Re-grading the trade: Indiana Pacers now have bright future after acquiring this star
By Ryan Stano
Kevin Pritchard has a limited amount of ways to improve the Indiana Pacers. The front office knows that Indiana is not exactly a free-agent destination. They rarely sign a guy who makes any sort of meaningful change and you can forget about a superstar ever coming over in free agency.
Because of that, the best way the Pacers can upgrade the roster is through the Draft. They have done pretty well with that over the years. In recent years though, the Pacers have done exceedingly well with trades. Pritchard does a really good job of extracting value from other teams.
That's exactly what he did when he traded for Tyrese Haliburton. He traded for him back in the 2021-2022 season. He has now played about two full seasons for the Pacers and he has been excellent. So how does that trade look now compared to when it happened?
Indiana Pacers trade grade for Tyrese Haliburton: A++
It's hard to make this trade turn out better. The Pacers traded Domantas Sabonis, Jeremy Lamb, Justin Holiday, and a 2023 second-round pick for Tyrese Haliburton, Buddy Hield, and Tristan Thompson. Thompson was waived after just two games with the Pacers.
Sabonis has been excellent for the Kings so far. He has already made the All-Star team and very well could make All-NBA this season. Haliburton has been just as good for Indiana. He signed a max extension with Indiana last year as the franchise player that they've been searching for since Paul George asked out.
Haliburton is back to his All-Star self on this road trip. Better yet, his presence has allowed the Pacers to be aggressive and trade for Pascal Siakam. He has indicated that he's going to re-sign in the offseason and give Haliburton a co-star for the foreseeable future.
Those two players are the cornerstones of the franchise. Players want to come and play with Haliburton because of his prolific passing. He's singlehandedly raising the ceiling of the entire franchise with the talent he can bring to Indiana, which as I established, is not a free-agency destination for most players.
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I can't believe how well this trade has worked for both teams. Now that Haliburton has busted out of his shooting slump, they might be able to make some noise not just in the future, but in this year's playoffs.