Why the Pacers Had to Make the Siakam Trade | The Ryen Russillo Podcast

Why the Pacers Had to Make the Siakam Trade | The Ryen Russillo Podcast

We have a lot of football to do with sha so I did want to spend a little time on the big NBA trade from this week with SE yakum going to the Pacers from Toronto so Toronto doing a full reset here after the OG deal you know criticism after

Letting van vet walk and now cakam on the move which is still a few weeks ahead of the trade deadline it’s not normal operating procedure for GMS where you just kind of feel like the longer you wait but cakam has been floated around for such a long time uh even even

OG where apparently they did turn down multiple first round picks for OG and then like the player combo with Barrett and quickly better which I don’t blame them for and so now we’re kind of looking at Toronto like all right what’s the next step because let’s just face it

Coming into this year this is a really disappointing team it’s not as disappointing as you know Atlanta’s up there for disappointment the Lakers are up there Golden State’s up there um but Toronto’s probably on a short list of five teams so when I saw the trade when it was first

Announced I was like all right so the Pacers are moving Bruce Bowen uh Jordan noira and three first round picks and I think think I’ve been the James Cook of of just going dude these first round picks are kind of overrated like what’s the big deal but then you have to look

At the protections you have to understand like what the risk could be and then what it is down the road as far as the pick for this year if you look at the Pacers and where they’re at in the standings with the nice win last night against Sacramento that pick is 19th all

Right uh this is also considered a very terrible draft especially like an all-time terrible draft especially at the top uh that will change will be in May and people start telling you how much they like the draft but this has been a draft that two years out I’ve

Heard people going like man 24 is going to be bad all right so the first round pick of their own that’s 19th the first round pick of the worst of either Utah Houston LA or OKC and that’s OKC as of right now so that’d be the 27th pick so you’re

Looking at 19 and 27 this year the one that is a little scary is the 26 first round pick from the Pacers going to Toronto that’s top four protected now it’s very simple to say hey with halberton they resign se yakum you know Maan takes another step maybe one of the

Other younger players plays well who knows like you don’t have to worry about that thing you know being the fifth or sixth pick that seems likely today but we don’t know that because the funny thing about this draft Surplus as as we’ve seen in recent years just

Everybody trading as many picks as they can for some of these players that there’s going to be one transaction we’ll look back years later and go oh my God I can’t believe what they gave up and then it’s going to feel like there’s an identical transaction just based on

The number of picks involved where we’ll look back on that one going D they gave up nothing like one of the first ended up carrying over to becoming a second you know they got a pick at 21 and 28 and the other one you know so it’ll be

Weird because we still don’t have like the final price tally on a lot of these transactions that were just a big part of this Boom for everybody going like look let’s just keep moving all of our first rounders so I when I first saw it like my first thing was okay but if

You’re going to move that even if you’re talking about two picks in this year’s draft thinking what we think of it today and the 26 top four protected like you better know you’re keeping SE yakum like that can’t be a rental for a team that probably still isn’t getting through

With SE yakum getting through the top teams that are in the East you know who knows could be but I don’t know that all of a sudden the Pacers defense is going to be enough that it’s going to make them competitive with a Boston a Milwaukee a Philadelphia Milwaukee’s one

Of the strangest teams ever like you look up two seed really good record keep winning games then there’ll just be this this blip every four or five games where defens you’re like what what is wrong with those guys so um when I didn’t have any information on SE yakin’s

Intention I was a little more worried about it for the Pacers but the feeling especially if you’re going by what WJ has been saying the phrasing specifically about what SE yak’s interest is in staying this summer and staying with the Pacers and then me digging around a little bit where it’s

Like they had to have known that se yakum was cool was staying in Indiana which you know isn’t going to be for everybody and it’s nothing against the Pacers there’s probably more than half the teams in the league where you’d go I don’t know that that’s ever going to be

A destination and I’d put the Pacers in that group as well even with halberton uh massive step that he’s taken this season so if seak com’s cool with it instead of wanting to be kind of wind and DED and being looked at one of the top free agents with this offseason

Class uh which I’ve got to get into here for a second too like if seak is cool with it they already kind of know it seems like the Pacers are smart enough they’re going to move that kind of stuff whatever you think of the picks you’d have to have some assurance that you’re

Good to go with SE yakum in some kind of extension that he doesn’t want to be cted by everybody or he doesn’t want to go somewhere else he gives a better chance to win then I like the deal for the Pacers and here’s why it gets back

To the Danny Ang Ru the Ang Ru it’s not necessarily he that invented it but it was the first time it was explained to me years and years ago like 15 years ago when I was still in Boston and I talked to a and you know I was like as a

