Masai Was Saved From Himself - All 3 of the Siakam/OG/Fred Trio are Overpaid Right Now

[ForeverTFC]

Who the heck has argued that we should have paid to keep that core intact? The logical argument was that it took Masai too long to figure that out himself.

The rebuild needed to happen the year we traded for Poeltl. We'd be in a much better position with more assets at our disposal if we did.

The issue isn't that he held on. It's that he didn't commit to a direction either way.

I'm convinced at this point that he didn't really believe in them. 3 top 20 first options were traded during this time; he didn't make a move for Mitchell and refused to give up Scottie for KD. And while we presumably had a strong offer in for Lillard, I find it hard to believe we couldn't match Milwaukee's price.

[JB7]

that's a classic win-win (Mgobo, RJ and IQ) for OG is a great move

pascal trade is not as bad as it looks (Jakobe Walter, Bruce Brown, Ochai, KO) + 2026 pick is not bad at all

The Siakam trade will likely age well. The Pacers are 16th in the tankathon standings and they'll fall further next year. If they end up losing Turner they will be pretty screwed with a huge gap in the front court. Walker, Mathurin, Nembhard, and their other young guys haven't emerged at all. If we can move off Poeltl's salary and let a few others expire we could throw a big contract at Turner similar to how Houston did with Fred. This would give us a stretch C rim protector while making our rival worse and securing a higher first round pick.

Honestly aggressively pursueing Turner would be a great move. He fits what we wanna do, and makes Indiana worse.

I wonder if we could fit Turner and Poeltl on our cap sheet. I think they would be a great 2 man pairing to get 48 minutes of high level C play, and in some situations could fit beside each other if you wanna get bigger.

Like IQ/Dick/RJ/Barnes/Turner is a ton of shooting. IQ/RJ/Barnes/Turner/Poeltl is shooting and huge.

Turner is so overrated on this board. He was a big part of the reason the Pacers sucked at the start of the season. Yes, the Pacers have had a lot of injuries to C's, but those C's are James Wiseman & Isaiah Jackson. Turner has played 35 of the Pacers 37 games.

[Indeed]

The Siakam trade will likely age well. The Pacers are 16th in the tankathon standings and they'll fall further next year. If they end up losing Turner they will be pretty screwed with a huge gap in the front court. Walker, Mathurin, Nembhard, and their other young guys haven't emerged at all. If we can move off Poeltl's salary and let a few others expire we could throw a big contract at Turner similar to how Houston did with Fred. This would give us a stretch C rim protector while making our rival worse and securing a higher first round pick.

Why would the Pacers fall further next year?
They were bad in the start of the season due to injury. I went to their reddit last month and they explained they went out of C.

Hali is always injured and their youth isn't as good as previously thought. What does "they went out of C" mean?

They're thin at C and Turner is expiring. I'd give him a 3 year deal at 40M per year with the third year being a team option. Not having a C and relying on Jarace Walker would make them worse than they are.

Went out of C means their C are injured. Wiseman, Thomas Bryant, Isaiah Jackson and previously Turner.
They can probably re-sign Turner around 19m and have 2m to sign a veteran for the remaining spot (assume their rookie contract is around 3m and CHA 2nd round to sign for 2m).

[Thaddy]

The Siakam trade will likely age well. The Pacers are 16th in the tankathon standings and they'll fall further next year. If they end up losing Turner they will be pretty screwed with a huge gap in the front court. Walker, Mathurin, Nembhard, and their other young guys haven't emerged at all. If we can move off Poeltl's salary and let a few others expire we could throw a big contract at Turner similar to how Houston did with Fred. This would give us a stretch C rim protector while making our rival worse and securing a higher first round pick.

Honestly aggressively pursueing Turner would be a great move. He fits what we wanna do, and makes Indiana worse.

I wonder if we could fit Turner and Poeltl on our cap sheet. I think they would be a great 2 man pairing to get 48 minutes of high level C play, and in some situations could fit beside each other if you wanna get bigger.

