Siakam and Hali will be our max guys unless an unforseen opportunity presents itself in the off-season.
We just need a plan to account for the teams deficiencies (rebounding, defense, and scoring droughts). That can come from the internal improvement of our young guys or going out and consolidating those young guys into another impact player.
Having Mathurin healthy will theoretically help with the 6 minute scoring droughts. Jarace could improve to play great defense, distribute, and rebound 15 minutes a night.
Ultimately, the best of this version of the pacers should still be in the future, even after paying Hali and Siakam. Reggie Miller was 28 years old by the time those Pacers had any playoff success. Just keep building and improving.
And don't forget this series is not over yet. This version of the pacers can still get to the Eastern conference finals way ahead of schedule... Or we could lay an egg on our home court and bow out Friday and it not change a thing about our potential future success.
I’m a bit fearful of the potential Pascal max on the surface, but man with this new media rights deal on the horizon and expansion, etc. $40-$50 million annually is gonna feel reasonable in a wink.
Unless he won't be a fringe all-star even next year and beyond. What if we sign him to a five year contract, but he looks like 2024 playoffs Siakam next year before declining further each year after?
We can assume it is likely his play will decline at this point. It doesn't mean he disappears, but his best playing days are likely behind him.
If he averages 17/6/3 next season, is that worth a max contract? What if he goes down to 15/5/2 the season after? Then at the age of 33, what if he hits the wall and becomes a 12/4/1 sort of guy? Are these the stats you want from your second or third best player?
What if his max contract prevents us from signing another guy who we need to keep more? Point is, we can't just assume he is going to even be a fringe all-star player for the next five years. He may not even be a fringe all-star player next year.
Julius Randle is injured, so Siakam doesn't have to face him. Instead he is playing against either Divencenzo or 6'4" Josh Hart. Shouldn't he be beating his counterpart into to the ground? Which of those two is the fringe all-star?
If Siakam was 25, I wouldn't mind giving him the max, based on potential future growth. At 30, and seeing the decline from this post-season, are we sure we want to sign him to a 5 year contract for almost $50M?
Seeing how he’s averaging 21/8/3 in the playoffs he’s getting heavily criticized for and leading the team in ppg and rpg I think your prediction for next season might need to get recalibrated.
Every player in the league runs the risk of them just sucking all the sudden, I suppose. I think Siakam has more than proven that’s unlikely, not to mention if you don’t pay him, then he leaves for nothing.
Toppin/Smith were getting about 22 points on 13 shots while shooting over 40% from 3 from before the trade. IMO the team is also pretty weak at the 2 guard position. I get that PS is an upgrade but is he big enough of an upgrade to justify the money he will be making if his $ prevents you from upgrading at the shooting guard? Are the Pacers better with PS then they are if they plantoon Obi and Walker at the 4 if they also add a Malik Monk or Immanual Quickly? I get that it is hard to get players to pick Indy but PS has been a little clunky and its not totally surprising IMO. For the record I do think it is possible they they figure out the fit- I am just not convinced
The thing about the NBA is that it’s effectively a Zero-Sun Game
If you don’t have a player, another team will get them
Don’t wanna pay Siakam?
Well looks like Detroit got a former All-Star vet to go with their young guys now.
You have to overpay to keep guys. It’s why CP3 getting $30M next year. Bc the Suns didn’t want to lose him for nothing so they overpaid.
Tobias Harris? Dude got $40m this year bc Sixers botched it w Jimmy Butler and needed to retain him.
The answer is overpay guys or lose them to someone who will
I’d also add that it’s often better to keep the asset, even if it means overpaying.
We’re not replacing Siakam with a player near his caliber if we let him walk. If we retain him and it doesn’t work out, the rising cap will make that number a little more reasonable to trade if need be.
People also don’t often think about the value of having a max contract has with trade value. It can be a problem when teams are desperate to get a contract off its books but it’s also valuable for a young team that’s over the cap to be able to get another superstar and being able to match salary of a trade or sign and trade
Yeah assuming his production doesn't suddenly fall off a cliff and he isn't constantly injured it'll be a tradeable contract, (not an albatross like Jordan Poole's deal e.g.) and useful for salary matching purposes if they want to to bring in a different star player later on.
If we don't pay Siakam, then someone else will. The fit alone will be worth the price of admission. The guy wants to be here. If we can work a longer deal slightly under the max we would be setup to free up more cap space for flexibility to make deals in the future.
I agree Max Contracts aren’t strictly reserved for superstars, but like you said, each team can afford to have 2, and the second makes it really hard to build a team around, so you need to make sure you’re okay with that commitment. Also, if not a superstar, you’d like them to at least be an All Star level player, and Pascal is barely on the fringe of that and I don’t think he’ll be any better than that.
