Indiana Pacers: 3 trades team should make before deadline
After Victor Oladipo’s season-ending injury, the Indiana Pacers must look towards the future as they approach the 2019 NBA Trade Deadline.
This was shaping up to a very different article before January 23, when the Indiana Pacers lost Victor Oladipo for the season to a ruptured quadriceps tendon. This is a critical blow after NBA head coaches voted the 26-year-old onto his second consecutive All-Star reserve team on Thursday.
The 32-19 Pacers, losers of four straight games, look doomed for an early playoff exit without their best player. Looking ahead to the 2019-20 season, they lack the stellar depth of the Milwaukee Bucks, Toronto Raptors and Boston Celtics. Alternately, they don’t possess the three All-Star caliber studs of the Sixers.
The play of Myles Turner, the team’s 22-year-old fourth-year starting center, has evolved in leaps and bounds from last season and he may get there one day, but he’s not there yet. Super-sub power forward Domantas Sabonis has also taken a significant leap this year.
The 22-year-old finds himself averaging 14.6 points, 9.3 rebounds and 2.8 assists on a dynamite 60.2 percent shooting from the field, in just 24.9 minutes per game. Indiana’s starting small forward, Thaddeus Young, has been enjoying a fantastic year in a suspicious contract season. He will be 31 when the ink dries on his next deal this summer.
Bearing all this in mind, the Pacers must look to the future as they approach the Feb. 7 trade deadline, and make moves with the 2019-20 season in mind. Outside of David West in 2011, the Pacers have struggled to be a free agent destination in the 21st century. A tactical trade could work to shore up their soldiers. The Indiana Pacers need their own Big 3.
General manager Kevin Pritchard and his front office braintrust face an uncertain future, both this season and beyond. The Pacers need a young-ish player (i.e. someone who will be under 30 at the start of next season) or else someone who projects to be a really good Eastern Conference All-Star (i.e. not good enough to make the cut in the West, but a top-15 level talent in next year’s East) under contract for at least two more seasons.
The win-now trade ideas have been jettisoned in the wake of Oladipo’s injury, and in their stead are a few different roads Indy should explore. And no, none of them include a trade for Anthony Davis, who just alerted the New Orleans Pelicans that he wants to be moved this past Monday. But a different New Orleans Pelican may very well be in the offing, so in the interest of being thorough, here are three potential trades the Pacers should explore.