- Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle says it’s time for the franchise to “take competitive steps,” Akeem Glaspie of the Indianapolis Star relays. “We anticipate a highly, highly competitive camp,” Carlisle said. “We’ve spent two solid years in a true development mode. We’re going to keep an eye on development, but we’re looking to take competitive steps. We had a meeting with the guys last night, we told them to expect it to be hard and to embrace it being hard. For us to make strides, we’re going to have to do a lot of the little things. We’re gonna have to do it in the margins, we’re gonna have to be very, very together like we were last year.”
- Buddy Hield came to Pacers camp ready to go, despite stalled extension talks, Dustin Dopirak of the Indianapolis Star reports. “It’s basketball. It’s fun. I approach it as every training camp, especially like I did last year, coming focused and ready and just get the work in,” Hield said. “I’m excited to work with these guys. It’s a fun group of guys. There’s a lot of competition and it’s fun. We have a great coaching staff and great team that’s ready to put in the work and teammates that love each other. I’m excited and I can’t wait.”
The 2024 Olympics in Paris were a popular topic of discussion on media days around the NBA in Monday, with many of the league’s biggest American stars expressing interest in representing Team USA next summer.
Suns forward Kevin Durant, who won Olympic gold medals in 2012, 2016, and 2020, was adamant in addressing his 2024 plans, telling reporters, “I will play in the Olympics next year,” according to Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press.
Durant’s Suns teammate Devin Booker also indicated that he would accept an invite from USA Basketball, as Duane Rankin of The Arizona Republic writes, while KD’s former Warriors teammate Stephen Curry told reporters, “(I) definitely want to be on the team,” per Reynolds.
Lakers forward LeBron James, who was rumored last month to be recruiting his fellow U.S. stars to play at next year’s Olympics, confirmed his interest, tweets Jovan Buha of The Athletic. His teammate Anthony Davis wasn’t prepared to commit yet, telling reporters that it’s too early to say whether he’ll play (Twitter link via Buha).
Of course, one of the biggest question marks for Team USA is Joel Embiid, who has yet to take part in an international competition and has citizenship in France and the U.S. in addition to his native Cameroon.
As Tim Bontemps of ESPN relays (via Twitter), Embiid said today that he’d like to play in the Olympics but is still weighing his options. While the U.S. and France have already qualified, Cameroon will compete in a qualifying tournament next summer in the hopes of earning a spot in the 12-team Olympic field. Embiid, who was reportedly given an October 10 deadline by the French team, said he hopes to make his decision “in the next few days.”
“I love all three options,” Embiid said, per ESPN. “Cameroon, I’m born there, I’m from there and I always want to represent my country. But the goal is also to play in the Olympics. If we had a chance, or if we would qualify for the Olympics, that will be an easy decision. But that’s still up in the air. And I really do want to play in the Olympics.”
Here’s more on the potential Team USA roster, which can only accommodate 12 players:
- Celtics forward Jayson Tatum intends to play for the U.S. in Paris, tweets Jeff Goodman of The Messenger. His teammate Jaylen Brown also expressed interest, telling reporters that there’s “no greater honor” than representing his country and adding that it would be “great” to play in next year’s Olympics (Twitter link via Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe).
- Clippers forward Kawhi Leonard said he would consider playing for Team USA in the Paris Olympics, per Andrew Greif of The Los Angeles Times (Twitter link).
- Bucks forward Khris Middleton and center Brook Lopez (Twitter link via Eric Nehm of The Athletic), Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton (Twitter link via Scott Agness of Fieldhouse Files), Rockets guard Fred VanVleet (Twitter link via Chris Mannix of SI.com), Bulls guard Zach LaVine (Twitter link via K.C. Johnson of NBC Sports Chicago), and Nuggets forward Aaron Gordon (Twitter link via Harrison Wind of DNVR Sports) are among the players who indicated they’d accept invites from Team USA if they received them. Heat big man Bam Adebayo, Suns guard Bradley Beal, Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell, and Knicks forward Julius Randle also fall into that group, per a report from ESPN.
- Clippers forward Paul George, Pelicans forward Zion Williamson, and Wizards forward Kyle Kuzma expressed some interest in playing for Team USA, while Heat wing Jimmy Butler didn’t rule out the possibility, according to ESPN.
SEPTEMBER 30: The Pacers have waived both Payton and Jordan Bell, per a press release. Bell was also signed to an Exhibit 10 contract. Indiana now has 18 players on its roster.
SEPTEMBER 29: The Pacers have signed free agent point guard Elfrid Payton, the team announced in a press release.
