Indiana Pacers Receive: G/F Buddy Hield, F Marvin Bagley III, C Jaxson Hayes, SAC 2022 1st Round Pick (Top-5 Protected, SAC 2023 1st Round Pick Unprotected if not conveyed), SAC 2024 1st Round Pick (Top-5 Protected, SAC 2025 1st Round Pick Unprotected if not conveyed), CHA 2024 2nd Round Pick (via OKC), MIL 2025 1st Round Pick (Unprotected, via NOP)
Sacramento Kings Receive: F Domantas Sabonis, G/F Jeremy Lamb
New Orleans Pelicans Receive: G Caris LeVert
Oklahoma City Thunder Receive: G Tomas Satoransky
Very rarely do we see multi-team trades like this one near the trade deadline, but if the Pacers move Domantas Sabonis, it is highly likely that a couple of other teams would need to get involved because of the contract sizes that the Pacers would want to trade.
Sabonis is making $18.5M this season, which is not too high of a price for an All-Star player, but Jeremy Lamb ($10.5M) is a veteran they want to trade and in order to get back both Marvin Bagley III ($11.3M) and Buddy Hield ($22.4M) from the Kings, Indiana is going to have to trade away another big contract.
Trading away Sabonis signals a rebuild for this franchise, which is why giving up Caris LeVert or Myles Turner would be the likely solution in this trade. Sending LeVert to the Pelicans gives the Pacers a future first-round pick, as well as a young center in Jaxson Hayes that they can rebuild with.
Hield, Bagley, Hayes, and four total draft picks, three being first-round picks, is a ton of value for the Pacers to rebuild with and after this trade, they would still have both Malcolm Brogdon and Myles Turner to be the leaders of their new, young team.
LATEST NBA NEWS & TRADE RUMORS: 3 Teams To Watch For In Pacers’ Domantas Sabonis Trade Talks
The Kings need to make a big move ahead of the trade deadline if they are to try and end their playoff drought, which is why going after Domantas Sabonis would be huge for this franchise. Both Buddy Hield and Marvin Bagley III are great talents, but the Kings do not seem to want to keep them long-term.
Sacramento had a deal in place with the Lakers to acquire Kyle Kuzma, Montrezl Harrell and others for Buddy Hield in the offseason, but it fell through after Los Angeles acquired Russell Westbrook from the Wizards. As for Bagley, both he and his agent do not seem to want to be in Sacramento anymore and in the final year of his rookie deal, getting value for him now makes the most sense.
The Pelicans are currently 7-20 and are in last place in the Western Conference. With Brandon Ingram and Zion Williamson healthy, maybe they can go on a little bit of a run and improve their record, but making the playoffs seems like a big long-shot at this point unless they can make a drastic change to their roster.
LATEST NBA NEWS & TRADE RUMORS: 3 Teams To Watch For In Pacers’ Domantas Sabonis Trade Talks
Caris LeVert is not the difference in the Pelicans jumping back into the playoff conversation, but he is another high-level scoring weapon that could create a solid-looking core of Graham, LeVert, Ingram, Williamson and Valanciunas with Hart as this team’s sixth-man when everyone is healthy.
As for the Thunder, they would probably need to be receiving a second-round pick in this deal instead of sending one out, as General Manager Sam Presti is always looking for ways to acquire draft compensation, but they do have a salary cap floor that they need to be worried about.
The 2021-22 salary cap floor is $101M and currently, the Thunder’s total cap is around $78M for the season.
Adding Tomas Satoransky gets them closer to this threshold and also gives them a veteran who could help young talents like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Tre Mann, Josh Giddey, and others in the backcourt.
LATEST NBA NEWS & TRADE RUMORS: 3 Teams To Watch For In Pacers’ Domantas Sabonis Trade Talks
Trades like this one definitely take a lot of time to come together and while it could look completely different in reality, the idea of the Kings going after Sabonis and the idea of the Pelicans going after LeVert is definitely not wishful thinking.
The Indiana Pacers seem to be willing to hear out offers that would lead them to a rebuild and there is a lot of future value that they can get from this trade.
