Photo by Kiyoshi Mio / USA Today Sports
The Raptors continued their teardown by sending Pascal Siakam to the Pacers in exchange for Bruce Brown, Jordan Nwora, and three first round picks:
- Indiana’s own 2024 first
- The worst of UTA/LAC/HOU/OKC 2024 first
- Indiana’s own 2026 first
Kira Lewis also heads to Toronto from New Orleans in the deal.
On the surface, it looks like a lot to give up for a player on the other side of his prime who doesn’t get you much closer to real contention, but let’s actually break it down.
Brown, the primary player going back to Toronto, took advantage of being Nikola Jokic’s teammate in Denver, parlaying his inflated numbers into a two-year, $45 million deal with Indiana. Only the first year and $22 million are guaranteed. His shooting percentage and offensive efficiency rating are down significantly since leaving Denver, and realistically, he stands a fair chance of being flipped by Toronto to a contender before the deadline.
Nwora and Lewis have some promise but haven’t lived up to their potential yet. Who knows? Either of them could get some more minutes in Toronto and bloom into some kind of important asset, but I doubt it.
Then there are the picks. On the surface, three firsts are a steep price, but two of them are slated for this year’s draft, which projects to be a historically bad draft. Indiana’s pick currently sits at 19th, and it wouldn’t be shocking to see it fall farther down the board with Siakam’s arrival. The other pick as of now would be 28th thanks to Oklahoma City’s fantastic season. Those aren’t as valuable as they seem.
The 2026 pick exposes Indiana a little bit more, but the Pacers will hope that they can extend Siakam and that his partnership with Tyrese Haliburton will lead to success several years from now, leaving that pick low on the board as well. I’m personally bullish about that happening.
The Raptors could always get lucky with one of those picks, but the reality is that Indiana didn’t really give up all that much for a capable second option. Siakam always felt a bit out of his depth as a number one, but with Haliburton in Indiana, I’m betting that he’ll flourish without the weight of the franchise on his shoulders.
For what it’s worth, it seems fairly likely that Siakam will re-sign with Indiana for the long term. Realistically under the new CBA, each team will have two slots for max-level contracts. Who else is paying Siakam what Indiana will inevitably offer him to stay? By making this trade, Indiana effectively committed its second max slot to Siakam.
Some may call it a waste of cap space in the long-term, but what good is cap space for a franchise like Indiana that isn’t a perennial free agent destination? It makes a lot of sense to make a trade and know you can get a max-level guy in the building.
I still don’t think this trade moves the Pacers up the ladder a whole lot in the east, but it still makes sense. Siakam is not the defender he once was, evidenced by his career-worst 118.8 defensive rating, and he’s also not a consistent shooter. However, you can still pencil him in for 25/5/5 per night and slots in as a capable deputy to Sheriff Haliburton.
Indiana currently has Miami, New York, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and Boston ahead of them in the standings, and at least one of them will need to be jumped for the Pacers to avoid the play-in. Nonetheless, the Pacers stole an asset in Siakam that could’ve instead helped a rival in the playoff race.
You can’t deny that this makes Indiana better, and even if it falls short this year, Siakam is a great addition to have alongside a continually-evolving Haliburton. Whether it’s in the play-in or the actual playoffs, this also makes them a much tougher out.
I mean, what else was Indiana supposed to do with all that cap space? It’s not like the Pacers are recruiting 2010 LeBron-level free agents to play there.
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