Indiana is a team you can expect to be busy around the trade deadline. There are a couple of reasons, for one they have a ton of cap space so they can take on contracts and not have to send back equal value (something teams trying to shed payroll covet). Secondly, they are a good team in the East (currently the fifth seed) who thinks they are a few tweaks away from being a real threat.
Reports on Thursday have them in talks to get both Jamal Crawford from Portland and Chris Kaman out of New Orleans.
Rumors of the Pacers being interested in the up-tempo style and scoring of recent Sixth Man of the Year Crawford have been out there for a while, and the price may be A.J. Price and a first round pick in 2012, reports Ben Golliver at Eye on Basketball.
Crawford has a player option for next season that he is expected to exercise because he wants to test the free agent market. Whoever trades for him is essentially getting a two-month rental — is that really worth a first round pick.
Kaman also would be a rental in that he is in the last year of his contract, but the Pacers are interested reports Pacers beat writer Mike Wells of the Indianapolis Star.
It’s always about the picks, isn’t it?
It may take that pick to get Kaman as Mike Dunleavy — the basketball guy in the ownership group close to buying the Hornets — doesn’t want to trade Kaman but rather try to re-sign him this summer.
Keep an eye on the Pacers as the deadline nears. We’ll see if they decide they need to part with that first round pick or not.