Like IQ/Dick/RJ/Barnes/Turner is a ton of shooting. IQ/RJ/Barnes/Turner/Poeltl is shooting and huge.

Turner is so overrated on this board. He was a big part of the reason the Pacers sucked at the start of the season. Yes, the Pacers have had a lot of injuries to C's, but those C's are James Wiseman & Isaiah Jackson. Turner has played 35 of the Pacers 37 games.

Turner isn't worth 30M but we need to overpay to pry him away. It would definitely make us better and the Pacers worse.

A bad pacers team means a better pick

[JB7]

Honestly aggressively pursueing Turner would be a great move. He fits what we wanna do, and makes Indiana worse.

I wonder if we could fit Turner and Poeltl on our cap sheet. I think they would be a great 2 man pairing to get 48 minutes of high level C play, and in some situations could fit beside each other if you wanna get bigger.

Like IQ/Dick/RJ/Barnes/Turner is a ton of shooting. IQ/RJ/Barnes/Turner/Poeltl is shooting and huge.

Turner is so overrated on this board. He was a big part of the reason the Pacers sucked at the start of the season. Yes, the Pacers have had a lot of injuries to C's, but those C's are James Wiseman & Isaiah Jackson. Turner has played 35 of the Pacers 37 games.

Turner isn't worth 30M but we need to overpay to pry him away. It would definitely make us better and the Pacers worse.

A bad pacers team means a better pick

If the Raps and Pacers swapped C’s, the Pacers would be a much improved team.

Turner would not make the Raps a better team.

I think if the Pacers get a competent C, that actually plays the role, they would be a much better team, then trying to retain Turner.

[metafisical]

I would have loved to have brought these guys back, but only if they agreed on a 5 year, 5M per year contract (I.e., what they are actually worth).

[Harcore Fenton Mun]

If they're all overpaid crap, why did we waste time building around them?

Masai can't be wrong twice in a row, I guess.

[anotherhomer]

Siakam, OG, and Fred are great 2nd/3rd/4th options who now fit well on their current teams

personally i honestly wish we kept OG

[36Mafia]

Man why yall so salty. All those guys deserve their contracts and will be in the playoffs. Our team is trash with trash contracts that will all be traded near the end of them as expirings. Masai needs to go

[Los_29]

All three are thriving on their new teams. But it’s also true, we needed to move on.

[PushDaRock]

Now that I think about it, things really started going south after picking Malachi Flynn. We all thought Masai did it again and assumed he got another steal and the next Lowry/FVV. So, I think we can all blame Flynn for what happened.

[Scase]

Every non S-tier all-star / borderline all-star is overpaid. I dislike Fred, but Houston signing him for 2+1 (if it was 3 years guaranteed, yuck, but it wasn't) and Brooks because they had to use their cap space has worked out pretty damn well. Obviously Sengun is their best player, but those signings were positive moves at the right time. The money doesn't matter.

OG fits every team like a glove and looks better offensively on the Knicks than he ever has here. Knicks fans adore him. Who cares what the contract is turning into? This is the best many Knicks fans have felt about a team in their lifetime.

I don't know about Siakam. That feels like the worst contract of the three.

FVV is overpaid if you look at it as a AAV amount, but that's exactly the contract they wanted, a very short term one. Works out for both, FVV gets to sign another one after it, and they get the vet presence they were looking for.

Siakam was absolutely overpaid. OG you could argue is overpaid, but championship windows are only open for so long, they needed to put the team together to have a shot.

All three are thriving on their new teams. But it’s also true, we needed to move on.

Lol what?

Houston/Knicks are the 4th/5th best teams in the league. Pacers are 2 games above .500, 2 of them are thriving, the other is treadmilling as usual.

[Basketball_Jones]

I think it’s a bit of vindication that we had good players and were being low balled offers for them. We all knew OG was going to be well respected in New York. Siakam is still very good and more people see that now. Fred unfortunately looks washed, he had a real nice prime with us though.

[SharoneWright]

Yeah, sure. But then he traded for Poeltl + signing.

Then IQ got the bag!

