2022-23 Team Developments: News / Trades / Free Agents / Rumors

He's 35%+ career, yeah he's a decent 3-point shooter. Gary shoots 38% so, what, he makes 3 more threes every 100 taken? Whoopty do. 35% from 3 equates to the same as shooting 53% from 2. It's not bad. Anyway, this is a "what have you done for me lately" league and the fact remains, Walker is shooting at a higher clip right now no matter what excuses you make for him.

 

Because Ham started playing Dennis alongside Bev and his role changed entirely plus bumped up to SF …. seemed pretty obvious?

 

Not true, hIs last 10 games he shot 40% from 3

 

I bet a BUNCH of us would like it a lot if Huff got some love and factored into those slots somewhere on a couple years contract as end of bench Big man reserve insurance. Don’t know if he’d sign for vet min but maybe a just bit above so we could do multiple years?

 

I understand why some of you would want Russ back, but I don’t ever want to hear those same people complain about our terrible team defense, if we do.

 

He's actually playing less efficiently than last season, not sure why the love for him, sure he brings a little excitement to the speed of the game but those fastbreaks ending in passes to the crowd....and those end-of-the-game clutch bricks, I can't take it.

 

Schroeder and Bryant have to be signed into cap space, so it’s not super simple to resign them both. However, I forgot we had the Bi Annual Exception as well, so one can the the MLE and one can take the BAE.

Walker and Russ can be signed above the cap.

We also shouldn’t let Bev expire for nothing. Ideally you package him with Jones (to get off the second year guarantee) for a piece. Some trades that work numbers wise:

- Bev for Burks
- Bev, Jones & JTA for Bogdanovic & McGruder
- Bev & Jones for Gary Trent Jr or OG
- Bev & Walker for Buddy Hield

I’d hope we don’t let the salary expire and get an impact player in return.

 

Walker cant. Unfortunately, we don't have his bird-rights either. Russ has a huge cap hold. I agree about trading Bev and Jones. OG trade probably too rich for us. Hield or Burks would be decent They are sbit older, but not nearly as old as Bojan.

Benefits of Trent: Younger and better defense

Benefits of Burks: Cheaper

Benefits of Hield/Bojan: Better shooting and more cost controlled.

 

After the horrors of last season with Russ in those stretches of games and lineups in which they happened that is astonishing for me to read. Which metrics out of morbid curiosity?

 

To me it really depends on if the player helps you win or not. It’s not an overpay to me if gets your team to the next level especially if the player is on a good contract.

 

Absolutely

 

Well, if we really want to buy high on a player that is having a stellar season, Hield might be our best option. He just turned 30 years old, and he has one more year under contract next season at 19.3 million. Pacers need to get off of the salary floor. Westbrook/Jones/2027 unprotected 1st for Hield/Theiss/2028 2nd/2029 2nd works. In this trade we:

1. Add an elite shooter

2. Get rid of Jones

3. Save a significant amount of money. The saved money could be allocated to future luxury tax bills.

It sucks to trade the first, but we replenish our 2nd round picks. It also sucks to take on Theiss, but his contract expires next season.

 

Nope if you use the BAE you set the hard cap and Rob has stated he doesn't want to operate with a hard cap.

 

We can resign Walker to 120% of his current wage, it’s just a non bird rights raise. Then we have early bird rights the following season at 125% raise and then we have full bird rights after 3 seasons.

 

Good pickup! Well I assume we won’t utilise the BAE which makes me think one of Schroeder or Bryant will walk.

 

Just his efficiency ratings and more obviously, his numbers, and shooting percentages. I forgot which columnist said it. His current per is equal to his rookie season.

 

Good lord..GaryTrent Jr at possibly anything close to 33 million? This kid shoots 42% from the field and doesn't really give you much on the boards for his size, and has low assists. Yes he can shoot it from deep though, 38% career avg. He's a 3pt specialist true indeed, but he just shot 33% from deep in 6 playoff games in 33 min a game in Toronto last season.

