Indiana Pacers: 5 of the weirdest stories from franchise history
By Josh Wilson
The Indiana Pacers traded a point guard for a marketing contractor
The 2020 trade deadline is two months behind us at this point. Though the Pacers didn’t make any moves at the deadline, most of us would assume that had Myles Turner been moved, it probably would have been for something like draft capital and some additional shooting on the wings to make up for the spacing that they’d be losing in Turner’s departure.
How oppositional do you think fans would have been if the team traded Turner for a week’s worth of work from a marketing executive from another team?
That’s similar to what happened in the early 80s.
As told by Ben Pickman at Sports Illustrated, contract work from Jon Spoelstra was traded to the Indiana Pacers for point guard Don Buse.
Spoelstra had just fashionably created a revenue stream for the Blazers by bringing the radio broadcast in-house, which according to SI generated more radio revenue for the Blazers than the rest of the league combined.
The Pacers were struggling. Just a few years removed from joining the NBA and incurred fees that gutted the team, the team’s owner was looking to sell. The threat of moving to Sacramento or another major market was present again, and Indiana faced the possibility of losing its team.
Bringing in someone like Spoelstra to help inject a freshness to how the team generates profits was seen as an ideal move. The team wanted him on a short contract, but the Blazers initially weren’t privy to the idea of letting him help a competitor.
When the Blazers lost their point guard to injury, the Pacers jumped at the opportunity to fill a need for the Blazers to retain Spoelsta’s services. They offered to send Buse to the Pacers if they agreed to let them utilize Spoelstra’s strengths for a short time.
Spoelstra worked for the team for one week and received a desktop computer he had been eyeing as a gift for his work with the team.
Of his time in Indy, Pickman/SI says:
"Initially, the NBA kept the details of the deal quiet, omitting Spoelstra’s name from the announcement. But he went off to Indiana anyway, working just a single week with the team. He met with prospective owners and helped Indiana learn more about Portland’s in-house radio success. A 1986 New York Times story also reports that he turned in an 100-page document of suggestions that Spoelstra said at the time “he would have been afraid to try in Portland,” but he has no recollection of that document."
Spoelstra helped the team stay in Indiana, as they were sold months after his visit.