And now he’s praying that the league doesn’t vote Scottie All-NBA.

He continues to put himself out on a limb.

[Vampirate]

Every non S-tier all-star / borderline all-star is overpaid. I dislike Fred, but Houston signing him for 2+1 (if it was 3 years guaranteed, yuck, but it wasn't) and Brooks because they had to use their cap space has worked out pretty damn well. Obviously Sengun is their best player, but those signings were positive moves at the right time. The money doesn't matter.

OG fits every team like a glove and looks better offensively on the Knicks than he ever has here. Knicks fans adore him. Who cares what the contract is turning into? This is the best many Knicks fans have felt about a team in their lifetime.

I don't know about Siakam. That feels like the worst contract of the three.

FVV is overpaid if you look at it as a AAV amount, but that's exactly the contract they wanted, a very short term one. Works out for both, FVV gets to sign another one after it, and they get the vet presence they were looking for.

Siakam was absolutely overpaid. OG you could argue is overpaid, but championship windows are only open for so long, they needed to put the team together to have a shot.

All three are thriving on their new teams. But it’s also true, we needed to move on.

Lol what?

Houston/Knicks are the 4th/5th best teams in the league. Pacers are 2 games above .500, 2 of them are thriving, the other is treadmilling as usual.

The Rockets are terrible offensively. (Sengun and Barnes are a wash here).

They get by by defense and offensive rebounding, they have the 3rd worst TS in the league. (FVV is having a horrible year offensively). They aren't doing anything in the playoffs until their offense gets much better, and they don't have a Paolo on the way to bail them out.

So FVV wouldn't count.

As for the Pacers, their issue is basically Hali. Do to Siakam's age, they likely have a small window to do any actual competing. While Hali is better than what we had, the Pacers also just never had an OG on their team. So Siakam went from one treadmil situation to another unless Hali from the first half of last year shows up.

Siakam has been good, but isn't going to pull that team up, and is 30 years old now.

OG on the Knicks is the only thing that's thriving for both player and team imo.

[YogurtProducer]

Turner is so overrated on this board. He was a big part of the reason the Pacers sucked at the start of the season. Yes, the Pacers have had a lot of injuries to C's, but those C's are James Wiseman & Isaiah Jackson. Turner has played 35 of the Pacers 37 games.

Turner isn't worth 30M but we need to overpay to pry him away. It would definitely make us better and the Pacers worse.

A bad pacers team means a better pick

If the Raps and Pacers swapped C’s, the Pacers would be a much improved team.

Turner would not make the Raps a better team.

I think if the Pacers get a competent C, that actually plays the role, they would be a much better team, then trying to retain Turner.

How would adding turner not make us better?

[refshateRaps]

Boy did we dodge a bullet. Look at us now!

Masai & Bobby have drove this franchise into a joke. No one left to blame.

[Jim Todd Jr.]

Except all of those teams are winning games and are in playoff spots. Stats can be misleading.

[sidsid]

Turner is so overrated on this board. He was a big part of the reason the Pacers sucked at the start of the season. Yes, the Pacers have had a lot of injuries to C's, but those C's are James Wiseman & Isaiah Jackson. Turner has played 35 of the Pacers 37 games.

Turner isn't worth 30M but we need to overpay to pry him away. It would definitely make us better and the Pacers worse.

A bad pacers team means a better pick

If the Raps and Pacers swapped C’s, the Pacers would be a much improved team.

Turner would not make the Raps a better team.

I think if the Pacers get a competent C, that actually plays the role, they would be a much better team, then trying to retain Turner.

Yeah, the Machiavellian play here is to deprive them of the asset, not swap it. Looking at their contract situation, I'm not sure they can even pay him at current rates without jumping into the tax too high.

For us to make an FA play of decent size we'd need to move both Jak and RJ for expirings to give him a big 1+1 team option anyway. Hard to make that happen in this apron environment.

[LoveMyRaps]

Read on Twitter

Seeing Knicks fans complain about OG on Twitter is hilarious.

This contract is gonna age like milk.

Can't believe they damn near maxed out Robert Covington.