The NBA trade deadline is a little over a month away, and the Indiana Pacers currently have a record of 14-25. That gives them the third worst record in the Eastern Conference.
Grab the dynamite. It’s time to blow this roster up and start the rebuild.
The rebuilding process is terrible and no fun for fan bases to go through, but it’s a necessary process for the Pacers. They don’t have the ability of the Lakers to sign two or three big name free agents to restore relevancy.
For mid-market teams rebuilding has to be done through the draft, so the Pacers should look to trade for draft picks. I know the Pacers don’t have the best drafting history, but that’s because they never have high picks. Their last time picking in the top 10 was over a decade ago, and they drafted Paul George. Not too shabby.
The Pacers have multiple young guys other teams would be interested in trading for. The two most intriguing guys being Domantas Sabonis and Myles Turner.
Sabonis will probably yield the highest return as a 25-year-old who can be a second scoring option on a good team. Turner can be a great rim protector on a contending team.
The Pacers should be able to flip both of them for a solid return of role players and draft picks, which they can use to draft their next superstar.
It’ll be interesting to see how the Pacers go about this over the next month. They could decide to stick it out with Sabonis and Turner, but I doubt that’ll happen. The blow up is imminent. The question is, will it begin before the trade deadline or will they start it in the offseason?
