On Wednesday night, Shams Charania announced a three-team trade between the LA Clippers, Denver Nuggets, and Cleveland Cavaliers. The Clippers received Max Strus, the Nuggets received a future Cavs first-rounder and a Sacramento Kings second-rounder, and Cleveland acquired disgruntled restricted free agent Peyton Watson.
As part of the deal, the Washington Wizards are bringing in Tre Mann and a Clippers second-round pick for Cam Whitmore, who the Cavs will waive.
While the fit of this trade for Cleveland is not perfect, and while there's a decent probability that Watson will regress away from Jokic, and while it's also true that his Linsanity run in January probably wasn't the full truth of the player he is, one thing is clearly true.
You have to respect the creativity and aggressiveness of the Cavaliers front office.
A tale of two front offices
Since trading for Donovan Mitchell, the Cavs have found way after way to adjust their core around him and Evan Mobley. They've moved Caris Levert, Darius Garland, Ricky Rubio, Taurean Prince, and any number of other names to bring in James Harden and Max Strus, before flipping him in this deal.
Expectations for the Indiana Pacers have never been higher, while expectations for the Cavs have never been lower. It's pretty cool that Cleveland refuses to stop tweaking things, hoping beyond hope that this era of Cavs basketball will work out.
Indiana made their big move at the deadline, bringing in Ivica Zubac, a move that has paid off as the market continues to dry up at the center position, but they haven't shown the same ingenuity to make moves happen where there are none.
A decent equivalent would be moving the deals of TJ McConnell and one of the 2023 draftees to create the space to sign Jalen Duren (which makes more sense for a team that has no center).
Even though that move in particular likely doesn't make sense, Pacers fans had often pointed to the team's lack of resources as a reason that this offseason functionally ended after the signing of Kelly Oubre Jr.
Cleveland's constant reshuffling proves that concept incorrect.
So what should Indiana be looking for this late in the summer?
Finding the right trade for a team with only a few swings
Indiana has most of its assets tied up in their draft picks. They have three tradeable picks left, with only their 2029 pick going to the Clippers. While having picks is never a bad thing, the issue is that the Pacers do not have a ton of movable deals.
To be entirely fair, the Cavs had only the Dennis Schroder deal and the Max Strus contract to move. They dumped Schroder in Charlotte for the aforementioned Tre Mann and used Strus' 16.6 million dollars to create 22 million in space to acquire Watson.
The Pacers have 2.24 million in space below the first apron. If they want another wing initiator, they could offload Jarace Walker's deal in a move that takes back no money to create around 11 million in space to make a competitive offer to Jonathan Kuminga.
While Kuminga is not a perfect fit, he would raise the ceiling of this team if he hits a top 30th percentile of this deal; he would absolutely change the outlook of a Pacers team that is what it is right now.
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