The 2024 NBA trade deadline has come and gone. This deadline was quite different from last season's, as while the Indiana Pacers didn't make any blockbuster moves such as the Pascal Siakam trade the month before, they were still decently active in the market, notably trading Buddy Hield away in a three-team deal to land Doug McDermott and two second-round picks.
Overall, it was a pretty underwhelming deadline in general, as the biggest move was perhaps Bojan Bogdanović being dealt to the New York Knicks in a move that perhaps makes the Knicks the second-best team in the East.
With all these underwhelming moves being made, I’d like to harken back to the 2022 trade deadline for a bit and revisit perhaps the second biggest move made that year and one of the biggest moves in Pacers history, which was of course the trade that sent Tyrese Haliburton to the Indiana Pacers in exchange for Domantas Sabonis to the Sacramento Kings.
I’d like to talk about this trade for two reasons: one, because this trade changed both Indiana’s and Sacramento’s fortunes for the foreseeable future, and two because it is the two-year anniversary of this trade, and it is something worthy to mention as Indiana continues to reap the fruits of Haliburton's labor.
The Trade:
Indiana got: Tyrese Haliburton, Buddy Hield, and Tristan Thompson
Sacramento got: Justin Holiday, Jeremy Lamb, Domantas Sabonis, and a 2023 2nd-round pick
While the trade was clearly a bit more for Haliburton for Hield straight up, as Indiana also got Buddy Hield, who they got two productive years out of before dealing him to Philadelphia in a deal where they received Doug McDermott in return, this will only focus on Haliburton, Sabonis, and the fortunes of both teams since the trade.
At first, the reaction to this trade mostly consisted of shock that Sacramento would part with their young point guard this early and admiration for Indiana, who many said, and some still say to this day, fleeced the Kings.
However, it’s been two years since that trade, and some opinions have changed, for better or for worse. Let’s do a deep dive into this trade, look at the pros and cons of both teams, and ultimately find out who “won” the trade so far.
Tyrese Haliburton and the Pacers' success
When I last left off, Haliburton had played 71 out of a possible 83 games and averaged about 19 points, four rebounds, and 10 assists on 48/40/85% splits. While healthy, Haliburton led Indiana to a 23-18 record to start the 2022-23 season before injuries took the Pacers out of the playoffs and into the 2023 draft lottery. All in all, Haliburton's first 71 games as an active member of the Pacers resulted in a record of 29-42.
Despite early predictions from a lot of people, myself included, to be a lottery team, Indiana was shocking everyone and was stringing together a fun and exciting team that was winning games, akin to the 2018 Pacers of 5 years prior.
Without Haliburton on the floor, Indiana's play dropped drastically, going 1-9 in the games he missed and ending the season as the 11th seed in the East, far removed from their early playoff hopes.
Since then, however, through a combination of drastically improved individual and team play, Haliburton has kicked his game into another gear and has firmly etched his name into the elite point guards of today.
Since the last trade update, which was February 12, 2023, Haliburton has played 50 of a possible 77 games, once again missing significant time due to injury and injury management. In this time, however, he has completely taken his game to another level and firmly etched his name into the pantheon of elite point guards of today.
In these 50 games, Haliburton has averaged 22.7 points, 3.6 rebounds, and 11.8 assists, the most of any NBA player during this span by far, with a full assist lead over Trae Young's second-place number of 10.6. Haliburton has also improved his efficiency to borderline elite level, with new shooting splits of 50.5/40/87, while having a true shooting percentage of 63.1%, good for 31st in the league and 4th among point guards.
In addition to individual improvement, the Pacers as a whole have also been far better than they were a year ago, with Haliburton's 50 played games since the last update resulting in a 27-23 record, a far cry from the 29-42 record in the 71 games before the last update.
The Pacers have also amassed an impressive 22-18 record with Haliburton on the floor this season, which is not to shy away from their still impressive 29-24 record in general, good for 6th in the East and prime to improve with a much easier schedule going forward.
Overall, Haliburton has played 122 total games for the Indiana Pacers, including the In-Season Tournament Final which does not count toward the regular season. In these games, Haliburton has averaged 20.5 points, 3.9 rebounds, and 10.7 assists (first in the league since February 8, 2022) on impressive 49.5/40/86% shooting splits while leading the Pacers to a 56-66 record while healthy. Not bad for a player who's had to play through injuries to himself or his team plenty of times.