Sounds like a big leap of faith, to be coughing up a FRP and that kind of cash, for him to me. Might look at Buddy Hield as a better option if you just want a 3pt sniper. Buddy Hield has never been to the playoffs, so we don't know if his shot will drop off or not in the playoffs too though.

 

Man, I respect you for using a 55-56 playoff record as something positive for Russ lol

The fit issues are clear. Everything now in NBA is about spacing and shooting. Even more important when you're 2 stars score most of their points in the paint. Adding a 3rd one doesn't work. LeBron himself had a successful career being always surrounded by shooters. Adding AD to the picture makes it even more necessary. Specially in close-out games where defense is tighter. I mean, we have lost a bunch of close games and the unanimous solution has been to sit Russ.

Bearing all this in mind, I don't know what more arguments do you need.

It's no personal dislike. I don't understand why for people nowadays everything is polarized. It's either hate or love. All or nothing. I have nothing against Russ and my participation indicates nothing in that perspective. I just want the team to win and I firmly believe we are closer by trading Russ, both now and in the future.
Sure it pissed me off how bad he played last year, how unable he was to own up to his mistakes and the HORRIBLE position he put our franchise this summer where the narrative was "trade him for anything or buy him out". It should also tell you something that a massive expire like this one has been the hardest ever to move, showing that teams don't actually value him at all and see him as a negative presence in their teams.

Now, he definitely changed it up and Ham deserves the highest praise for dealing with it, it's absolutely remarkable. We are now in a position where we shouldn't just trade for whoever grabs him. I already said here that I wouldn't trade him for Richardson and McDermott at this point. That wasn't the case early in the season. His value gone up and that's awesome.

But, please, if there's an opportunity to trade him for Rozier, Trent or even Bogdanovic or anyone that can make this team better, we should do it. Not out of spite but because it improves our team moving forward. I can see this team having a ceiling where we can make some noise in the playoffs, but as it is right now our title chances are null, we don't have the personnel to win 4 playoff series and beat everyone in the league. But we might improve those odds a bit in the right deal with Russ. Not only this season, but also the next 2 year window with LeBron/AD

I think it's more an overpay for Bojan than for the others. Bojan would be a dead asset. Either he would work with us and run his contract until he's 36 or don't work and be dead weight. Rozier is in his prime and Trent is like 22/23 so at an asset point of view makes more sense.
Then if you look at the in-court production, they not only shoot and make more threes but also defend better. Add the fact we now have LeBron, AD, Rui, Brown, JTA and Gabriel to play the 3/4, there's really not much room for Bojan.
And we would be trading Bev, which would leave us with only 4 guards + Max in the roster, which doesn't add up to Ham system.

In a nutshell, trading for Bojan seems a bad move at this point from any possible angle.



Btw, I think it's crazy to pay 33M for Trent. Don't think he is expecting that kind of money. He is a very good shooter and one of the best in the league stealing the ball. Very good defender too. But if he gets more than 20-25M it's an overpay, imo. He may want to seek a longer contract though (if he can?) considering he is so young. Get now around 100M and then will be in his prime for his next contract

 

I think you are a bit confused about how his playoffs record is supposed to be poor or something. Perhaps you should look up the playoffs record for guys like Dame, Paul George, Chris Paul, Embiid, Luka, Jokic...you might gain a better perspective on the subject.

Meh last year was last year, everything sucked, but the team evidently decided that he wasn't at fault, as much as you seem to think. He was probably was telling the truth about some stuff, Lebron and AD didn't push back on anything he said, even if it was about them.

And the idea about moving a massive 47 expiring is pretty weak too, very, very few teams have to ability to absorb that kind of contract in the 1st place. It's not about a team viewing the player as such a value. And trading him for any of the players you listed, also means taking back a lot of unwanted junk on those teams rosters too. That doesn't make our team any better.

Lastly every single team he's played for has thoroughly debunked your negative presence take, including ours. Yet you persist in throwing that out in almost every post you make about him. Sounds a lot more like personal dislike than anything actually based off of facts to me.

I have yet to see this reputed "spacing issue" be this huge problem either for Lebron or AD.