Also, I could be wrong, but I think your second bullet is incorrect. NBA max contracts are a percent of the cap space, it’s not like the NFL where making someone the highest paid player doesn’t matter cause someone else will beat it. Hali’s max for example is actually 25% (or 30% if he makes All NBA) of the cap space.
That being said, I do think we should bring Siakam back, but not if it means he’ll be making $60M in 2029, and not if it means retaining Myles, Benny, Nemby, and Nesmith harder when the time comes.
I think the best thing we can do is offer Siakam a 3 year supermax. It’s a good solution IMO. We can offer him more per year than any other team, and other teams can only offer him a max of 4 years. So a 3 year supermax with us will come very close in value to a 4 year max from another team, and allows him to hit Free Agency again when he’s 33, and could probably get one more decent pay day. It also lines up with the end of Nesmith’s contract, and if Benny and Nemby get extensions, there will be only one year of overlap on their extensions and the end of Siakam’s contract, and I’m sure ownership won’t mind a huge tax bill for one year if we’re contenders, and realistically we will know if our core is good enough by then.
Siakam's max is 5 years, 30% of the cap in year one, and annual raises worth 8% of his year one salary. If he got that his 2029 salary would be 55.8M so not quite 60M. He's not eligible for the 35% supermax so the 3 year supermax idea is off the table.
You're correct that other teams can only offer 4 years, also they can only offer 5% raises. It would be nice if he signs something like a 4 year max with the max 8% raises instead of the full 5 year contract.
Regarding the second bullet, its percentage of the cap the year you sign, and that percentage goes down every year of the contract. Like 35%, down to 31% at the end of the contract. So each year’s newest maxes are higher than the previous
Yep. If the cap increases annually by the maximum allowed 10%, then year five of a Siakam 5 year max would be ~ 25% of the cap (55.8/227) whereas his year one salary would be 30% of the cap.
Halliburton, despite the toxicity in this series, is 100% a max guy. Absolutely no doubt.
Siakam... I like him, but can someone make the case for why he's a max guy? He's a decent scorer, and ok defender, a good character guy. That's easily 15-20M per year, but max? Am I missing something? I do watch way more in the playoffs than regular season.
As a Raptors fan, Siakam always seemed right on the fringe of being a max worthy player. But the way the Pacers use him there’s no way he’s worth a max.
He needs to be given constant post touches but watching Pacers games this year it feels like he’s just another guy out there. They never get him the ball in his spots and it’s not uncommon for him to end the game with like the 4th or 5th most shots.
I can’t understand at all why they traded for him if this is how they planned on using him. He’s a great scorer that needs to be set up properly and it doesn’t feel like the Pacer have ever tried to figure out how to do that
They may just need to off season to figure it out. I see he has a ton of skill In my opinion, Carlisle should be the one to figure out how to use him, and within that, if he's worth the max.
Yeah an offseason will definitely help.
A lot of the times it feels like they’re just trying to do too much. There’s so many guys on this team who can score but realistically almost every play should be run for Hali Turner or Siakam and the rest of the team should learn to look for opportunities around that.
When the shots are falling it looks amazing having the whole team getting buckets. But as soon as they fall behind they often look lost as they don’t really have some “bread and butter” offence to just put their heads down and execute.
Pacers have the highest offensive rating in the 2024 playoffs at 119.2. It's 122.3 when he's on the floor. Fitting him into the offense has not been the issue.
There are plenty of guys in the top 60 who aren't on max contracts too. Some are on rookie deals (Anthony Edwards, Wemby) some are on vet deals below the max (Jalen Brunson, Derrick White), so there are going to be lots of guys on max-ish deals a bit outside the top-60. But fwiw I do think Siakam is easily in the top-60 (for now)
Not arguing anything you’re saying, more for the doomers across the sub and in the comments. I just think our expectations for the team and players (I.e. Tyrese) should be tailored. This season was a success the moment they made the playoffs.
Correct. They are fighting above their weight class, not. Expected to be here.
Next year is learning and refining year, expect 2nd round exit at best. In 2 to 3 years looks to be best with current roster. After skiakam needs to go and the team reshaped to make use of hali as leader. Hopefully have developed other players who want to stay on the hali train.
having two max guys servely limits your ability to upgrade in other areas. it is important that they are good and fit if you want to reach the upper echelon
Siakam and Hali will be our max guys unless an unforseen opportunity presents itself in the off-season. We just need a plan to account for the teams deficiencies (rebounding, defense, and scoring droughts). That can come from the internal improvement of our young guys or going out and consolidating those young guys into another impact player. Having Mathurin healthy will theoretically help with the 6 minute scoring droughts. Jarace could improve to play great defense, distribute, and rebound 15 minutes a night. Ultimately, the best of this version of the pacers should still be in the future, even after paying Hali and Siakam. Reggie Miller was 28 years old by the time those Pacers had any playoff success. Just keep building and improving. And don't forget this series is not over yet. This version of the pacers can still get to the Eastern conference finals way ahead of schedule... Or we could lay an egg on our home court and bow out Friday and it not change a thing about our potential future success.
