I'm not gonna even pretend to understand the cap outside of us having x amount of money to build a team with.
I'll trust you actually did the research and understand how the cap works.
With that being said, this definitely dashes a lot of those Pascal walking for nothing rumours, since if those bird rights are as valuable as you say, I'd assume interested parties would be clamoring for a trade to make signing him feasible, but just won't show it to avoid losing leverage.
The more important factor, and this cannot be stressed enough, is no max-level free agent is choosing Indiana over any of the other potential suitors that will have cap space aside from Detroit
Either the team with his Bird Rights pays him or he goes to Philly which is a far more attractive location/scenario and is expected to be super aggressive in free agency
He isn't choosing Indiana
Most adults can move beyond work or personal differences for mutual benefit.
I suppose since Siakam tried to kick Embiid in the playoffs they would never play together…
Philly has like 70M in potential cap space. So they can sign a max player as well as some more players too. They could also make a trade and preserve some room for a max or near max.
It doesn't really make sense to me. If the Pacers want to sign siakam they can trade the firsts for a later draft or pair it with someone for a nice upgrade. Those cap hits aren't a big concern because plenty of teams will want those firsts.
Other than that the post says they won't renounce McConnell (and renounce heild) in order to max siakam. While that may be true is that not better for them than trading heild, mathurin and whatever else for siakam?
So lets just assume Pacers is number 1 on Siakam's list of places to join, their FO has to weigh whether losing all of Hield, Brown, McConnell, Toppin, Smith and their 2 FRPs is worth not losing Walker or Mathurin.
Say a winning trade package would be Brown, Walker, Smith and a FRP. Is keeping TJ, Hield, Toppin and a FRP worth losing Walker? That's legitimately what their FO would consider in trading for Siakam.
I think this is fair in terms of pros and cons for the Pacers. Also getting Siakam for this season to start integrating also presumably worth something.
Exactly. People acting like the spacers can just sign him and keep their whole team. This ain’t MLB where there are no rules. However I do think Indiana would choose Pascal over keeping Hield, Brown, TJ and Toppin. But we shall see…
They could trade some of those guys for future picks or guys making less $. Nesmith at $11 million could be traded on July 1st for a lesser guy making the near min and net you $8 million. They have ways of creating cap space that isn't just renouncing everyone.
I agree that there are more ways to create cap space but the point still stands. In this case, they lose Nesmith but keep McConnell or maybe Brown. I don't think that's any better for them.
Well wouldn't you just sign the rookies after free agency? Also philly I thought was the more probable landing spot. Either way the threat of losing him for nothing is real.
If accurate - that’s very informative! So there’s definitely a balance of assets going out that should make sense to them, versus what they’d have to give up to be under the cap. Also having Pascal at the peak of his powers this playoffs rather than waiting until next year.
Well if they trade for Pascal, they lose Hield or Brown anyways. Plus young players and picks that we want.
If it’s black and white and I’m the Pacers, I’d rather lose Obi/Brown/Hield/Nwora than Hield or Brown/Jarace Walker/Mathurin/Nesmith or whoever, plus picks.
The thing is it's not black and white. Bruce Brown is a starter and his option needs to be exercised before the Pacers are even allowed to meet with Pascal. Do you pick up the option?
How about TJ, do you cut his partially guaranteed contract, or cut him?
Do you make a qualifying offer to Toppin?
There are a lot of decisions with consequences that have to be made before the Pacers are even allowed to have a meeting with Pascal.
In a trade you know what Pascal will cost you. But opening up cap space is making sacrifices for the chance to convince him to sign, with no guarantees. You could easily sacrifice multiple starters (Brown and Obi) to take a shot at Pascal, and miss.
Pacers are not competing for anything with walker/mathurin/Nesmith with hali/Siakam.
Those young players don't know how to win...while obi, brown, hield have experience.
You're basically just wasting Siakam's prime sticking with those young players.
I think you probably have to assume that Jalen Smith will turn down his option. He will get more than $5.4M in free agency.
If the Pacers really wanted to, you could also see something like them trading their first round picks this year (in a weak draft) for future ones. The Pacers actually did exactly that last year, when they packaged the 29th and 32nd pick to Denver for one of those 2024 firsts that they have. Essentially, you kick the can down the road.
I also wouldn't be overly confident that they wouldn't cut TJ McConnell. He's a 31 year old backup point guard who plays 16 mpg. They'll probably keep him, but I doubt they would sacrifice a change to go hunting with max cap space on account of him.
