Do latest Pacers trade rumors make sense? Could Siakam be an All-Star? How bad really is this start?

Do latest Pacers trade rumors make sense? Could Siakam be an All-Star? How bad really is this start?

Trade rumors keep popping up about the Pacers. What are the latest ones? Tell us about the team’s thinking, including a very important emoji. Plus, be prepared for another Pacers move soon. Pascal Yakam’s All-Star Kansas is weird. I’ll tell you why. And let’s really dive in to what two and 16 actually means. All today on the Locked On Pacers podcast. You are Locked on Pacers, your daily Indiana Pacers podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. What’s up everybody? Happy Friday. Hope you had a great weekend. Welcome in to another edition of the Locked On Pacers podcast where we of course talk about the Indiana Pacers. As always, my name is Tony East. I cover the team for Forbes and Circle City Spin. And today, happy Thanksgiving for me. I am recording on the holiday and I have a lot to talk about. Trade rumors have popped up about the Pacers of late, including one that brought on by a funny cryptic tweet and we’ll talk about Keon Ellis and TJ McConnell today and a little bit of I think framing of the trade deadline that I think somehow people are still missing. A move the Pacers are about to make by default. They have to uh Pascalak’s allstar candidacy very confusing to me. I’ll explain why I don’t think people are talking about this enough. And the last thing to get to today, two and 16, the Pacers two and 16. I really want to dive into that because of a lot of chatter I heard from Raptors fans after the Raptors beat the Pacers. Raptors fans, by the way, great bunch. Very nice, very thoughtful, very knowledgeable group. Okay, let’s start with what everybody loves to talk about more than games. Uh, trade stuff, trade rumors have appeared for the Pacers. Again, if you missed it, the first rumor we heard about the Pacers and their connection to another player this season came from Jake Fischer a couple weeks ago reporting that the Pacers had some I can’t remember what the exact phrasing was, but some level of chatter or interest in Jose Verado of the New Orleans Pelicans. I spent some of that podcast also talking about Anthony Davis, not because I think the Pacers would have interest, just because the Mav stuff had pretty recently happened today. The second report is similar in that Jose Alvarado is a defensively pesky guard who can also kind of score. Today’s report comes from one Michael Scott in hoops hype reporting about Keon Ellis of the Sacramento Kings that the Pacers have had interest in Keon Ellis and had previously targeted him too. So one let’s start with there I buried an intentional part of the framing of his report on purpose which we’ll get to in a second but let’s start with this. Skenos is good. 26 years old. Uh turned 26 this season, right? I guess he’s still 25. He turns 26 next to January. So, pretty young uh and a good player. He ascended in his minutes in time with the Kings from two-way to barely playing to playing a lot to starting a good amount. His three-point percentage has consistently been over 40% on decent volume. He’s a a good and probably the King’s best defensive guard. Like, all right. What’s not to like about a player like that? And then you get a little confused. If that all sounds awesome, you know, this is a six and a half points a game scorer who can kind of shoot and kind of guard. Maybe he can really shoot. Maybe he can really guard. He’s a good player. Every time you watch the Kings, he pops. Why aren’t the Kings so psyched about playing him? Early in the season, he was not playing very often for Doug Christiey’s team. And the Kings were bad. It’s not like that they had a lot going for them that made this make a lot of sense. He had a full DNP when the when the Kings lost to the Nuggets uh earlier this season. He had five minutes in the following game. He’s had a few games in the low to mid 10s. He also had some high games in the 30s. That’s very confusing to me. The Kings also just did something else I found confusing. In the offseason, they had the opportunity. So, he was on a two-way and then a standard deal twice. He had a team option in his contract. I’m overexlaining this, but I promise is relevant to the Pacers. Um, and if they picked up the option, he would be an unrestricted free agent at the end of the current season, but on a cheap deal with the Kings this year. If they declined the option, he would have become a free agent immediately in his but he’d be a restricted free agent, meaning the Kings could have kept him at a lower price. The Pacers dealt with the same thinking with O’Shea Brassette a few years ago, if you’ll recall, and opted to keep him on a minimum deal. The Kings did the same thing for Ellis, which means now at the end of the current season. He is guaranteed to be a free agent. I believe he’s extension eligible potentially in February. Some people think in the cap world that converting his contract from a 2A to a standard means he’s extension eligible. I don’t