Indiana Pacers fans clamoring for their team to make a deal ahead of the fast-approaching NBA trade deadline should be careful what they wish for.
True, Indiana has gotten the better of its deadline deals in recent years. In fact, one could argue the Pacers haven’t made a truly bad deadline trade in several decades. However, Indiana’s overall history in deadline deals has both hits and misses.
Here’s a look at the three best and three worst trade deadline deals in Pacer history.
The 3 best deadline deals in Pacers history
#3 – Pacers acquire Mark Jackson from Vincent Askew and Eddie Johnson (1997)
Mark Jackson was part of Indiana’s back-to-back 52-win seasons in 1994-95 and 1995-96, but he was sent to Denver in exchange for Jalen Rose and other pieces in the summer of 1996. However, Indiana’s pieces just didn’t fit without Jackson in 1996-97. The Pacers acknowledged as much by re-acquiring Jackson from Denver at the 1997 trade deadline.
The trade came too late to help Indiana in 1997. It was the only year in the 1990s that the franchise missed the postseason. However, Jackson finished 1996-97 as the NBA assist champion, and then was the starting point guard for the Pacers teams that made the next three Eastern Conference finals as well as the 2000 NBA Finals. All it cost was two aging players.
Vincent Askew and Eddie Johnson were both out of the league by 1999.
#2 – Pacers acquire Detlef Schrempf and a pick for Herb Williams (1989)
This was longtime Indiana GM Donnie Walsh’s best deadline trade.
Herb Williams was a solid NBA center who would play another decade in the NBA after the Pacers made this deal with Dallas, but he was on the downside of his career by 1989. Detlef Schrempf, however, immediately became an impact performer in Indiana. He won two Sixth Man of the Year awards and was picked for the 1993 All-Star Game.
The draft pick Indiana acquired in the deal eventually was used to select Antonio Davis, a key frontcourt player on the Pacers’ strong teams in the late 1990s.
This was the turning point for Indiana as an NBA franchise. Before this trade, the Pacers made just two postseason appearances in 12 full seasons after the NBA/ABA merger. Since this trade, Indiana has been one of the NBA’s most steady franchises with 28 playoff appearances in 36 years, including 10 trips to the conference finals.
#1 – Pacers acquire Tyrese Haliburton and Buddy Hield for Domantas Sabonis (2022)
This trade with Sacramento, just one day after another deal that netted the draft picks that turned into Andrew Nembhard and Ben Sheppard, is the transaction that transformed the Pacers into postseason contenders the past two years.
Domantas Sabonis was an All-Star in Indiana. He’d be an All-Star in Sacramento. But the iteration of the Pacers with Sabonis as a central piece had reached its ceiling.
As Indiana fans know, Tyrese Haliburton immediately became the face of the franchise and was the focal point of two of the most entertaining and memorable squads in Pacers history – the 2023-24 team that reached the conference finals and the 2024-25 team that was one victory away from winning it all.
If a trade gets you closer to an NBA title than you’ve ever gotten before, by definition, it’s the best deadline trade in your franchise history.
The 3 worst deadline deals in Pacers history
#3 – Pistons acquire Rasheed Wallace (2004)
“Wait a minute,” you are probably thinking. “The Pacers weren’t even involved in this deal.” And you’d be correct.
However, if we’re picking one single deadline deal that cost the Pacers an NBA title, we’re picking the three-team trade that sent Wallace to the Detroit Pistons in 2004. If Detroit doesn’t acquire Rasheed Wallace, they probably don’t beat the 61-win Indiana team in the Eastern Conference Finals. And if those Pacers made the NBA Finals, they would have had a great opportunity to knock off an imploding Los Angeles Lakers squad to claim the 2004 title.
(We almost “recognized” the 2014 deal that sent Danny Granger to the Philadelphia 76ers in exchange for Evan Turner. An Indiana team that looked like a championship contender went into a tailspin in the aftermath of this deal, but it’s unclear if this trade was truly the main culprit. Granger-for-Turner, in terms of pure basketball value, was a wash, and other issues may have been bigger factors in that team’s fade.)
#2 – Pacers trade Darnell Hillman and a first-round pick for John Williamson (1977)
Darnell Hillman and a pick to the New Jersey Nets in exchange for John Williamson wasn’t an immediately awful deal. Hillman was a solid starter for the mid-1970s Pacer teams. Williamson was a proven 20-points-per-game scorer, and he matched that production in Indiana.
The aftermath is where this deal went awry for the Pacers. Williamson’s situation in Indiana deteriorated to the point where the Pacers traded him back to New Jersey in less than a year. Making matters much worse for Indiana, the Nets used the pick from the Hillman-Williamson deal – the No. 7 selection in the 1977 draft - to select future Hall of Famer Bernard King.
#1 – Pacers trade Alex English for George McGinnis (1980)
The one paragraph summary: Indiana sent promising young forward Alex English to the Denver Nuggets in exchange for veteran forward George McGinnis, a hometown hero who starred for the Pacers’ ABA title teams in the early 1970s.
English blossomed in Denver, where he won the 1983 NBA scoring title and scored more points than any NBA player in the 1980s. Back in Indiana, McGinnis played just two-and-a-half more seasons and was out of the NBA by 1982. McGinnis scored 1,626 points in that last stint with the Pacers. English scored more in nine separate individual seasons in Denver.
(If that wasn’t bad enough by itself, the Pacers also sent a first-round pick with English to Denver! Players like Jeff Ruland and Rick Mahorn, who went on to successful NBA careers, were still on the board when Indiana could have made that pick).
Ugh. As most Indiana fans are painfully aware, this isn’t just the worst deadline deal in Pacers history. It’s on the short list of the most one-sided trades in all of NBA history.