Younger guy and depending on who I was influenced by and the different NBA writers or the different people I would talk to I just kept always thinking like oh wow this team will have this cap space and oh you can’t do that deal because it’s going to get the it’s G to

Get in the way of their cap space cap space cap space cap space and a is like you guys you guys overrate cap space so much like it’s a joke like go back historically on how many players are actually moving like it’s a cool plan to sell to your fans while you’re not

Losing games but then all of a sudden you going to use that cap space and you’re bidding against everybody else and if you have that much c space it means your team probably isn’t even that good so who’s actually going to show up that’s going to alter the course of who

Your franchise is like I remember Orlando resetting the decks and thinking they were getting Duncan they ended up with Grand Hill um you know that was like this this thing at the time I’m like God they’re so smart and then since that time in the last what 20 years

You’re going oh a lot of teams do that and they end up being burnt and they have to spend their money on somebody they didn’t even want to so if you’re looking at the free free agent class and some of these websites need to work on

Their top free agent list like you just shouldn’t be putting the restricted free agent like Tyrese Maxi is the number one free agent because he’s restricted so it should be the real free agents if you’re looking at the real free agents you know OG and and Obi well they probably have

Some understanding for them to move that many pieces to pay for that trade in OG in New York so you know again I don’t know how realistic it is that he’s a real free agent uh Paul George with the Clippers okay maybe I mean that becomes

Another thing too when you look at some of these players that have the player options where know if you had cap space and you were banking it for this offseason and you’re being told by the agent like okay my guy’s opting out my guy’s opting out and then he doesn’t opt

Out or he ends up getting an extension like there’s just so much unknown and the angel Ru was always I would rather use cap space or at least ruin my own cap space and ruins the wrong word but I’d rather just make a transaction where I know with 100% certainty of who I’m

Getting and in this case that’s exactly what the Pacers did like cakam believe it or not once you sift through kind of the nonsense of some of these free agent lists that are out there you could argue seaka might have been like the number one just free and clear anyone can bid

On him free agent this offseason um that sounds crazy as I said it out loud just now and even when I wrote it down earlier this morning I’m like is he really the the number one guy and you’re like realistically obtainable maybe I like seum I probably should like

Him more than I do and that’s what it is it’s a like one year in doing the all NBA voting I’ve had it two years I think there was a year where I was like is he 15 or 16 I may have put Jimmy Butler

Over him I’d have to go back and look at it again but I was like man we’re talking about somebody who like is GNA get third team votes here like why don’t you like them more um I there’s definitely a falloff in the playoffs I think he becomes a little bit

Predictable and maybe easier to guard I don’t know that there’s a ton of spacing with him but him at 29 30 in April and considering what else is available for a Pacers organization that is not a destination and the fact that you’re adding him to Halle Burton who looks

Like he’s going to be a real star in this league so you’re showing that you’re committed to this like it makes a lot of sense for the Pacers to go hey siakam’s probably better than anybody that we can use our cap space on so let’s just go ahead and do that if we

Get the assurance that he wants to stay and two of these picks might not even matter and if we’re good the 2026 pick might not be that big of a deal it’s kind of a home run for the Pacers there’s also something else that I want to bring up because one of the

Other rules that I think about is like the Vu Rule and the V rule is this if you’re the Bulls and those picks ended up being far more disastrous than I think anything we project for the Pacers if this goes wrong but the Bulls make a

Deal and at the time I’m like well at least they’re just trying to figure out a way to compete they were right on the D rozan thing you know the LaVine issue is what it is they were right in Caruso it sucks about Lonzo ball you’re like

Man that starting five like you know Patrick Williams you get you get what I’m saying like if you’re a bulls fan you’re kind of playing along going best case scenario and all these different things but what did the Vu contract or I should say it this way what did the Vu

Acquisition guarantee you if you were the Bulls paying that kind of Premium price did it guarantee you another round in the playoffs because it felt like at least guaranteed that you were competitive now in the East but not the elite tier but it didn’t really guarantee anything and based on what the

Team hasn’t done in the playoffs it’s probably below even expectations so if you look at the Pacers and you go well if you add yakum what does it guarantee does it guarantee you an Easter Conference Finals no does it guarantee you the second round is it still a

No you know like well let’s see what he looks like once he’s there um Cleveland continues when you look at the standings you’re like Cleveland’s still the four seed like how are they doing this without Garland and Moy and they just keep beating teams it’s incredible um

But I think a lot of fans would have to be reminded that Cleveland was even a for seed here so maybe it guarantees you the second round but guarantee is probably the wrong word here more likely to get to the second round that’s fine but the the counter to the SE yakum

Transaction is okay but what is your ceiling and and I think it’s fair but it’s Irrelevant in the bigger scope of what you’re discussing here if you’re front office going hey we’re adding a guy in here that we’re likely not going to be able to get elsewhere and if we

