Offer Tyreke Evans a polite ride to the airport
Evans signed a 1-year, $12 million dollar deal with the Pacers last year. The deal had no options, and the Pacers won’t have any form of Bird rights to help with re-signing him. That’s just fine, given that Tyreke and the Pacers seemed like a doomed marriage from the very first suspension to start the year.
Despite the train wreck season that Evans had offensively, he will get a deal somewhere next year. It likely won’t be for the $12 million he got last year – that ship has sailed, and he definitely would’ve been better off taking multiple years – but he should still be in the association. Just a year removed from averaging almost 20 relatively efficient points, some team will convince themselves that Tyreke is the answer to their woes.
It’s my hope that, in all games where the Pacers aren’t the opponents, Tyreke rebounds back to the player he was in Memphis.
To be totally clear: Tyreke Evans was not a bad signing last summer. He was incredibly coveted and coming off a year where he’d done precisely what the Pacers so desperately needed, and Kevin Pritchard was universally lauded for landing him.
The deal didn’t work out, and the Pacers desperately needed it to, but the process behind it was good. Good luck with your next stop, Tyreke.