The Pacers are looking to add a third point guard after trading Aaron Holiday to the Wizards, according to J. Michael of the Indianapolis Star. They’ve been trying to move wing Jeremy Lamb and his expiring $10.5MM contract but have yet to find any takers.
The Pacers have withdrawn their two-way qualifying offer to Cassius Stanley, making him an unrestricted free agent, J. Michael of the Indianapolis Star tweets.
Stanley played on a two-way contract as a rookie. He saw action in 24 games, averaging 1.5 PPG in 3.9 MPG.
Stanley, 21, was chosen with the No. 54 overall pick in 2020 out of Duke. He competed in last year’s Slam Dunk competition prior to the All-Star game.
He averaged 12.6 PPG and 4.9 RPG in his lone season with the Blue Devils.
Indiana has both of its two-way slots filled by Amida Brimah and Duane Washington.
- The Fort Wayne Mad Ants, the Pacers’ G League affiliate, will play nine games in Indianapolis next season, Scott Agness of Fieldhouse Files reports. The Mad Ants will also play 15 games on their home court. Those games in Indiana will make it easier for the Pacers to shuttle players back and forth between the NBA and the G League, if necessary.
A total of 26 trades have been completed to so far during the 2021 NBA offseason, and many of those deals generated at least one “traded player exception.”
As we explain in our glossary, a traded player exception allows a team to take on salary in a trade without sending out any salary in return. The amount of the exception plus $100K is the amount of salary the team is permitted to take back without salary-matching – either in a single deal or in multiple trades – for one year.
For instance, a team with a $10MM trade exception could acquire a player earning $4MM and a player earning $6.1MM without having to worry about sending out any outgoing salary.
One of the biggest trade exceptions ever created – the Thunder‘s $27.5MM TPE from last November’s Steven Adams trade – expired last week without being used, but Oklahoma City still has a pair of sizeable exceptions to work with, as our tracker shows. The team could also create upwards of $30MM in cap space by renouncing all its exceptions, including the mid-level and bi-annual.
While the Thunder have some big traded player exceptions, they aren’t one of the teams that created sizable new TPEs in offseason deals this year. Here are the largest new trade exceptions generated this summer:
- New Orleans Pelicans: $17,073,171 (Steven Adams)
- Brooklyn Nets: $11,454,048 (Spencer Dinwiddie)
- Dallas Mavericks: $10,865,952 (Josh Richardson)
- Boston Celtics: $9,720,900 (Tristan Thompson)
- Note: It’s unclear whether the Celtics absorbed Bruno Fernando‘s salary ($1,782,621) using the Thompson exception or their Kemba Walker trade exception ($6,879,100). We’re assuming for now that Fernando slotted into the Walker exception, reducing its value to $5,096,479. However, if he went into the Thompson TPE, its value would be reduced to $7,938,279.
- Utah Jazz: $7,475,379 (Derrick Favors)
- Note: There was an expectation that the Jazz would slot Eric Paschall‘s salary ($1,782,621) into one of two trade exceptions that were set to expire on August 6. However, it appears the deal wasn’t completed until August 7 for logistical reasons, meaning the Favors TPE (originally $9,258,000) would’ve had to be used.
- Indiana Pacers: $7,333,333 (Doug McDermott)
- Chicago Bulls: $5,000,000 (Daniel Theis)
For a second straight year, a team generated the largest trade exception of the offseason by trading Adams. This time around, it was the Pelicans, who cleverly folded separate trade agreements with the Grizzlies and Hornets into one three-team deal, sending Wesley Iwundu to Charlotte to ensure that Adams’ salary wouldn’t be required for matching purposes.
The Pelicans and Mavericks are the two best candidates on this list to make use of their newly-created exceptions at some point. The larger the exception is, the easier it is to find a use for, and those are two of the three biggest in this group.
The other big TPE belongs to the Nets, but they’re already way over the tax line and will be reluctant to take on more salary unless they have a really good reason to do so. That’s probably true of most of the other teams on this list too — the Celtics and Jazz in particular have to be conscious of luxury-tax concerns as they mull the possibility of taking on additional salary. New Orleans and Dallas have more wiggle room, while the Pacers and Bulls are somewhere in between.
