The Indiana Pacers have made smart money moves to keep themselves competitive, yet flexible. How do they compare moving forward to other NBA competitors?
Each team theoretically has the same amount of money as the Indiana Pacers to build out a talented and competitive roster.
While the luxury tax often affords teams in larger markets to go beyond the salary cap and take big swings to meld superstars together in order to conjure superteams, each team has a duty to build out its roster in the most cost-effective way possible while maintaining future money as well.
The Pacers have done quite a nice job over the years of making smart financial decisions, and this year were able to become one of the most frugal teams in terms of total cap used due to an insurance claim on Victor Oladipo after he missed a large portion of the season due to injury.
Having a low payroll is good, but it means nothing if your team isn’t competitive. Compared to other winning teams, how do the Pacers stack up?
Let’s look at some competitive teams and their current payroll for next season (which includes team and player options) and the largest guarantee (which includes this season) and analyze who has a good financial future and who doesn’t.
Philadelphia 76ers payroll: $147 million, $180 million largest
The Philadelphia 76ers payroll is basically one big “oopsie.”
After making a trade for the expiring contract of Tobias Harris last year to go all-in on chasing an NBA Championship, for some reason, the Sixers felt the need to commit near max-level money to him over the summer and retain his services. And so, this year included, Tobias Harris is due $180 million dollars through 2024.
Harris is a good player. He can make shots from all levels of the floor and has strong defensive skills. The problem is, he’s not the team’s first option and he’s rarely the second option, either. On a good night, he’s the third option in the starting lineup, and even that role often wanes between him and Josh Richardson.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the Sixers signed Al Horford to a four-year, $109 million contract on top of that this summer. In fairness, this felt like a decent signing at the time. The spacing Horford provides for Embiid to work inside would be good, and Horford’s defense in the playoffs on Embiid had proven to be challenging. Even if the only outcome was that the Sixers removed one of Embiid’s toughest defenders, that’s something.
To this point, though, that’s pretty much all the signing has done. That’s an expensive game-planning move, and Horford’s deal at this point in his career looks to be as untradable as ever.