Domantas Sabonis Traded To Sacramento Kings As Indiana Pacers Continue To Reshape Roster

“You’ve got to give up good players to get good players.”

That’s how Indiana Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle succinctly summed up what the Pacers did on Tuesday, when in a stunning move, the Indiana Pacers traded away two-time All-Star center Domantas Sabonis. The versatile big man, along with guard Jeremy Lamb and forward Justin Holiday, were sent to the Sacramento Kings. The Pacers gave up good players.

In exchange, though, they got good players. The headline of the deal is young guard Tyrese Haliburton, a 2020 lottery pick who shined during his two years in Sacramento. Right now, he is on pace to become the first NBA sophomore to average more than 14 points and 7 assists in a season while also shooting over 40% from deep. The 21-year old is an offensive stud.

“We feel that Tyrese Haliburton is an elite young point guard that affects the game positively in many, many ways,” Carlisle said.

In addition to Haliburton, Indiana also acquired sharpshooting guard Buddy Hield and veteran big man Tristan Thompson. Hield, by himself, has canned 182 threes this season, which is 27.8% of the number (654) that Indiana has hit in total as a team. His outside shooting is game changing, and the Pacers need that skill.

Thompson, meanwhile, has a murky future in Indiana — he may get bought out or re-traded — but if he does stick around he would provide the blue and gold with championship experience and toughness in the post. Thompson was primarily included in the trade to even up the exchanged salary totals, but he isn’t valueless to the blue and gold.

“Those guys are very skilled players, top to bottom,” Pacers forward Oshae Brissett said of his new teammates.

This trade, combined with the Pacers dealing away Caris LeVert earlier this week, makes Indiana’s objective clear — they are changing directions. Before the season, Indiana hired a new coach in Carlisle with the goal of getting back to the playoffs after a poor 2020-21 season. But this campaign has been worse for the blue and gold, and it was time for the franchise to pick a new direction.

And that they did. Instead of strictly hiring Carlisle to improve the fortunes of an ill-fitting roster, the Pacers used his first 50 or so games as an evaluation period. Seeing the team failing again, for the second season in a row, with a new leader was enough to show the front office that while the Pacers’ roster did have talent, it didn’t fit together. It needed to be rebuilt with younger, fresher pieces. And a more modern style, too.

Those needs — youth and a new style — led to the Pacers trading away their best player. It was painful for the franchise to do. But moving on from Sabonis allows the Pacers to turn the page in the post-Victor Oladipo era and move to a new portion of Pacers history. It needed to be done, as the blue and gold are just 53-75 over the course of the last two campaigns.

“Kevin [Pritchard, Pacers President of Basketball Operations] and Chad [Buchanan, Pacers General Manager] felt that we needed a new direction. This is a big part of that direction,” Carlisle said of the trade.

Haliburton is extremely talented in the present, and he could turn the Pacers on-court struggles around in the not-too-distant time ahead. But the Pacers’ moves this week were all about getting younger and building a squad for the future. That’s the directional choice the Pacers made — they are building for success in future seasons. Since they are eight games out of the play-in race in the Eastern Conference, the Indiana front office was smart to make forward-thinking moves.

During Indiana’s pair of trades this week, they sent away their oldest player and fourth oldest player. They acquired two top-35 picks in the upcoming draft as well as Haliburton, who is still just 21 and could be the best player on the next Pacers team that reaches the postseason. Indiana got younger — an obvious step for a team that needed to make changes.

But on top of getting younger, the Pacers got more skilled in ways that will help them on the court, and at the top of the list of abilities the Pacers acquired is perimeter shooting. Indiana ranks 25th in three-point percentage this campaign despite taking an average number of threes per game. Carlisle encourages outside shots, but Indiana didn’t have anyone on their roster who was a threat from beyond the arc prior to this deal.

“You can never have too much shooting in today’s game. I think that’s an obvious fact,” the head coach said Tuesday night.

Haliburton has been a threat from long range in each season of his career; he has shot over 40% from deep in both. Hield, though, has long been regarded as one of the best three-point shot makers in the NBA. His accuracy numbers don’t necessarily bear that out, but he is one of the league’s best tough shot takers from deep, and his fearlessness from the beyond the arc allows him to be a weapon the Pacers haven’t had in a while. He struggles in several other areas of the game, but his best skill is one the blue and gold desperately need.

Hield, thanks to his ability to stay healthy, has made more threes than any other player in the NBA since the start of the 2019-20 campaign. He’s the only player in the association to can more than 700 triples in that span.

“You can’t have enough great shooting. That was a priority for us as the deadline approaches,” Carlisle noted. “We got two guys who have proven it over time. That’s a very positive move for us.”

Hield is limited otherwise, but Haliburton adds a ton of other skills and abilities that led to Carlisle calling him an elite point guard. He rates as an above average pick-and-roll creator, a play type he executed on nearly half of his possession in Sacramento. His finishing at the rim is top notch, and the Iowa State product has a blistering 62.9 effective field goal percentage on catch-and-shoot jumpers. Haliburton can positively impact every action the Pacers might put him in.

That could make him, along with Chris Duarte, Isaiah Jackson, and other youngsters, the future of the Pacers. Some advanced stats rate Haliburton as one of the five best young offensive players in the league, and Indiana is now his home.

“I think Tyrese is a guy that makes people around him better,” Carlisle stated of the young guard.

“You don’t get a guy like that unless you give up a lot,” he added. And the Pacers certainly gave up a lot.

Trading away two-time All-Stars who have multiple seasons left on their contract is incredibly rare, but the Pacers did that with Sabonis. Holiday has been a reliable three-and-D weapon for last three seasons in Indiana. Lamb has a throwback offensive game that provides needed value for second units. That’s a lot to lose for the blue and gold — and the Kings won their first game with the trio in Sacramento.

“Three great people and tremendous players are leaving the Pacers organization,” Carlisle shared of the trade.

Sabonis, specifically, is a huge loss for Indiana. He grew from an unproven reserve to a top-30 or so player in the NBA with the Pacers, and he was a massive part of their regular season success in the last half decade. Even in the last three seasons, in which the Pacers have been mostly unsuccessful, they have blasted opponents with the Lithuanian big man in the game. The Pacers entire ethos will change without him.

But the Pacers had to give up something substantial to go somewhere substantial. That’s how Carlisle summarized the trade, and that’s how it ultimately will be remembered.

“Sabonis has been amazing to work with for the last few months,” Carlisle detailed. The under-.500 Pacers were still +13 with Sabonis on the court this season. He wasn’t blameless in the team’s struggles, but he was still the team’s best player. Now, he’s gone.

The Pacers may not be done making moves — they are startlingly close to the luxury tax line. But without Sabonis, anything the front office does now will need to fit a rebuilding timeline instead of their old, present-facing one. Indiana is ushering in a new era of professional basketball thanks to this trade and the acquisition of Haliburton. And in a few years, this era has a great chance of producing a better Pacers team than the ones seen in recent seasons.