While the terms of the deal were not disclosed, Scott Agness of Fieldhouse Files tweets that the deal was designed for Payton to return to the Mad Ants, Indiana’s NBA G League affiliate. That strongly suggests Payton received an Exhibit 10 contract, which would entitle him to a bonus worth up to $75K if he’s waived before the season starts and spends at least 60 days with the Mad Ants.
A former lottery pick (10th overall in 2014), Payton appeared in 500 regular season games over eight seasons with the Magic, Suns (twice), Pelicans and Knicks. His last NBA stint came back in 2021/22 with Phoenix, when he averaged a career-low 11.0 minutes over 50 games with the Suns.
Last season, Payton had a brief stint playing professionally in Puerto Rico before joining the Mad Ants to finish out the campaign. In 10 regular season games (20.5 minutes) with the Mad Ants, the 29-year-old averaged 7.9 points, 6.0 assists, 3.9 rebounds and 1.4 steals, with a subpar .424/.286/.333 shooting line.
Payton reportedly had workouts with the Hornets and Timberwolves this offseason, but was unable to find an NBA contract. Instead, he’ll reportedly be heading back to the Mad Ants to open ’23/24.
The Pacers now have 20 players under contract, including 15 on guaranteed standard deals and all three two-way slots filled.
After being sent to the Trail Blazers as part of the Damian Lillard blockbuster, Jrue Holiday is likely the next guard to be traded by a Portland team seeking draft capital and/or players who fit the club’s timeline. The Blazers are expected to be active in the next few days in attempting to find a landing spot for the two-time All-Star and there’s a “good chance” he’s on the move by Monday, according to The Athletic’s Shams Charania.
The market for Holiday, a tenacious defender, is already robust. As we wrote on Thursday, the Clippers, Heat, Bulls, Celtics, Knicks, Pacers, and Sixers are among the teams that could explore acquiring him.
Sam Vecenie of The Athletic looks at several hypothetical landing spots for Holiday and considers what the trade package might look like in each scenario. In his view, the Clippers are the most viable destination for Holiday, with an easy-to-build package consisting of matching salaries, young players and draft picks. While the Clippers have been tied to Sixers guard James Harden for some time, Vecenie reasons that Holiday could be more appealing, since he’s extension-eligible while Harden is not, due to his two-year deal last offseason.
Of course, the rumors linking Harden and the Clippers make a three-team deal that sends Harden to L.A, Holiday to Philadelphia, and salaries, picks and other assets to Portland easy to imagine, Vecenie writes. However, Kyle Neubeck of PHLY Sports says that he’s hearing no real traction on any such move and that it will be difficult for Philadelphia to land Holiday.
The Heat, Knicks and Warriors are among other teams who can put together reasonable packages for Holiday, Vecenie writes, with Golden State providing his favorite potential landing spot for the guard.
We have more Jrue Holiday-related notes:
- The Kings are one of the few teams who will not be in on the Holiday sweepstakes, tweets Sam Amick of The Athletic. According to Amick, the Kings “looked at” the possibility, but will not pursue the guard. While Holiday makes sense for just about every team in the league, it stands to reason that the Kings, who seem to have a set backcourt rotation, wouldn’t want to shake things up this close to the season.
- Indiana is a dark horse candidate to trade for Holiday. IndyStar’s Dustin Dopirak explores the subject, weighing the pros and cons of the Pacers acquiring Holiday. While adding the former All-Star would give Indiana a secondary ball-handler and shooting, along with high-level defense, it might not be the best idea for the team to sacrifice draft capital and/or young players at this stage of its timeline. With Holiday potentially becoming a free agent next offseason, it’s also possible he would be a rental and, if not, he would be costly at 33 years old, Dopirak writes. Ultimately, Dopirak believes the Pacers shouldn’t get desperate to acquire Holiday, even if he would boost their playoff odds this season.
- As noted above, New York makes some level of sense as a suitor for Holiday’s services. Fred Katz and Mike Vorkunov write about the topic, arguing that while Holiday would help in a major way on the court, the cost to acquire him would be great. Ian Begley of SNY writes that if the Knicks did acquire Holiday, they’d do so with the idea of extending him.
The Suns are believed to have maintained their interest in Pacers guard T.J. McConnell, Jake Fischer of Yahoo Sports said in the latest episode of the No Cap Room podcast (YouTube link).
Phoenix’s interest in McConnell was reported by multiple outlets earlier in the summer, but at that time, the team had no clear path to acquiring him due to his $8.7MM cap hit. Following their trade of Deandre Ayton and Toumani Camara for four players, the Suns have more potential pathways to acquiring McConnell, with either Nassir Little ($6.25MM) or Grayson Allen ($8.93MM) as a logical salary-matching piece.
