Indiana Pacers: Five Realistic 2016 Free Agent Targets
By Kyle Nishida
The 2016 NBA free agent period is quickly approaching. Teams can start taking to free agents on July 1st, and the Indiana Pacers have cap space to make some moves in the open market.
Before people look at this list, they need to realize the star players are not realistic options. The dreams of Kevin Durant (#KevINDYrant) and Hassan Whiteside coming to Indiana Pacers are cute. However, in reality, they are not even considering the Pacers.
Also, other stars like Bradley Beal, Dwight Howard and DeMar DeRozan are unrealistic too. With only $20 million of cap space, the Pacers will not be able to offer any free agents a max value contract, which is what most of these star players want.
For those wondering what happened to the Pacers’ substantial cap space, their recent trades caused their cap room to shrink. Combined, the Thaddeus Young and Jeff Teague trades took up almost $20 million in cap room for the 2015-16 season.
On the positive side, these two offseason trades solidified the Pacers’ starting lineup. Team President Larry Bird will probably use the remaining cap space to strengthen the team’s bench.
There is the possibility of Bird replacing Monta Ellis or finding someone who can start over him. However, there are only a few of those players in free agency, and most of them are max contract players (which the Pacers cannot afford right now).
Now that the unrealistic options are out of the way, it is time to focus on the realistic ones. Here are five of the best realistic free agent targets for the Indiana Pacers.
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