On the Setting the Pace podcast, former Indiana Pacers center Jermaine O’Neal thinks the team should be able to get more big name free agents.
Jermaine O’Neal deserves more love from Indiana Pacers fans. While things didn’t go as anyone wanted in his final years as a Pacers player, he left an impact on the franchise and still has a love for the organization.
The former Pacers star talked with the Setting the Pace podcast about how part of him was always back in Indianapolis.
O’Neal also talked about getting to know Metta World Peace better after their playing days, those teams in the early 2000s that nearly won the title, his Pacers-teammates starting five, as well as why the Pacers can’t get better free agents.
For O’Neal, it is a bit of a surprise to him that Indiana doesn’t have better results signing free agents.
"“I don’t know why free agents wouldn’t want to go to Indianapolis. Great place to play. It’s almost like a college town with great support.”"
That’s something Pacers fans would like to know the answer to as well. But there may be a simple answer.
Indiana rarely has had a ton of cap space. This summer is a little different for the Pacers as they could have over $40 million in cap space.
If you look back at the Pacers teams around 2013, they had a good deal of cap room invested in their other starters, including David West, Roy Hibbert, and Danny Granger, but they also had to pay Paul George soon after. He wasn’t a free agent, but any team would be happy to sign a player of his caliber.
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You go back through the post-Brawl years and it should be pretty obvious why they weren’t getting big names.
If you go back to the Reggie Miller teams, the pay was drastically different, but the money is wrapped up in players like O’Neal, Rik Smits and other players that played key roles in the team’s success.
While Indiana might not be the biggest free agency draw as a city, it’s also worth noting that since free agency really became a thing in the NBA, Indiana often needed to pay their own players more than worrying about bringing in more talent.
That’s not the only reason, but it’s part of the greater equation.
Now, if Indiana strikes out this summer and in the near future if they have cap space, maybe we can talk about whether the Pacers are really just in a place that prohibits big names.
And if that’s the case, we may have to wait for erosion to do the work of making Indianapolis a coastal city. Hopefully, a beachfront location for Bankers Life Fieldhouse will help draw in those free agents.