While Fischer points out that the Suns are extremely short on point guard depth, he admits he’s not sure if the team will be eager to sacrifice its wing depth by moving a player like Little or Allen. Allen, in particular, had been on Phoenix’s radar for a while, as Fischer noted on Wednesday.
Here’s more on the Suns:
- During the same podcast, Fischer reiterated that Keon Johnson‘s days in Phoenix are likely numbered. “I don’t think they’ve officially waived Keon Johnson yet, but from my understanding, they plan to waive him,” Fischer said. The former first-round pick was sent from Portland to the Suns in Wednesday’s blockbuster deal.
- Suns owner Mat Ishbia was “very involved” in the trade that landed Allen, Little, Johnson, and Jusuf Nurkic in Phoenix, according to Sam Amick of The Athletic. As Amick explains, the Suns view the move as one that not only adds depth but gives them players who better fit around their stars. Nurkic was a longtime target for the club, which is “thrilled” to have landed him, Amick adds.
- While he’s not an All-Star like Damian Lillard and Jrue Holiday, Ayton is the only player in Wednesday’s blockbuster who is a former No. 1 overall pick, so his departure represents the end of an era, of sorts, in Phoenix. Doug Haller of The Athletic and Gerald Bourguet of GoPHNX.com take a look back at Ayton’s tenure with the franchise and, in Bourguet’s words, the “polarizing, complicated” legacy he’ll leave behind.
- John Gambadoro of Arizona Sports 98.7 has shot down a report claiming that the Suns had interest in acquiring Kyle Lowry from the Heat as part of a three-team trade if the Trail Blazers had decided to send Lillard to Miami. There’s “absolutely no truth” to that claim, according to Gambadoro (Twitter link), who says Phoenix was “totally focused” on Nurkic and the smaller pieces they could get with him.
The Lakers, Clippers, Heat, Celtics, Bulls and Sixers are among the teams Jrue Holiday would be interested in joining, a league source tells Anthony Chiang and Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald.
That said, unless the Trail Blazers are willing to hold onto Holiday for at least a few months, you can scratch the Lakers from the list of possible suitors. They obviously aren’t trading LeBron James for Holiday, and the other players they could theoretically use to match salaries aren’t trade-eligible until December or January.
The Blazers are expected to prioritize young players and draft assets in exchange for Holiday, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski said on NBA Today (YouTube link).
Holiday is expected to draw interest from a variety of teams, sources tell ESPN’s Zach Lowe (Insider link). The Heat could be among that group, but Portland “had no major interest in any individual Miami player or draft asset, and limited interest in whatever combination Miami might cobble” during negotiations for Damian Lillard, Lowe reports.
According to Chiang and Jackson, the Heat haven’t ruled out making an aggressive push for Holiday, but they didn’t do it immediately on Thursday. Miami isn’t expected to pursue James Harden, and has yet to express interest in Pacers sharpshooter Buddy Hield, who is reportedly on the trading block after failing to reach an extension, a source tells Chiang and Jackson. Free agent guard Goran Dragic is interested in returning to the Heat, but that interest doesn’t appear to be mutual, per The Herald’s duo.
Sources tell Lowe the Pacers and Knicks are expected to have a level of interest in Holiday, though it’s unclear how seriously they’ll pursue the defensive stalwart. While Lowe believes Holiday could be a good fit with both clubs, he wonders if Indiana will decide it’s too early to make a win-now move.
Boston was previously cited as a possible suitor, but multiple sources tell Brian Robb of MassLive that the Celtics will likely be outbid and aren’t expected to land Holiday. Still, the team has long been interested in the veteran guard — Boston tried to acquire Holiday a few years ago before he was traded to Milwaukee, a source tells Robb.
Here are a few more notes related to Holiday, who was sent to the Blazers from the Bucks as part of yesterday’s Lillard blockbuster:
- Bucks star forward Giannis Antetokounmpo didn’t have a direct impact on the Lillard deal, Wojnarowski noted in the same segment. “Directly, (Antetokounmpo) literally played no role,” Wojnarowski said. “In fact, (GM) Jon Horst did not bring this trade idea or sign off on it to Giannis Antetokounmpo because Jrue Holiday was involved. And the relationship there and the reverence that this organization and these players have for Holiday. He did not want to put that to Giannis Antetokounmpo and have him have that on his conscience necessarily that he might sign off or not sign off on it.” However, as Wojnarowski observes, Antetokounmpo putting pressure on the organization by saying winning more championships was the most important thing in his career certainly played a significant indirect factor in Milwaukee trading for Lillard.