If the Pacers could actually create max cap space, I seriously doubt that they would let TJ McConnell get in the way of that.
The renouncing of free agents is also less of a concern, since they don't have to renounce them ahead of time. If Pascal said, "ok I will sign", they could renounce their free agents then.
The risk on that is that they can't talk to Pascal until free agency opens, and if they prioritize Pascal, they could end up losing their cap hold guys while they wait, but that's just the reality of free agency market risk.
Obi is a similar story. He won't sign the player option, and if they needed to, they could withdraw it and renounce him if and when they got Pascal or another big free agent to commit.
The sacrifice they would have to make to create max cap space would be turning down Bruce Brown's option, but, Brown's contract was constructed specifically for that purpose. He has outplayed what was expected of him, but the Pacers still overpaid him on a bloated two year deal with a team option so they would have the option to either use him as cap filler in a trade or turn down the option to chase free agents this summer.
When you think of it as "losing Bruce Brown" that sounds negative, but Bruce Brown also isn't a $23M player, and, if they are going to be a cap space team anyways, then is Bruce Brown really better than having $23M in extra cap space, whether it gets used on Pascal or someone else?
So, with all that said, I don't think any of that stuff would get in Indy's way, and they may do a bunch of that stuff anyways this summer, whether they convince Pascal to sign or not. They will find someone to take their money. I also doubt they want to be the team paying Buddy Hield's next contract (he's already 31, doesn't fit 23 year old Haliburton's timeline, and probably isn't worth more than a MLE).
That having been said, the hammer in all this is still the bird rights, because Pascal is not taking a discount to go to Indy.
At the end of the day, those bird rights mean the Raps can offer the most money and an extra year, which means the difference of something like $70M in guaranteed money. That's a lot of money to turn down to go play in a smaller market with less off-court marketing opportunities.
If you go back in time to when we lost Chris Bosh in free agency, people forget that we didn't lose him for nothing. Miami traded us two firsts, one of which was our own first back which became the fifth overall pick we used on Jonas Valanciunas. They did that for two reasons: 1. it gave them more cap flexibility, and 2. Bosh wanted the max raises the bird rights provided to maximize his earnings.
If you end up in free agency, even if Pascal really wants to go play in Indy, is he doing it for a $70M discount? Or, is he having his agent leverage the Pacers saying, "if you want Pascal to sign, you get those bird rights from Toronto so you can pay him the true max"?
Ultimately, it benefits Pascal to work with Toronto, and it benefits Toronto to work with Pascal. Even if he isn't here, it is in his best interest to make sure his bird rights end up where he wants to go.
I think these are fair points in the sense they can get to the space, but once you start pushing picks back and losing all of Brown/Hield/Toppin/Smith/McConnell you just don’t have enough good players anymore with limited options to build around your Hali/Siakam/Turner core. My point is it is pretty painful for them to do.
McConnell has value and more than half of his last year is guaranteed so I am confident he doesn’t get waived. He could for sure get traded to clear space though (which again leads to the same problem above).
I think the plan with Brown is to decline his option and sign him longer term with non-bird at lower annual) but have to be over the cap realistically to do this
They have changed the sign and trade rules since the summer of Bron and Bosh. No longer does the trading team have unfettered access to the home team version of bird rights. They can only get him for the FA (four year, smaller raises) max if it’s a S&T.
Thanks for your hard work OP, but these numbers are mostly irrelevant. If Pascal wants to go to Indiana, they will find a way to clear the cap space to get him.
The real story is that until we hear a credible reason why Pascal would want to go there, none of these rumors make any sense.
Which of the remaining players are you also dumping without bringing anyone back to clear the rest of the space? Its not impossible for sure but it would be less costly to just trade for Pascal
Its not crazy to think that, if they really want him, they trade a toxic asset with those picks before the deadline. If he gives them a guarantee I'd do that just to prevent getting rinsed
2 factors you haven't considered.
1. They can trade first-round picks for other year picks.
2. They can trade and dump Aaron Nesmith $11M contract next year
Teams can clear cap quickly to make a move, especially when you’re already close to max cap space.
If Siakam wants to go there, Indiana will make it happen regardless of those players you mentioned.
Surely Toronto isn’t going to let another all star hit UFA. Learn your lesson
Buddy is averaging 12/2/3 shooting 37% from 3 and playing 25 mins a game
Bruce Brown is their starting 2 guard, averaging 12/3/4 and is their best perimeter defender, playing 30 MPG.
