Trading for TJ Warren and the No. 32 pick on draft day
When Adrian Wojnarowski first tweeted that the Indiana had traded for Phoenix Suns forward TJ Warren, the immediate reaction in the collective minds of Pacers Twitter was “okay, cool — for what?”. Surely, grabbing a player who averaged 18.0 points a game last year on .486/.428/.815 shooting splits must cost something, whether it be draft capital or an outgoing player.
Cash considerations. Full stop. That’s all it took. But wait, there’s more: the Suns threw in the No. 32 pick in the 2019 draft for the favor of taking on the remaining 3 years and $35 million. Yup, Pritchard essentially brought in Warren and a high second-round draft pick for free.
Phoenix needed the space, of course, to chase stars like Ricky Rubio and Frank Kaminsky in free agency. Either way, Pritchard secured a solid young player and a draft pick for nada, marking his first Pritch Slap of the 2019 offseason.
What Warren will bring to the Pacers is yet to be seen, but he showed plenty of promise with the Suns and fits in well as a wing that can create his own bucket. His reasonable contract is the icing on the cake.
Pritchard later used that No. 32 pick to secure not one, not two, but three future second-round picks from the Miami Heat. All in all, a pretty good haul for a trade that required no real assets on Indiana’s end.