know if I believe that to be true. That’s not really important for the sake of this discussion. What is important is that the Kings lost a lot of team control. All of it really by declining that option, which that combined with the way the team has kind of treated him as a player does make me wonder if he’s available, especially on a Kings team that like why isn’t everyone besides Keegan Maria and Ne Clifford basically available. So for the Pacers specifically on a team that might be selling anyway, a good player, a good guard who can play the two and the one who can play defense and hit threes, that fits what they do very, very well. So that is somebody that makes good sense for them to pursue if they were trying to add another guard into their one-two mix. Here’s where this gets tricky is let’s pretend he’s on the team next season with everybody they currently have and Halbertton’s back. Hallebertton, McConnell, Nemhard, Matherin, and Ellis is a busy backcourt group when you already also have the wing combinations of, you know, N Smith, Shepard, Fury, Walker right there banging on the door for minutes. Ellis is better than a lot of some of those guys I just said. But how do they balance all that, right? Would they have to not have one or two of their guards on their current team to make him make more sense? He’s again, he’s better than some of them. They’d be a better team. That makes it worth exploring on its own. It’s just worth thinking about if you’re the Pacers. Who is he better than? How much better? What where’s the potential differences there given his age and things of that nature. The other tricky part is that he is an expiring contract. So, he would be up for more or different money very soon. He would not be on a minimum cheap deal. What is his price going to be? Is that something that makes sense for the Pacers to want to pay in the immediate to short term? Because if they’re adding money for him, they are maybe not adding money for someone else. whether that’s, you know, a different one of their free agents, an external guy, whatever. So, that’s all very relevant to keep in mind here. Now, the part of the report I buried on purpose is that uh Scott said the Pacers have had interest in Keon Ellis this season, and that seems obvious because he’s wrote writing it at this time, but clarifying this season is important because think back to Jose Alvarado. I thought it was noteworthy that they registered that interest when they did because they could have done that in the offseason. They knew they needed a point or they they knew that they a point guard could be something they need for a while and then they got hurt like crazy and they probably at least kicked the doors down and like hey what would it cost to do this instead of signing a free agent? Let’s just get somebody good. Perhaps that some of their interest in him. Now granted it said they previously targeted him before. It it is noteworthy that they target him this season but it’s possible perhaps some of their interest was oh man we need a point guard now. Like we don’t have Nehard. We don’t have McConnell. We don’t have Quinton Jackson. We’re screwed. the sky is falling. We’re a front office who needs to figure something out. Let’s look at Kon Ellis and see what’s going on there, right? Like that does make logical sense to me as a smart path for them to have taken at some point. So, we’ll see how real this and serious this is. But this is like Alvarado, too, like a logical team for the Pacers to talk to. Hey, you are in a position of shift. both of the players that we’ve concretely read reports about the Pacers being connected to a player on their team just changed their front office and coaching staffs very recently, right? That is generally a team in a transitionary period whose players could be available. So, keep an eye on Keon Ellis, keep an eye on Jose Alvarado. That all does make good sense to me in both player cases, but also keep an eye on the Pacers back court in any sort of case. The other tradey thing that happened that made me laugh. Uh, but oh, sorry, I skipped the note. My Ellis thing though that I I already kind of talked about was this does kind of seem like a when everybody was hurt kind of thing, but he is better than Alvarado and could be somebody that even on a healthy Pacers team would play. Uh Kevin Pritchard just tweeted something that made me laugh, which is ironic because he tweeted an emoji of somebody laughing. Uh Evan Cidery of Forbes tweeted, “With the Pacers having a down year, rival teams are expected to inquire on TJ McConnell ahead of the trade deadline. McConnell’s $10.2 $2 million salary is very workable in various scenarios and he’s consistently shown to be a valuable rotation piece for a deep postseason run. All true. Kevin Pritchard replied to that tweet report with just a crying laughing emoji. Very funny. Uh look, the reason that the Pacers would not trade TJ McConnell is the exact reasons that that trade says that other teams would be interested in him. And to be clear, other teams should be interested in T.J. McConnell. He’s