Before the Haliburton trade, the Pacers were a team without direction, as they had plenty of talented players in Caris LeVert, Sabonis, and Malcolm Brogdon but no way of putting it together and were a clear few tiers below the upper echelon of the Eastern Conference.
Now, however, with the addition of Haliburton and recently acquired Pascal Siakam, Indiana is finally back into legitimate contention and looks to make some noise in the East for the first time in a while.
Domantas Sabonis and the Kings' success
Now, we move on to the Kings. If Indiana was a middling team without direction before the trade, the Kings would have been the laughing stock of the NBA. Always seen as a team with talent that couldn't make it work, the Sacramento Kings were staring at a 16-year playoff drought before the fateful trade.
Since the trade, however, the Kings' fortunes have turned around for the better, and they have firmly set their place as a legit playoff team. Before we talk about this, however, we must talk about Domantas Sabonis himself.
At the time of the last update, Sabonis played 68 out of a possible 81 games for the Kings and essentially picked up right where he left off in Indiana, albeit on a much better offense and around much better players.
Through those 68 games, Sabonis averaged 19 points, 12 rebounds, and 6.7 assists on 59/33/75% splits and was second in rebounds per game and first in total rebounds. Sabonis' 61% from the field that season also ranked 12th in the league and his true shooting percentage of 67% was good enough for 12th.
Since then, he has only gotten better. Since February 12, 2023, Sabonis has played in 75 of a possible 76 games, averaging 19.9 points per game, 12.9 rebounds, good for second in the league since that date, 8.1 assists, good for eighth in the league since that date, on impressive 62/43/70 shooting splits.
Sabonis is currently leading the league in rebounds in the 2023-24 season, averaging 13.1 per game and total rebounds with 656. Speaking of shooting, Sabonis' 62% from the field is good for eighth in the league this season, and his true shooting percentage of 66% is good for 10th in the league. Clearly, Sabonis has also improved quite a bit after getting acclimated to his surroundings.
In the 68 games that Sabonis played in Sacramento before the update, the Kings had a record of 35-33 and, at the time, were looking to make a playoff run, sitting at 31-24 and the third seed in the West on February 12.
Sacramento would hold onto that third seed for the rest of the season, finishing 48-34 and matching up with the Golden State Warriors in the first round. In the first round, Sabonis averaged 16.4 points, 11 rebounds, 4.7 assists, and 1.4 steals on 49.5/20/57% shooting splits, a noticeable drop off from his much more productive regular season.
Unfortunately, Sabonis' first playoff campaign as a legitimate star will not be remembered for his play on the court, but rather for when he was stomped on by Golden State's Draymond Green in the fourth quarter of Sacramento's Game 2 win.
Unfortunately, this 2-0 series lead was as good as it got for the Kings, as Golden State quickly nabbed three straight wins and closed out the series in Golden 1 Center with a Game 7 blowout.
Currently, the Kings sit at a 29-21 record and have the seventh seed in the West, which is play-in territory. Despite staying a solid team and showing some improvements, mainly from De'Aaron Fox, who has garnered many Haliburton comparisons himself, the Kings seem to have stagnated this year compared to the last, with no major improvements in sight and content with running it back in a stacked Eastern Conference.
In the 75 games he has played since the last update, Sabonis has helped lead the Kings to a 45-30 record, more impressive than Haliburton with the Pacers. However, it is important to note that Sacramento has been noticeably more healthy during this period as well, with De'Aaron Fox playing 66 games to go alongside Sabonis (Sabonis has a 7-9 record for the Kings in games without Fox).
Either way, the addition of Sabonis has completely turned the Kings' fortunes around from a team without direction and completely used to being the third most important team in California, to a team with legitimate playoff aspirations. Kings fans who are currently upset at the team for staying pat should at least be grateful that they have a playoff team to cheer for, unlike the Kings fans of old.
Non-Haliburton/Sabonis factors
Of course, a trade cannot be judged by straight-up factors alone. There are always outside factors to look at, and for the Kings/Pacers deal, it boils down to two players fighting for positional supremacy before February 8, 2022.
Let's start with Myles Turner and Indiana. As it turns out, Tyrese Haliburton's run in Indiana has not only been beneficial to him and the team but to his teammates as well, specifically Turner. Before the Haliburton trade, Myles Turner was looked at as an incomplete product, a forever project, and a guy who was always pegged as "The idea of him is better than what he is."