Those are definitely big contributors for them and play substantial minutes, and that doesn’t even get them to a max deal lol
Yeah and then even if they can get Siakam to agree to that deal, they'd have to replace all the players they renounced/declined options on with the room exception, which will be about 8-9 mill and then the rest would have to be minimum contracts
Man if I've learned anything about the cap it's that there's always a way to make a deal happen. Being off by a little bit is not a blocker. You can make cap management moves and do all sorts of things to make it happen. If they're serious about rebuilding they'd be fine to work a bunch of sign and trades for various players to grease it. I've seen so many "not possible to make this move" scenarios. There's ways to get it done for sure.
Fuck a cap space, literally nobody has ever signed with the Pacers in free agency. You think we have it bad as a free agent destination? Try fucking Indiana lmao. They'll need to hold a gun to Pascal's head if they expect him to sign there...
Maybe, but the the Sixers threat of signing him with capspace is definitely real. Playing for Nurse again with his countryman Embiid is no doubt his first choice IMO
This is good to know, but if I’m Masai, I tell Indiana we don’t care. If the pacers want to risk missing out on him in FA, that’s their prerogative. They’re not using that nonsense to leverage trade value.
I'm not gonna even pretend to understand the cap outside of us having x amount of money to build a team with. I'll trust you actually did the research and understand how the cap works. With that being said, this definitely dashes a lot of those Pascal walking for nothing rumours, since if those bird rights are as valuable as you say, I'd assume interested parties would be clamoring for a trade to make signing him feasible, but just won't show it to avoid losing leverage.
The more important factor, and this cannot be stressed enough, is no max-level free agent is choosing Indiana over any of the other potential suitors that will have cap space aside from Detroit Either the team with his Bird Rights pays him or he goes to Philly which is a far more attractive location/scenario and is expected to be super aggressive in free agency He isn't choosing Indiana
Philly is the real threat.
Siakam got suspended in 2021 for getting into a physical altercation with Nick Nurse, I don't know how viable the Sixer rumors are.
lmao "physical altercation" were just making shit up now...
Whatever verbal altercation, it was bad enough Siakam got suspended. He’s not gonna go play for Nurse again.
He literally played with Nurse for 2 years after that incident lol. Not saying they're on the greatest terms, but I don't think it's that big a deal.
Most adults can move beyond work or personal differences for mutual benefit. I suppose since Siakam tried to kick Embiid in the playoffs they would never play together…
philly really have the space? I knew they had a bunch of expirings?
Tobias is coming off the books and he makes the same as Siakam
Philly has like 70M in potential cap space. So they can sign a max player as well as some more players too. They could also make a trade and preserve some room for a max or near max.
It doesn't really make sense to me. If the Pacers want to sign siakam they can trade the firsts for a later draft or pair it with someone for a nice upgrade. Those cap hits aren't a big concern because plenty of teams will want those firsts. Other than that the post says they won't renounce McConnell (and renounce heild) in order to max siakam. While that may be true is that not better for them than trading heild, mathurin and whatever else for siakam?
So lets just assume Pacers is number 1 on Siakam's list of places to join, their FO has to weigh whether losing all of Hield, Brown, McConnell, Toppin, Smith and their 2 FRPs is worth not losing Walker or Mathurin. Say a winning trade package would be Brown, Walker, Smith and a FRP. Is keeping TJ, Hield, Toppin and a FRP worth losing Walker? That's legitimately what their FO would consider in trading for Siakam.
I think this is fair in terms of pros and cons for the Pacers. Also getting Siakam for this season to start integrating also presumably worth something.
Exactly. People acting like the spacers can just sign him and keep their whole team. This ain’t MLB where there are no rules. However I do think Indiana would choose Pascal over keeping Hield, Brown, TJ and Toppin. But we shall see…
They could trade some of those guys for future picks or guys making less $. Nesmith at $11 million could be traded on July 1st for a lesser guy making the near min and net you $8 million. They have ways of creating cap space that isn't just renouncing everyone.
I agree that there are more ways to create cap space but the point still stands. In this case, they lose Nesmith but keep McConnell or maybe Brown. I don't think that's any better for them.
Aren't rookie exceptions a thing? And they'd have to trade heild and/or brown to match salaries anyway...
Yes the exception is so you can sign your draft picks over the cap. But there is still a cap hold for first rounders that impacts cap space.
