bird rights allow a team to sign a player to a deal up to 120% of their previous year’s salary or 120% of the minimum salary, whichever is greater. For Matthews, the latter is greater. In theory, using non-bird rights, the Pacers could sign Matthews to a deal up to 4 years in length and with a starting salary that can be as high as $3,073,756.

If we all dream, Matthews would take that deal and come back to the Pacers on a bargain deal. But even without knowing what his free agent market will look like, I can assure you he is worth more than $3 million on the open market, and he would be borderline insulted by an offer that small. That added bit of context makes it appear unlikely that Indiana can retain him using his non-bird rights. Back to the drawing board.

That doesn’t mean the Pacers can’t keep him, it just means there’s a hard truth to doing so. The team would have to use cap space to get it done.

Now, there is a way that Kevin Pritchard and co. could have north of $40 million in salary cap space this summer. That’s a lot of smackeroos, and plenty of room to snag Matthews. He’s probably an $8-12 million dollar player, so $40 million is more than plenty. But using cap space for Wes comes with costs, some obvious and some less so.

The obvious cost — it takes money to get a player. The Pacers would have to chew up about 25% of their available cap space to bring back Wesley Matthews. This is not a bad way to use your money — he’s clearly good on and off the court. It’s just a fact that makes it seem like less of a no-brainer.

Another less obvious cost, though, is the opportunity cost. Signing Matthews means you can’t get a different player using the same cap space, and for the Pacers to get to the massive amount of cap room laid out earlier, they would have to gut their roster. They could have $40 million in space, but if they do, they would also have a lot of needs. Is re-signing Matthews more important than, say, Bojan Bogdanovic? Or Thaddeus Young? I would argue replacing those guys is a more important need, and signing Matthews makes it somewhat more difficult to do so AND improve the team.

Bring guys back or chase upgrades?

That isn’t a binary decision — if the front office gets creative with cap holds they could create the space necessary to give Matthews what he is worth and keep one or both of Bojan/Thad. But then the team would have significantly less cap space in the summer to chase other players. It’s a tough balance.

If you’re okay with potentially losing Bogdanovic and/or Young in order to have the Pacers operate as big spenders this summer, then bringing back Matthews with some of the cap space that creates is simple. But if you strike out with the rest of the space after letting those guys move on, you’re left with a tough challenge of building a roster on the fly. It’s very risky to chase big fish.

If you’re not okay with losing one or both of Thad and Bojan, that’s fine. You can still keep Matthews.  If KP and the front office operates in a way that makes it easy to keep BB and TY, you can still open up some space (albeit less) but not bringing back your free agent guards. Matthews and an ancillary ball-handling piece are likely your only free agent moves in that instance. That’s still a solid summer to me, and probably the most likely path to retain Matthews.

Another thing to consider with bringing back Matthews is that he almost certainly wouldn’t be a starter on next years team. How much money are you willing to shell out for a guy coming off the bench. Tyreke Evans answered that question for us last summer, and Matthews is better AND fits better than him. But if that’s the direction you go, retaining Matthews would be just like signing Evans — it would be your only big move.

Hopefully, that zoomed out view of the entire situation around Matthews contract helps to add needed context. There are a lot of decisions that need to be made in the summer, and Wesley playing well added one more to the pile.

If the question is “can the team keep Wesley Matthews?” The answer is yes. If that is a high priority in the summer, then keeping him is easy. If he is someone that the team wants to keep, but they go after bigger fish first or decide to retain their bigger contributors, then keeping him becomes harder, and perhaps a less savvy (albeit still very good) decision.

I personally would love to bring back Wesley Matthews. He’s a good player who helps the Indiana Pacers win games on and off the court, and he fits in almost any lineup with his unique skill set. But if signing him means the Pacers are unable to chase a player who would be a better fit or bigger upgrade, I think we can all agree the team shouldn’t do it.

Can the Indiana Pacers re-sign Wesley Matthews? Yep! Will they? No clue. There’s a lot of tough decisions that have to be made this summer. I’m glad I don’t have to make them.