Before the trade, Turner was fighting for frontcourt supremacy with Sabonis, as Indiana remained one of the few remaining teams in the league to stick with a double-big lineup despite the changing times. Before the trade, Turner's averages always hovered around 12-14 points per game and 6-7 rebounds. Solid but unspectacular numbers.
Since the trade, however, Turner has blossomed into a completely different player, averaging 17.5 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 2 blocks on 53/35/78% shooting splits in 112 games. In the 86 games he has played with Haliburton, these numbers rise to 17.8 points, 7.5 rebounds, and 2.2 blocks on 54/37/78% shooting splits.
No longer having to operate with a post-oriented big man in the same frontcourt, Sabonis' absence has allowed Turner to roam free, being allowed to create his own shot when needed and get easy buckets out of the pick-and-roll with Haliburton. With Haliburton at the helm, Turner has blossomed from a role-player constantly in trade talks, to a sleeper All-Star candidate who is now seen as the legit third option on a playoff team.
As for Sacramento, their most beneficial star from the trade just so happens to be another point guard in De'Aaron Fox. You may sense a pattern here, where each team sees a positional increase in productivity after trading a player that played that exact position.
After trading for Haliburton and trying them both out at point guard, the Kings were met with a bit of a logjam at the position, especially with them also having Davion Mitchell on the roster, a fellow point guard. In the first half of the 2022 season, before the trade, they tried moving Haliburton to shooting guard to play off the ball, which didn't work for obvious reasons.
In the 91 games that Fox played with Haliburton, he averaged solid numbers of 23.3 points, 6.2 assists, and 3.6 rebounds on 47/30/73% shooting splits. In the 133 games since the trade however, Fox has seen improvements almost across the board while not having to share the backcourt with another ball-dominant facilitator. In these 133 games since the trade, Fox has averaged 26.1 points, 5.9 assists, and 4.2 rebounds on improved 49.5/35/75% shooting splits.
This season in particular has been Fox's best as a pro, as through 44 games he has averaged 26.9 points (career-high), 5.3 assists, 4 rebounds, and 1.8 steals (career-high), on 47/38/71% shooting splits.
The three-point shooting improvement is truly something to behold. Before this season, Fox was always known as a talented scorer but a lackluster shooter, especially from beyond the arc. This season, however, he has seemed to fix that one weakness in his game and now looks like a more complete player than ever.
As you can see, the trade did not just benefit both players being traded, but their respective teams and specific players on said teams. Truly one of the more complex trades of the last few years.
Final thoughts and conclusion
Before this trade, the Pacers and Kings were in completely different situations, with the Pacers looking to remain in mediocrity with a roster of not exactly young, but not exactly old players and no real direction for the future besides being an eternal “tough-out” team while the Kings looked to continue missing the playoffs with a bunch of young and talented but underutilized players.
Since the trade, both teams' fortunes have been reversed, with the Kings finally breaking their 16-year postseason drought and the Pacers looking to break their four-year drought this upcoming postseason as they look to make it past the first round as well for the first time in 10 years.
So the question still stands: Who won the Domantas Sabonis/Tyrese Haliburton trade?
The answer is more simple than people think. This is one of the rare win-win trades in NBA history, where each team got exactly what they wanted. The Sacramento Kings traded for Sabonis with immediate improvement in mind and were rewarded with a playoff berth and a solid team for years to come, with Sabonis re-signing to stay in Sacramento until 2028.
Haliburton probably would not have blossomed into the player he is right now, having to share a backcourt with the ball-dominant Fox, who himself has seen major improvement since the trade.
As for Indiana, they made this trade with the hopes of finding some direction and got exactly that. While they were pretty bad at first, they have turned their fortunes around and currently look like one of the brightest young teams in the NBA.
Sabonis was fantastic in Indiana, but he was being asked too much as the first option on a playoff team and was traded somewhere his skill set would fit better as the second option and secondary facilitator.
As a result, the keys to the offense were given to Haliburton, which blossomed from Day 1 and keeps improving every day despite battling through injury. Myles Turner's improvement has also been something to note, as he has turned into a legitimate scorer and third option on a playoff team.
With the addition of Pascal Siakam in Indiana, the sky's the limit for this young, fun Pacers team. Hopefully, the same can be said for Sabonis and Sacramento.