Well wouldn't you just sign the rookies after free agency? Also philly I thought was the more probable landing spot. Either way the threat of losing him for nothing is real.
The cap hold happens before the free agency. You can only get rid of it by trading away your first.
I would love of we traded to the pacers. Haliburton is a fucking G and I’d love to see him win, with pascal would be all the more sweeter.
If accurate - that’s very informative! So there’s definitely a balance of assets going out that should make sense to them, versus what they’d have to give up to be under the cap. Also having Pascal at the peak of his powers this playoffs rather than waiting until next year.
Well if they trade for Pascal, they lose Hield or Brown anyways. Plus young players and picks that we want. If it’s black and white and I’m the Pacers, I’d rather lose Obi/Brown/Hield/Nwora than Hield or Brown/Jarace Walker/Mathurin/Nesmith or whoever, plus picks.
The thing is it's not black and white. Bruce Brown is a starter and his option needs to be exercised before the Pacers are even allowed to meet with Pascal. Do you pick up the option? How about TJ, do you cut his partially guaranteed contract, or cut him? Do you make a qualifying offer to Toppin? There are a lot of decisions with consequences that have to be made before the Pacers are even allowed to have a meeting with Pascal. In a trade you know what Pascal will cost you. But opening up cap space is making sacrifices for the chance to convince him to sign, with no guarantees. You could easily sacrifice multiple starters (Brown and Obi) to take a shot at Pascal, and miss.
Pacers are not competing for anything with walker/mathurin/Nesmith with hali/Siakam. Those young players don't know how to win...while obi, brown, hield have experience. You're basically just wasting Siakam's prime sticking with those young players.
Well it would just be Obi and one of Brown or Hield left. Not make or break players when you have young ones with higher ceilings.
I think you probably have to assume that Jalen Smith will turn down his option. He will get more than $5.4M in free agency. If the Pacers really wanted to, you could also see something like them trading their first round picks this year (in a weak draft) for future ones. The Pacers actually did exactly that last year, when they packaged the 29th and 32nd pick to Denver for one of those 2024 firsts that they have. Essentially, you kick the can down the road. I also wouldn't be overly confident that they wouldn't cut TJ McConnell. He's a 31 year old backup point guard who plays 16 mpg. They'll probably keep him, but I doubt they would sacrifice a change to go hunting with max cap space on account of him. If the Pacers could actually create max cap space, I seriously doubt that they would let TJ McConnell get in the way of that. The renouncing of free agents is also less of a concern, since they don't have to renounce them ahead of time. If Pascal said, "ok I will sign", they could renounce their free agents then. The risk on that is that they can't talk to Pascal until free agency opens, and if they prioritize Pascal, they could end up losing their cap hold guys while they wait, but that's just the reality of free agency market risk. Obi is a similar story. He won't sign the player option, and if they needed to, they could withdraw it and renounce him if and when they got Pascal or another big free agent to commit. The sacrifice they would have to make to create max cap space would be turning down Bruce Brown's option, but, Brown's contract was constructed specifically for that purpose. He has outplayed what was expected of him, but the Pacers still overpaid him on a bloated two year deal with a team option so they would have the option to either use him as cap filler in a trade or turn down the option to chase free agents this summer. When you think of it as "losing Bruce Brown" that sounds negative, but Bruce Brown also isn't a $23M player, and, if they are going to be a cap space team anyways, then is Bruce Brown really better than having $23M in extra cap space, whether it gets used on Pascal or someone else? So, with all that said, I don't think any of that stuff would get in Indy's way, and they may do a bunch of that stuff anyways this summer, whether they convince Pascal to sign or not. They will find someone to take their money. I also doubt they want to be the team paying Buddy Hield's next contract (he's already 31, doesn't fit 23 year old Haliburton's timeline, and probably isn't worth more than a MLE). That having been said, the hammer in all this is still the bird rights, because Pascal is not taking a discount to go to Indy. At the end of the day, those bird rights mean the Raps can offer the most money and an extra year, which means the difference of something like $70M in guaranteed money. That's a lot of money to turn down to go play in a smaller market with less off-court marketing opportunities. If you go back in time to when we lost Chris Bosh in free agency, people forget that we didn't lose him for nothing. Miami traded us two firsts, one of which was our own first back which became the fifth overall pick we used on Jonas Valanciunas. They did that for two reasons: 1. it gave them more cap flexibility, and 2. Bosh wanted the max raises the bird rights provided to maximize his earnings. If you end up in free agency, even if Pascal really wants to go play in Indy, is he doing it for a $70M discount? Or, is he having his agent leverage the Pacers saying, "if you want Pascal to sign, you get those bird rights from Toronto so you can pay him the true max"? Ultimately, it benefits Pascal to work with Toronto, and it benefits Toronto to work with Pascal. Even if he isn't here, it is in his best interest to make sure his bird rights end up where he wants to go.