Want to wait around and keep waiting around then we’re going to have him to do what we just did and that spend cap space on Bruce Brown who’s a nice player um and when the reports first came out about what Bruce Brown’s deal was it was

Two years 45 million we found out very quickly that the second year was a club option so it’s like is he really going to get the 45 million from whoever has his rights is he really going to get that kind of money but it was kind of

That big number let’s use the cap space shorter deal but Bruce Brown son’s joic is not somebody that that I’m super interested investing in I there’s a lot of players that with joic I’d be like I don’t know that I want to pay him the joic stat prices Jabari Parker got a

Deal five years ago uh over five years ago where he got one year 20 million with a club option on the second year but that was another one of those let’s pay a big number on the shorter deal allow us flexibility they ended up trading him later that year anyway

Here’s another little added element to all of this um as I talk about free agency in cap space because now the players aren’t doing shorter deals for the most part they’re just going to do their contract they’re going to Max it out as much as they can if they want to

Ask out they’ll ask out uh that’s going to change a bit just based on what their options are and where they can go with the new basically a hard cap at the top of this for the most expensive teams but if you’re looking through teams that you

Know look Houston at one point was thought to be a destination NBA players really like Houston nobody would take their cap space now it wasn’t a very good team um and I shouldn’t say nobody’s going to take it because two players clearly did but they weren’t getting a Primo guy

This year so they pay van vet three years 129 million third years’s a team option Brooks gets 86 million four years fully guaranteed so when the numbers come out you’re like man those are massive numbers for Dylan Brooks and Fred Van vet and that’s part of the

Pacers discussion is it’s like well you can get SE yakum now and pay the price of draft picks but if you resign him like wouldn’t you rather give him the 40 plus million um than not have any idea and then be stuck with the cap space and

Being like who’s left like all right I don’t know you want to give that guy one year and 28 million because we don’t really like him but we have to use the space when you look at Charlotte right they spent four years 120 million on Gordon Hayward it technically ended up

Being a sign of trade but that was about him having the leverage to be able to do it the injury thing alone 168 games for the Hornets clearly wasn’t worth it but the Hornets had to pay Hayward because they were the Hornets and that’s a staggering number the Mavs when they

Broke up the 2011 team people were upset about it and they played the result because they didn’t get back and their whole offseason plan and cap space didn’t really work out I didn’t really have that big of an issue with that team being broken up but it’s easy to say it

Was a huge mistake years are moved but they were once again the Mavs feel like they’ve done this a lot under Cuban clear the decks set up for c space let’s figure it out they ended up with Monte Ellis for 25 million bucks Denver couple years ago well I don’t know maybe five

Or six years ago they brought in Paul Milsap he was 32 years old n Mill excuse me 90 million over three years I mean look Milsap was okay but he wasn’t Prime Millsap but it was another place in Denver where you know was an you know

Look it’s it’s for the most part it’s been a really good organization but it’s not been a destination for anybody and they had cap space they wanted to add to what they had they paid paid $90 million to Paul Milsap Detroit had a deal where Josh Smith got 54 million over four

Years you know look they paid Ben Gordon and villain wave a huge money prior to that too when they kind of try to figure it out on the Fly um Josh was waved in the second season they paid him until 2020 with a stretch position uh stretch

Provision Memphis in the cap Spike year of 2016 they spent 94 million on Chandler Parsons who played 95 games I saw a thing from two years ago as I was researching this because I was looking at like the non- destination teams and the cap spending that they’ve had and

Look there’s some teams that have clearly hit it but it’s such a flawed plan and it’s an almost impossible plan for about two-thirds of the franchises in this league there was an Oklahoma City piece up from August of 21 that ranked the Thunder’s top five free agent

Signings I don’t know if this is wrong or if I’m missing something CU I can’t remember every single transaction for every team over the last 20 years but number five was Karan Butler number four was Patrick Patterson Number Three was NAD krisic um two was Derek fiser and number one was nerland

Noell like wait meic might have a chance after this year to crack that top five that is the point the price the three the headline of three firsts sounds bad the two firsts this year probably aren’t going to be anything you’re worried about there’s some exposure in 26 if things just

Went bad then you couldn’t say predictably bad but you never know like Atlanta probably didn’t think those picks were going to be as high as they’re going to be when they did the Deon Murray transaction but if you’re one of those teams and I think the smarter teams they

Go I just would rather pull something off now than waiting around and hoping to predict all these things that become really tough to predict so if they resign them home run for the Pacers

Russillo recaps the Indiana Pacers’ recent trade landing them Pascal Siakam from the Toronto Raptors and discusses what this means for the rising force in the Eastern Conference.

Check out the Bill Simmons YouTube channel: youtube.com/billsimmons

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