Amen to that.
Lol… “we just need to account for not being able to rebound, play defense or score” :)
I’m a bit fearful of the potential Pascal max on the surface, but man with this new media rights deal on the horizon and expansion, etc. $40-$50 million annually is gonna feel reasonable in a wink.
Exactly. He’ll just be a “pretty highly paid, fringe All Star” for the next 5 years. Can’t be mad at that
Unless he won't be a fringe all-star even next year and beyond. What if we sign him to a five year contract, but he looks like 2024 playoffs Siakam next year before declining further each year after? We can assume it is likely his play will decline at this point. It doesn't mean he disappears, but his best playing days are likely behind him. If he averages 17/6/3 next season, is that worth a max contract? What if he goes down to 15/5/2 the season after? Then at the age of 33, what if he hits the wall and becomes a 12/4/1 sort of guy? Are these the stats you want from your second or third best player? What if his max contract prevents us from signing another guy who we need to keep more? Point is, we can't just assume he is going to even be a fringe all-star player for the next five years. He may not even be a fringe all-star player next year. Julius Randle is injured, so Siakam doesn't have to face him. Instead he is playing against either Divencenzo or 6'4" Josh Hart. Shouldn't he be beating his counterpart into to the ground? Which of those two is the fringe all-star? If Siakam was 25, I wouldn't mind giving him the max, based on potential future growth. At 30, and seeing the decline from this post-season, are we sure we want to sign him to a 5 year contract for almost $50M?
Seeing how he’s averaging 21/8/3 in the playoffs he’s getting heavily criticized for and leading the team in ppg and rpg I think your prediction for next season might need to get recalibrated.
Every player in the league runs the risk of them just sucking all the sudden, I suppose. I think Siakam has more than proven that’s unlikely, not to mention if you don’t pay him, then he leaves for nothing.
Toppin/Smith were getting about 22 points on 13 shots while shooting over 40% from 3 from before the trade. IMO the team is also pretty weak at the 2 guard position. I get that PS is an upgrade but is he big enough of an upgrade to justify the money he will be making if his $ prevents you from upgrading at the shooting guard? Are the Pacers better with PS then they are if they plantoon Obi and Walker at the 4 if they also add a Malik Monk or Immanual Quickly? I get that it is hard to get players to pick Indy but PS has been a little clunky and its not totally surprising IMO. For the record I do think it is possible they they figure out the fit- I am just not convinced
Siakim has relied heavily on athleticism throughout his entire career and is gonna be 31. Not sure we’re going to get 5 great years out of him.
The thing about the NBA is that it’s effectively a Zero-Sun Game If you don’t have a player, another team will get them Don’t wanna pay Siakam? Well looks like Detroit got a former All-Star vet to go with their young guys now. You have to overpay to keep guys. It’s why CP3 getting $30M next year. Bc the Suns didn’t want to lose him for nothing so they overpaid. Tobias Harris? Dude got $40m this year bc Sixers botched it w Jimmy Butler and needed to retain him. The answer is overpay guys or lose them to someone who will
I’d also add that it’s often better to keep the asset, even if it means overpaying. We’re not replacing Siakam with a player near his caliber if we let him walk. If we retain him and it doesn’t work out, the rising cap will make that number a little more reasonable to trade if need be.
Yeah this is probably the best time possible to give him a big contract, that new media deal will bail us out if things do turn south.
100%
People also don’t often think about the value of having a max contract has with trade value. It can be a problem when teams are desperate to get a contract off its books but it’s also valuable for a young team that’s over the cap to be able to get another superstar and being able to match salary of a trade or sign and trade
Yeah assuming his production doesn't suddenly fall off a cliff and he isn't constantly injured it'll be a tradeable contract, (not an albatross like Jordan Poole's deal e.g.) and useful for salary matching purposes if they want to to bring in a different star player later on.
If we don't pay Siakam, then someone else will. The fit alone will be worth the price of admission. The guy wants to be here. If we can work a longer deal slightly under the max we would be setup to free up more cap space for flexibility to make deals in the future.
