Pacers keeping an eye on D’Angelo Russell in the chaos of the NBA’s offseason

The Indiana Pacers want the Brooklyn Nets D’Angelo Russell, but it’s not a straight path even if there is mutual interest.

The NBA offseason is chaos. Hopefully, for the Indiana Pacers, it won’t come to anything involving emojis as they pursue D’Angelo Russell — that’s if he leaves the Brooklyn Nets.

And that’s still a big if as we don’t know what players like Kyrie Irving, Kevin Durant, and other big name free agents are doing.

It isn’t so much that Indiana isn’t the biggest free agent destination as much as it is the simplicity of roster needs of other teams. In this case, it particularly matters where current Boston Celtics point guard Kyrie Irving is going.

As SNY’s Ian Bagley reports, if Irving goes to Brooklyn as expected, Russell is likely to head elsewhere.

"As of late this week, teams interested in pursuing Kyrie Irving remained under the impression that the Nets were the odds-on favorite to land the point guard, per sources. But no team interested in Irving, including the Knicks and Lakers, had been led to believe that they are out of the running to sign him, those sources say.If Irving ends up signing in Brooklyn, it may have an interesting ripple effect on the roster, particularly D’Angelo Russell.Russell, a restricted free agent, will likely draw significant interest on the open market. The 23-year-old is coming off of an All-Star season in which he helped lead Brooklyn to the playoffs. Members of the Pacers organization are high on Russell, SNY sources confirm."

If Irving and Durant do end up in Brooklyn, that means the Nets will have renounced the Bird right’s — and the cap hold — to Russell. He isn’t an unrestricted free agent yet, though. As a restricted one, the Nets have the right to match any offer as long as they hold on to his rights.

If you are unfamiliar with Bird Rights and cap holds, basically until the Nets renounce those rights, they have the ability to re-sign Russell while going over the salary cap. But that also means they have a cap hold of $21 million on their books until the sign him or renounce him. If you have any more questions on this, go ask Larry Coon.

Why this matters to the Pacers

If Indiana formally offers D’Angelo a contract before July 6, the Pacers will have a cap hold while the Nets decide whether or not to match the contract. However, with the NBA’s moratorium, the Nets’ clock wouldn’t start until the 6th.

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This is a problem if Indiana is interested in other free agents, including unrestricted ones. Depending on the Nets’ plans, they could simply wait the two days after Indiana’s offer, which likely means the 8th of July. In the meantime, the Pacers wouldn’t be able to sign any free agents of note while they waited — and the Nets could still end up with Russell.

Even if Indiana waited until the 6th, there’s in a tough position where they would need to negotiate with players but ask them to wait and see what happens with D’Angelo. That’s not a position players want to be in either as they may miss out on other opportunities of their own.

This is why the dominos of Kyrie and Kevin are so important. If the Nets want both, they would need to renounce the rights to Russell. Once that happens, Indiana (and the rest of the league) can pursue D’Angelo as an unrestricted free agent. In theory, if the Nets renounce D’Lo’s rights so they can sign Irving and Durant, that means Indiana could agree to terms before the 6th and then sign him immediately once the NBA’s office’s open back up.

They wouldn’t be waiting for the Nets to match and simply could pivot elsewhere if Russell wasn’t interested. No cap holds while waiting for potential disappointment and missing out on other free agents.

The collective bargaining agreement stuff isn’t as fun as what happens on the court, but with the way the rules are, it plays a huge factor in how the Pacers proceed this summer. If they can go after Russell as an unrestricted free agent, then they can come to a verbal agreement before the league’s offices open back up, and sign it immediately when they do.

D’Angelo Russell makes plenty of sense for the Indiana Pacers, but until some of the other dominos fall, all the parties involved are playing a bit of a waiting game.