Clutching onto Foster may be a little strong since he was ten minutes away from going with Tinsley to Orlando at the deadline last year. If Foster could get healthy enough to be traded, I think he would be but he can’t seem to stay in uniform.

I still think Rush is better than Bayless. Rush will come around.

It’s not that those 3 (Head makes the minimum for one year, so I don’t have a problem with that) are a problem on the court. I do think they’re a problem at their salary level and contract length.

It’s certainly true that we’d already busted the budget already, but that should be even more reason for a cash strapped franchise to shop wisely on its backups. There were plenty of alternatives out there for a fraction of the price.

D. Jones- Des Mason, Ime Udoka, Carney, Pavlovic. All similar players making 1/3 to 1/2 of Jones and tying us up for one one year.
Watson- Bring back Fli?. Jwil, Arroyo, hell… Kevin Ollie.
S. Jones- The Collins brothers, Shelden Williams, Sean May, Johan Petro, Brian Skinner, DJ Mbenga… all similar players making half of Solo, and tying us down for only one year.

Let’s say instead of spending $7M on those three guys, we’d spent $2.5M on three minimum salary guys.

We’d be $4.5M better off financially, and about the same, realistically, on the court.

And it’s not just about saving money. Hell, if we wanted to be creative, we could dump that money into stuff like buying draft picks. There were some decent players available in the late first and early second round, and teams that had an eye for that talent would come in and get it for a million bucks or a future second rounder. I’d feel better about spending on DeJuan Blair, Ty Lawson, or even Chase Buddinger than on Dahntay Jones.

We’d be better off, first, without locking

$7M in the

Alot of the problems also stem from the front office not willing to admit mistakes and bottom out. Isaiah Thomas had many of the same problems as a GM. He tried to win every trade. Therefore he ended up collecting talent. But never a cohesive unit. Examples

1. When Artest finally went off the reservation and had to go. Instead of trading him for picks,prospects or Corey Maggette. They traded him for a Free Agent to be in a misguided attempt to run for a 7/8 seed in the playoffs

2. Once Peja bolted, rather than decide its time to think about rebuilding a broken foundation, they traded a non-lottery protected pick in exchange for a free agent Al Harrington in a SNT.
Not a terrible move in and of itself. But not one that needed to be made if you hadn’t botched the Artest trade (pattern forming)

3. The club Rio incident happens and you decide you need to clean house. So you make the poison pill for onerous contracts swap with GS. Don’t know where else you could have traded Jackson. But my gut is that Bird chose Dunleavy and Murphy over less expensive deals because he truly coveted them. Still steadfastly refusing to rebuild, and losing a lotto pick in the process (pattern alert)

4. Bring in a coach who obviously prefers to play the vets. Failing to develop any young players on the roster. This is really still in play today. More reason that JOB isn’t the guy to turn a young team around.

5. Dumping Jermaine. While it was the right thing to do, should have been the prime time to begin the rebuild. Instead you draft a top 5 talent. Then trade him away for a 23 year old, coming off of ACL repair. Because the 23 year old is more NBA ready. Again making your team just good enough to lose the lottery. Yet not good enough to make the playoffs.

6. After 5 years of limbo, you tie up a 30 year old who was in the D-League 12 months ago to a 4 year contract. Again in a misguided attempt at an 8th seed and first round exit.

Even though you are depleating your cap space in a time when the 2006/2007 draft classes are ALL hitting free agency? Who helps this team more in 2014? Dahantay Jones or Rudy Gay? Jeff Foster or Mike Conley?

There just doesn’t seem to be any semblence of a long term plan. Just random moves and random reactions when those moves predictably produce mediocre results.

I agree. Safety will get us nowhere. And in five years all those who love the picks of Rush and Hansbrough will see this. Neither of them will be here when we make our turnaround.

As a former Hoosier, now living in Sacramento I can appreciate the similarities between the fan base and issues plaguing small market teams. Our rebuilding process has been a slow process, but one that is trying to win both games and the fan base, back to the fieldhouse. The jury is still out on last year’s and this year’s draft picks, but many of us Pacers fans are starting to really like what we see out of Hibbert and Hansbrough (the Bayless for Rush trade is a whole ’nother issue, that one might take a little more time!) And you are right, until some of these high dollar contracts come off the books, this team will be a 30-40 win team.

So far I have been simultaneously pleased and disgusted with the product put out on the court this year. Ahh the growing pains of rebuilding! I am a frequent visitor of Sactown Royalty and get the feeling you guys know what I am talking about!

Good luck this year, I have enjoyed reading your guys’ blog and watching Kings games for the last year and a half. Here’s to rebuilding what were two great small-market NBA teams!

I agree with you on the Jackson issue. I’ll tell you what, I’ll sell you my car. It’s a 2009 Benz. What are you offering? The rough equivalent to the value of a 2009 Benz, most likely. What about this scenario: I’m seliing my 2009 Benz but I absolutely have to sell it in 2 days, no matter what the best offer is. So, I’m pretty sure you’d most likely offer the value of a 2004 Honda, just to see if it would fly. That was the Jackson/Harrington (who was thrown in to sweeten the deal, remember we wasted the Peja trade exception just to sign him) deal in a nutshell.

As for the top loaded contracts, I agree. But how is that a catch 22? We got rid of problem children to get wholesome guys and the cap took a hit as a result. Look, I love the Pacers, have season tickets even, but the best thing that they can do is gun for the 7th or 8th seed every year until those contracts are up. Does it hurt their draft potential? Yes. But if they don’t at least put a decent product out there, this team is in another city, and nobody wants that. So I’m fine with 8th seed/sweep in the playoffs for a year or two because the casual fan doesn’t want to see “thugs” or “criminals.” I truly believe this team is being built with the bottom line prominently involved, which is never a great way to build a franchise, but it may be the reason that they are still the Indiana Pacers and not the Western Kansas Boll Wevils.