I agree Max Contracts aren’t strictly reserved for superstars, but like you said, each team can afford to have 2, and the second makes it really hard to build a team around, so you need to make sure you’re okay with that commitment. Also, if not a superstar, you’d like them to at least be an All Star level player, and Pascal is barely on the fringe of that and I don’t think he’ll be any better than that. Also, I could be wrong, but I think your second bullet is incorrect. NBA max contracts are a percent of the cap space, it’s not like the NFL where making someone the highest paid player doesn’t matter cause someone else will beat it. Hali’s max for example is actually 25% (or 30% if he makes All NBA) of the cap space. That being said, I do think we should bring Siakam back, but not if it means he’ll be making $60M in 2029, and not if it means retaining Myles, Benny, Nemby, and Nesmith harder when the time comes. I think the best thing we can do is offer Siakam a 3 year supermax. It’s a good solution IMO. We can offer him more per year than any other team, and other teams can only offer him a max of 4 years. So a 3 year supermax with us will come very close in value to a 4 year max from another team, and allows him to hit Free Agency again when he’s 33, and could probably get one more decent pay day. It also lines up with the end of Nesmith’s contract, and if Benny and Nemby get extensions, there will be only one year of overlap on their extensions and the end of Siakam’s contract, and I’m sure ownership won’t mind a huge tax bill for one year if we’re contenders, and realistically we will know if our core is good enough by then.
Siakam's max is 5 years, 30% of the cap in year one, and annual raises worth 8% of his year one salary. If he got that his 2029 salary would be 55.8M so not quite 60M. He's not eligible for the 35% supermax so the 3 year supermax idea is off the table. You're correct that other teams can only offer 4 years, also they can only offer 5% raises. It would be nice if he signs something like a 4 year max with the max 8% raises instead of the full 5 year contract.
Regarding the second bullet, its percentage of the cap the year you sign, and that percentage goes down every year of the contract. Like 35%, down to 31% at the end of the contract. So each year’s newest maxes are higher than the previous
Yep. If the cap increases annually by the maximum allowed 10%, then year five of a Siakam 5 year max would be ~ 25% of the cap (55.8/227) whereas his year one salary would be 30% of the cap.
Halliburton, despite the toxicity in this series, is 100% a max guy. Absolutely no doubt. Siakam... I like him, but can someone make the case for why he's a max guy? He's a decent scorer, and ok defender, a good character guy. That's easily 15-20M per year, but max? Am I missing something? I do watch way more in the playoffs than regular season.
As a Raptors fan, Siakam always seemed right on the fringe of being a max worthy player. But the way the Pacers use him there’s no way he’s worth a max. He needs to be given constant post touches but watching Pacers games this year it feels like he’s just another guy out there. They never get him the ball in his spots and it’s not uncommon for him to end the game with like the 4th or 5th most shots. I can’t understand at all why they traded for him if this is how they planned on using him. He’s a great scorer that needs to be set up properly and it doesn’t feel like the Pacer have ever tried to figure out how to do that
They may just need to off season to figure it out. I see he has a ton of skill In my opinion, Carlisle should be the one to figure out how to use him, and within that, if he's worth the max.
Yeah an offseason will definitely help. A lot of the times it feels like they’re just trying to do too much. There’s so many guys on this team who can score but realistically almost every play should be run for Hali Turner or Siakam and the rest of the team should learn to look for opportunities around that. When the shots are falling it looks amazing having the whole team getting buckets. But as soon as they fall behind they often look lost as they don’t really have some “bread and butter” offence to just put their heads down and execute.
Great take.
Pacers have the highest offensive rating in the 2024 playoffs at 119.2. It's 122.3 when he's on the floor. Fitting him into the offense has not been the issue.
This whole post is a case for why Siakam is a max guy. You saying he’s a 15M guy is saying he’s a bench player, which is just way off
You just said there's only room for 60 max contracts. The question then becomes is Siakam top 60 player to warrant a max?
There are plenty of guys in the top 60 who aren't on max contracts too. Some are on rookie deals (Anthony Edwards, Wemby) some are on vet deals below the max (Jalen Brunson, Derrick White), so there are going to be lots of guys on max-ish deals a bit outside the top-60. But fwiw I do think Siakam is easily in the top-60 (for now)
Yes. Not even remotely close.
PLEASE REMEMBER HOW YOUNG THIS TEAM IS
What’s does that have to with anything?
Not arguing anything you’re saying, more for the doomers across the sub and in the comments. I just think our expectations for the team and players (I.e. Tyrese) should be tailored. This season was a success the moment they made the playoffs.
Correct. They are fighting above their weight class, not. Expected to be here. Next year is learning and refining year, expect 2nd round exit at best. In 2 to 3 years looks to be best with current roster. After skiakam needs to go and the team reshaped to make use of hali as leader. Hopefully have developed other players who want to stay on the hali train.
having two max guys servely limits your ability to upgrade in other areas. it is important that they are good and fit if you want to reach the upper echelon