- In addition to the previously mentioned teams that might pursue Holiday, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst (Insider link) believes the Pelicans, Kings and Warriors would also benefit from the All-Star guard’s services. Over at The Athletic, John Hollinger lists the Heat, Clippers and Celtics as logical destinations for Holiday.
- Dustin Dopirak of The Indianapolis Star considers the pros and cons of the Pacers pursuing Holiday. As Dopirak writes, head coach Rick Carlisle heaped praise on the five-time All-Defensive member during the 2022/23 season. “I’d like to somebody to name five other basketball players that are better than Jrue Holiday at the entire game,” Carlisle said. “Guy’s an amazing player, both sides of the ball. His scoring tonight was at another level obviously, but defensively, he can guard anybody. Just a nod of respect to him. He’s a guy that too often is overlooked as a truly, truly great player.” Still, Dopirak thinks it’s probably too early for Indiana to go after a 33-year-old veteran like Holiday, who can be a free agent in 2024 if he declines his player option.
The Pacers have waived Pedro Bradshaw and Craig Sword and signed Jordan Bell, the team announced in a press release.
All three players received Exhibit 10 deals, which means they’ll each be eligible for a bonus worth up to $75K if they spend at least 60 days with the Indiana Mad Ants, the Pacers’ NBA G League affiliate. Based on previous reporting, Bell will almost certainly be waived in the coming days as well.
A 6’8″ big man, Bell has by far the most NBA experience of the group, appearing in 161 regular season games with the Warriors, Wolves, Grizzlies, Wizards and Bulls from 2017-22. He holds career averages of 3.7 PPG and 3.1 RPG in 12.0 MPG. The 28-year-old played in China last season but spent most of 2021/22 with the Mad Ants.
Bradshaw, who went undrafted out of Bellarmine in 2021, averaged 9.2 PPG and 5.8 RPG in 29 regular season games (19.2 MPG) with the Mad Ants in ’22/23. He posted a .509/.419/.776 shooting line.
Sword was a member of the Capital City Go-Go last season who had his rights acquired earlier this month by the Mad Ants. An NBAGL veteran who has appeared in more than 200 games at that level, the 29-year-old averaged 7.8 points, 3.5 rebounds, and 1.1 steals in 22.2 minutes per game last season in 43 appearances for the Go-Go, with a shooting line of .566/.387/.725.
The Pacers now have 19 players under contract, including 15 on guaranteed standard deals and all three two-way slots filled.
The Pacers are in “no rush” regarding potential extensions for forwards Obi Toppin and Aaron Nesmith and guard T.J. McConnell, general manager Chad Buchanan told Dustin Dopirak of the Indianapolis Star and other media members.
Toppin was acquired during the summer from the Knicks to compete for the power forward spot. He’ll make $6.8MM this season and become a restricted free agent if he’s extended a qualifying offer after the season.
Nesmith started 60 of 73 games for the Pacers last season and appears set to be a regular rotation player again following the offseason trade of fellow wing Chris Duarte. Nesmith is in a similar spot as Toppin regarding his contract status. He’ll make $5.6MM this season and head into restricted free agency next season if a QO is offered.
“We’ll have conversations with their agents,” Buchanan said. “Obi is someone that we haven’t seen on our team yet. We’d like to see how things play out there. Aaron obviously has had one year with us and did a good job for us. It’s got to be the right situation for both sides. We’ll have those conversations but there’s no rush or anything to do something with those two guys in the short term.”
As for McConnell, the 31-year-old backup point man will make $8.7MM this season. His $9.3MM salary for next season is partially guaranteed for $5MM. His rotation spot is also in flux and Dopirak suggests the team may eventually look to trade him rather than extend him.
“T.J. is another guy who wants to play and he deserves to play,” Buchanan said. “He’s going to come in to compete. T.J. has had to compete for everything in his life. How that’s going to look, we don’t know yet, but I think he wants to be a Pacer. He’s happy being a Pacer. He wants to be here and that’s something we need to see play out and see where it goes.”
- Even though general manager Chad Buchanan has downplayed reports that the Pacers are looking to trade Buddy Hield, giving second-year guard Bennedict Mathurin a starting job ahead of Hield could cause chemistry issues, Gregg Doyel of the Indianapolis Star opines. Hield is in the final year of his contract and extension talks have stalled, Buchanan admitted this week, though they could be rekindled.
- The Pacers have multiple options at center behind Myles Turner. Buchanan indicated that Daniel Theis, Isaiah Jackson and Jalen Smith will battle in training camp for the backup role, according to Dustin Dopirak of the Indianapolis Star. Buchanan added he won’t look to trade any of those players until there’s more clarity regarding the rotation.