The Indiana Pacers knew something early Thursday afternoon that the Oklahoma City Thunder — and the rest of the NBA — found out late Thursday night: The Miami Heat are still the team to beat in this league.
Period.
Despite how the standings may rank and what February losses to Utah may say about their focus, the Miami Heat are the best team in the NBA.
They proved that last night with a 103-81 bludgeoning of the Thunder in Oklahoma City.
This is something Larry Bird, GM Kevin Pritchard and head coach Frank Vogel have probably known for some time, which is why they surprisingly added Andrew Bynum into the mix earlier this month and completed one last power move on Thursday.
They finally cut ties with Danny Granger, who is considered to be, despite injuries and setbacks, the heart of the Pacers locker room, for Evan Turner and Lavoy Allen.
One more big, one more ball handler and now the deepest roster in the league. If the Pacers didn’t need to do it, they wouldn’t have. It’s that simple.
Marc Spears of Yahoo Sports believes the Pacers were the big winner on Thursday:
They hit the home run of the trade deadline by acquiring shooting guard Evan Turner along with center Lavoy Allen from the Philadelphia 76ers for injury-riddled forward Danny Granger. In Turner, the Eastern Conference leaders add a well-rounded player presumably to their bench who is averaging 17.6 points, 6 rebounds and 3.7 assists. The Pacers are hoping that Turner, who is making $6.6 million in the final year of his contract, could be the added punch that gets them past the reigning champion Miami Heat in the East. Granger is averaging 8.3 points while making $14 million in the last year of his contract.
Between Hibbert, West, George, Mahimi, Allen and Bynum, the Pacers have 36 fouls to work with on LeBron. You can bet they’ll use close to every one of them.
Add in Lance Stephenson and Evan Turner, and that’s two more looks Vogel can give James at the defensive end.
Speaking of Stephenson and Turner, some are looking at this move as potential insurance in case Stephenson leaves for a bigger pay check in the offseason. Both players are unrestricted free agents. More from Joel Brigham of Basketball Insiders:
While that sounds potentially very reasonable, there are going to be a ton of teams with cap space this summer, and 23-year-old unrestricted free agents this talented simply don’t come around all that often. His salary barely cracked $1 million for the first time in his career this season, so there’s no chance he’s taking a hometown discount, and all of this has to make Pacers brass sweat a little bit when facing the frustrating reality of how hard it will be to re-sign this kid.
That’s where the Evan Turner trade adds an extra layer of protection for Indiana, because Turner’s impending free agency will work much differently than Stephenson’s. Assuming the Pacers tender a qualifying offer to Turner, he’ll be a restricted free agent this summer, which means Larry Bird and Kevin Pritchard can match any offer he may get. The reality of this is Turner’s future price tag is very likely going to be significantly lower than Stephenson’s. In other words, $8-10 million of cap space should be more than enough for Turner.
Obviously, there’s a good reason for that disparity in value since Stephenson is clearly a more tenacious and talented two-way player, but if Turner can learn some defense playing on the league’s best defensive team there is a real possibility that he could be a respectable long-term starter for Indiana should the Pacers end up getting priced out of keeping Stephenson. Turner will help this year, but he’s also insurance for the offseason, which is what makes this trade even more brilliant for Indiana.
Sure, the Pacers could lean on Turner if Stephenson proves difficult to resign. They Pacers would obviously prefer Stephenson — one of their own — but they aren’t going to saddle themselves with a hefty luxury tax bill for the next few seasons to keep him.
But what this was really about is loading every chamber with ammunition for an inevitable battle with the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals.
Indiana did not believe they had enough to get by the defending champs pre-trade deadline.
The funny thing is that after Thursday night, Miami is still asking question: does anybody?
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