Do new Chicago Bulls rumors open up opportunity for Indiana Pacers trade?

Remember, that all NBA news has ripple effects on the entire league, especially when it is within the Indiana Pacers’ division. On December 20th it was reported by Shams Charania of The Athletic that Zach LaVine and the Chicago Bulls are not seeing eye-to-eye:

So what does this mean for the Pacers? Could this open up a new opportunity for a trade?

The opportunity to get top-tier players should never be overlooked by a small market team, especially one that is currently looking to rebuild it’s roster. And players of LaVine’s caliber do not come around very often.

The Pacer’s certainly have the assets needed in their older veteran stars to potentially make a move for LaVine. For example, the salaries of Buddy Hield and Myles Turner are roughly equivalent to LaVine who recently signed a contract extension. Does making a move for LaVine make sense for an Indiana Pacers franchise on the up-and-up?

It certainly doesn’t hurt but would have it’s drawbacks. For example, he is a bit outside of the age range for the Pacers core (27), but that could be overlooked given he is on a 5-year contract. However, it is unlikely the Bulls, who would probably move on from LaVine in an attempt to pivot onto a rebuild, would trade him away without draft capital coming back. This likely means the Pacers would have to part with one of their 1st round picks, at a minimum, in order to acquire LaVine.

This would put a trade package somewhere around the following for LaVine:

Would this type of trade be worth it?

This trade would probably only be worth it for the front-office if they thought that the current core of Mathurin, Haliburton, Jackson, Duarte, and Smith would be good enough with a player of LaVine’s caliber to compete for a championship, and it probably wouldn’t.

We at 8 points, 9 seconds think that this may be a move towards the middle of the eastern conference again, rather than the bottom or top where true change is able to be made. If the Pacers would be able to hold on to their 1st round pick in order to flip it for a higher draft pick than this trade likely approaches being worth the cost.

So what do you think? Would you be happy to see the Indiana Pacers make a run at Zach LaVine? Let us know in the comments below!