How This Trade Impacts Indiana Pacers

It will pain some Indiana Pacers fans to see Domantas Sabonis go, but there would undoubtedly be some people happy to see the organization trying something fresh and reloading the roster. While there is some talent, they seemingly reached their ceiling. This is going to be three underwhelming seasons in a row, so something had to change.

While this isn’t a monster package coming back to Indiana, they do well in this exchange with the Portland Trail Blazers. Landing two high-upside young players in Anfernee Simons and Nassir Little is a positive.

Simons has shown some excellent scoring instincts and is a great shooter. Being handed the keys to the offense to develop his playmaking skills would take his game to another level. Stuck behind Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum in Portland, he was never truly afforded the opportunity.

Little has been receiving more and more playing time with the Trail Blazers. He is a versatile defender with immense potential on that end of the court. His offensive game is coming around too and he could take off with an expanded role.

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Jusuf Nurkic and Tony Snell are two veterans that provide Indiana with some maneuverability. On expiring contracts, they could look to flip them again at some point and collect more assets or let their contracts expire in the offseason and clear some cap space.

The 2024 first-round pick could be a valuable one. If the Trail Blazers end up deciding they need to go into a rebuild of their own, that could very well be a relatively high lottery pick when the time comes.