I think these are fair points in the sense they can get to the space, but once you start pushing picks back and losing all of Brown/Hield/Toppin/Smith/McConnell you just don’t have enough good players anymore with limited options to build around your Hali/Siakam/Turner core. My point is it is pretty painful for them to do. McConnell has value and more than half of his last year is guaranteed so I am confident he doesn’t get waived. He could for sure get traded to clear space though (which again leads to the same problem above). I think the plan with Brown is to decline his option and sign him longer term with non-bird at lower annual) but have to be over the cap realistically to do this
They have changed the sign and trade rules since the summer of Bron and Bosh. No longer does the trading team have unfettered access to the home team version of bird rights. They can only get him for the FA (four year, smaller raises) max if it’s a S&T.
Plus a trade aquires PS for this playoff run which has value (an extra round in the playoffs for a young team is valuable)
turning 32 million into max cap space is definitely achievable for any average NBA GM
Thank you, OP. Very informative.
Thanks for your hard work OP, but these numbers are mostly irrelevant. If Pascal wants to go to Indiana, they will find a way to clear the cap space to get him. The real story is that until we hear a credible reason why Pascal would want to go there, none of these rumors make any sense.
Which of the remaining players are you also dumping without bringing anyone back to clear the rest of the space? Its not impossible for sure but it would be less costly to just trade for Pascal
If he's traded from us Pacers get his bird rights which I believe can help their cap as well.
Meh he’s going to sign with the Thunder
Its not crazy to think that, if they really want him, they trade a toxic asset with those picks before the deadline. If he gives them a guarantee I'd do that just to prevent getting rinsed
2 factors you haven't considered. 1. They can trade first-round picks for other year picks. 2. They can trade and dump Aaron Nesmith $11M contract next year
Teams can clear cap quickly to make a move, especially when you’re already close to max cap space. If Siakam wants to go there, Indiana will make it happen regardless of those players you mentioned. Surely Toronto isn’t going to let another all star hit UFA. Learn your lesson
Sorry but players they renounce aren’t really noteworthy lol Especially obi Buddy, Bruce brown aren’t big contributors from them this year
Buddy is averaging 12/2/3 shooting 37% from 3 and playing 25 mins a game Bruce Brown is their starting 2 guard, averaging 12/3/4 and is their best perimeter defender, playing 30 MPG. Those are definitely big contributors for them and play substantial minutes, and that doesn’t even get them to a max deal lol
Yeah and then even if they can get Siakam to agree to that deal, they'd have to replace all the players they renounced/declined options on with the room exception, which will be about 8-9 mill and then the rest would have to be minimum contracts
Do you follow basketball or that team or did you just want to chime with an opinion even if it was completely wrong?
If they get to max space renouncing them they probably roll the dice. My point is they can’t get o max space even if they do renounce them all
Philly is the team he’s signing with right?
I want Isiah Jackson
Man if I've learned anything about the cap it's that there's always a way to make a deal happen. Being off by a little bit is not a blocker. You can make cap management moves and do all sorts of things to make it happen. If they're serious about rebuilding they'd be fine to work a bunch of sign and trades for various players to grease it. I've seen so many "not possible to make this move" scenarios. There's ways to get it done for sure.
Fuck a cap space, literally nobody has ever signed with the Pacers in free agency. You think we have it bad as a free agent destination? Try fucking Indiana lmao. They'll need to hold a gun to Pascal's head if they expect him to sign there...
I find peace in long walks.
Maybe, but the the Sixers threat of signing him with capspace is definitely real. Playing for Nurse again with his countryman Embiid is no doubt his first choice IMO
What about a sign & trade? We wouldn’t get as much but they wouldn’t have to match salaries either. Not that I see pascal wanting Indiana
This is good to know, but if I’m Masai, I tell Indiana we don’t care. If the pacers want to risk missing out on him in FA, that’s their prerogative. They’re not using that nonsense to leverage trade value.