The full list of available trade exceptions can be found here.
Salary information from Basketball Insiders was used in the creation of this post.
Executives around the NBA don’t love the idea of having teams forfeit second-round picks as a result of tampering investigations, like the Bucks did a year ago, writes ESPN’s Jonathan Givony (Insider link). As Givony explains, the thinking is that late second-rounders don’t have a ton of value to begin with, so taking away those picks hurts would-be draftees as much as it hurts teams.
“Why are we punishing players by reducing the number of picks that are made in the NBA draft?” one executive said to Givony. “Players work their entire careers to get to the point that they can hear their names called on draft night. It’s completely unfair to them to have fewer bestowed that honor because of backroom shenanigans that are entirely out of their control.”
Givony suggests some execs would like to see the NBA find a way to avoid having fewer than 60 picks in future drafts by redistributing any forfeited picks. For instance, a team that wins a midseason tournament could earn an extra second-round pick, or a forfeited pick could be awarded to the team that employs the winner of the league’s new Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Social Justice Champion award.
“How cool would it have been if (inaugural winner) Carmelo Anthony went up to the podium at the 60th pick and announced that the Portland Trail Blazers have drafted someone?” one Eastern Conference executive said to Givony. “That would have been a great moment at Barclays Center, shedding light on the work he’s done, and tying it to the start of a young player’s NBA career, who could maybe follow in his footsteps.”
Here are a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- Speaking to Doug Feinberg of The Associated Press, Spurs assistant Becky Hammon said she can’t wait for a time when it’s considered normal for NBA teams to interview and hire women for head coaching jobs. Hammon, one of the few women to receive head coaching consideration, added that she wants to be hired for the right reasons. “Please don’t hire me to check a box. That’s the worst thing you can do for me,” she said. “Hire me because of my skill sets and coaching, who am I as a person, hire me for those.”
- Bobby Marks of ESPN (Twitter link) provides a breakdown of the projected tax penalties for the eight teams currently above the tax line. While some clubs may shed salary over the course of the season to reduce those bills, the current numbers are staggering, especially for the Warriors ($184MM), Nets ($131MM), and Clippers ($125MM).
- Five-star prospect Jazian Gortman, a guard based in South Carolina whom ESPN ranks fifth in the 2022 recruiting class, has signed with Overtime Elite, the league announced on Wednesday in a press release.
- RealGM has the details on the draft picks involved in a pair of Spurs trades – with the Pacers (Doug McDermott) and Bulls (DeMar DeRozan) – this week. Most notably, the first-round pick Chicago is sending San Antonio will be top-10 protected in 2025 and top-eight protected in two subsequent years. That pick would be pushed back by a year if the Bulls’ 2023 first-rounder falls within in its top-four protection and isn’t conveyed until 2024.
The Pacers have signed first-round pick Isaiah Jackson, according to a team press release.
Jackson, the 22nd overall pick, was acquired from the Lakers on draft night. That trade was folded into the five-team deal that sent Russell Westbrook to the Lakers.
The 6’10” forward was one-and-done at Kentucky and was named to the All-Southeastern Conference Freshman and Defensive Teams. He averaged 8.6 PPG, 6.6 RPG and 2.6 BPG in 25 games with the Wildcats.
Assuming the usual 120% rate above the rookie scale, Jackson will make approximately $2.45MM in his rookie season and could make more than $12.1MM over the next four years.
The Pacers already signed the No. 13 overall pick, Chris Duarte.
- The Pacers officially announced a pair of additions to Rick Carlisle‘s staff, stating in a press release that Jannero Pargo has been hired as a player development assistant and Zach Chu has come aboard as the team’s manager of game strategy and analytics. Pargo spent the last two seasons with Portland, while Chu worked under Carlisle in Dallas.
The Pistons‘ three-year deal with Kelly Olynyk has a partial guarantee in year three, with only $3MM of the big man’s $12.2MM salary assured in 2023/24, according to Keith Smith of Spotrac (Twitter link). Detroit also gave Trey Lyles a two-year, $5.125MM deal that includes a second-year team option, Smith adds (Twitter link).
While those contract details are similar to what was reported earlier in free agency, the specifics on the Pistons’ deals for Saben Lee and second-round pick Isaiah Livers didn’t surface until today.
According to Smith (Twitter link), the Pistons used cap space to give Lee a three-year, minimum-salary contract that includes two fully guaranteed years followed by a third-year team option. As for Livers, his new deal with Detroit is also for three years with a third-year team option, tweets Smith. The No. 42 pick got slightly more than the rookie minimum in his first year, followed by the veteran’s minimum in years two and three.
Here’s more from around the Central:
- T.J. McConnell‘s new four-year contract with the Pacers, originally said to be worth $35MM, actually has a base value of $33.6MM and includes some unlikely bonuses, according to Smith (Twitter link). The fourth-year salary of $9.3MM is partially guaranteed for $5MM.
- Contract negotiations between Jarrett Allen and the Cavaliers “never grew contentious,” writes Jason Lloyd of The Athletic. The team always wanted to lock up Allen, and the big man wanted a nine-figure deal, so the five-year, $100MM agreement made both sides happy.
- Eric Nehm of The Athletic explores what role newly-acquired wing Grayson Allen will play for the Bucks in 2021/22, noting that Allen would be in line for more minutes if Donte DiVincenzo, coming off ankle surgery, still has limitations to start the season.
- K.C. Johnson of NBC Sports Chicago explains why the NBA is looking into the Bulls‘ sign-and-trade agreement with Lonzo Ball and what to expect from the investigation.
8:02pm: The game has been scheduled for Monday at 1:00pm CT, according to the NBA.
12:44pm: The first day of the NBA’s 2021 Las Vegas Summer League has already been impacted by the novel coronavirus COVID-19.
The league has postponed tonight’s Wizards–Pacers Summer League contest in Las Vegas as a result of COVID-19 health and safety protocols, tweets Shams Charania of The Athletic.
It was announced yesterday that Wizards Summer League players Cassius Winston, Issuf Sanon and Isaiah Todd were being placed in the league’s coronavirus health and safety protocols.
Washington is unable to supply enough players to field a full club, per Charania (via Twitter). Other players beyond that initial report have joined their comrades in entering the health and safety protocols as a result of contact tracing.
The NBA had to cancel the 2020 Summer League after concerns surrounding the ongoing pandemic precluded a safe environment in which games could be played. With safe and effective vaccines on the market, the league felt confident that Summer League could resume this year, though it appears the NBA continues to monitor players’ potential exposure to the coronavirus, as it did during the 2020 “bubble” NBA resumption and the 2020/21 season.
Scott Agness of Fieldhouse Files reports that the Pacers will opt to practice instead of suiting up against the depleted Wizards.
AUGUST 8: McDermott has joined the Spurs in a sign-and-trade deal, the Pacers announced in a press release.
Indiana got a future second-round pick in return, while San Antonio received McDermott, a future second-rounder and the option to swap second-round picks in a future draft. The Pacers also created a $7.3MM trade exception in the deal, equivalent to McDermott’s 2020/21 salary.
AUGUST 2: Pacers free agent forward Doug McDermott has agreed to a three-year, $42MM deal with the Spurs, Shams Charania of The Athletic tweets.
McDermott cashed in off a career year with Indiana in which he averaged 13.6 PPG, 3.3 RPG and 1.3 APG. He’s a career 40.7% 3-point shooter, though he’s more than just a perimeter threat. He averaged a career-high 10.1 shot attempts and made 53.2% of them in his walk year.
McDermott’s most recent contract, which he signed with Indiana in 2018, was a three-year deal worth $22MM.
Retaining McDermott at the number he agreed to with the Spurs would have added to the Pacers’ luxury tax concerns, though they were hoping to re-sign him.
The Pelicans, Suns, and Nuggets were among the teams that were rumored to be potential suitors for the 29-year-old McDermott. The Spurs had an edge over many other teams due to ample cap space, while many others could only offer their $9.536MM mid-level exception.
San Antonio could simply sign McDermott with its cap room or work out a sign-and-trade with Indiana.