good. He his salary is very workable. It’s under the MLE. He is very good in postseason runs despite a goofy skill set. He is older. So maybe teams would be like, “Oh, maybe the Pacers would get rid of him.” But guess what? The Pacers goals are to compete after this year. TJ McConnell helps them compete. We’ll see what that level is for him after this season, but I’ve said this about him a million times. He fits the Pacers better than he fits any other team. We’ll see what aging does to him at some point. Perhaps we see that now. But he’s a good player. The Pacers should want him. And that’s just like general basketball cap stuff. Like you could make a maybe at some case that he’s a little overpaid, but he’s among the top five best backup point guards in the NBA. Like it’s close. Even beyond all that, like find a less touchable behind the scenes guy. Good luck. Good luck. Right. Very close with everybody. Good attitude guy. They love having him around. Um I’m not saying it’s impossible they’d trade T.J. McConnell. I would be surprised if that’s of the utmost priority for the Pacers. It made me laugh. Um so two more things to get to on the transaction front. One is Garrison Matthews. Uh his current 10-day contract expires after Saturday. So, the Pacers play the Bulls. He’ll be under contract for that. Then he’ll become a free agent. If the Pacers are able to resign him, that would mean one of Johnny Fury or Cam Jones are uh going to be out for two more weeks because we know N Smith probably, although we’re getting close to that being less than two weeks. Uh Obby Toppen and Tyrese Halurn are out for a while. And then also, of course, uh Tyrese Halbert is out for the season. So, where does that put the rest of this crew, uh you know, Johnny Fury, um next couple weeks, I believe, is what Rick Carell said. And Cam Jones is healthy. I think he’s not healthy, is recovered from his back injury, but has to do the whole ramp up process and could play for the boom first. We’ll see how long that stuff is supposed to take. But if any of them, and I predict Fury is the most likely, is going to be out two more weeks, it’s possible they could keep Garrison Matthews for 10 more days. So, we’ll either find out if Garrison Matthews will be on the Pacers, or if the Pacers are getting healthier by Sunday. Uh, so that is of course uh good news for the Pacers and their fans to know. And I would conclude my trade-transaction talk with this. So many transactions seem like people are only looking at what’s right in front of their freaking face and not like the entire ecosystem of the Pacers who were in an NBA Finals game 5 months ago to the day. Basically a little little more than that. Their trade deadline should not be about selling parts because they’re bad this year. Their trade deadline should be about maximizing the Hallebert and Seakum window and whatever this overlap of contracts they have of a good team is. And that’s a two to three year window. It would not be crazy to me for them to be buyers. If they get the right good player who helps those players, even if it makes this season a little worse, be having the right stuff around those guys in this window is to me the most logical step. Now, if you’re buying something small at the expense of this season, yeah, that’s dumb. But like I think there’s a lot of context that people are just totally missing that I feel like goes in the wrong direction of what the Pacers should be considering. Alas, we’ll talk more about their record and what that means. Let’s talk about Pascal Yakum and his allstar candidacy. Yes, I believe it might be better than you think, but not for the reason that you think. That’s coming up next here on Lockdown Pacers. But first, everybody, let me tell you about Door Dash. The NBA season’s heating up and Door Dash has found the perfect way to keep fans in their bag all season long. 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Terms apply. No purchase necessary. Ends April 13th. Open to US residents 21 and older. Visit door dash.com in your bag for more details. Door Dash in your bag all season long. We are back here on Lockdown Pacers. Thanks for making it your first listen today and every single day. Your second listen. Pick your team. I don’t have a game from last night to tell you to go to because there were none in the NBA. No Thanksgiving action. Pistons, Celtics was crazy two nights ago. Uh, so either of those teams could be a good way to go as the as the Pistons, excuse me, 13 game winning streak snapped. They have never gone past that in franchise history. I’m very full. My mom’s famous in my household. Cheesy potatoes were out. Uh, I’m still, if you can’t tell, a little sick and stuffy. I’m exhausted. And yet I spent a lot of my day being like, “Yeah, I kind of want to think more about what I think about the all-star format as it pertains to one Pascal Seakkum because he’s balling. 23.9 points. That’s second best of his career, 6.9 rebounds, 4.6 assists, higher above his career average, and all of those stats. Playing very well. So, I briefly mentioned the new All-Star game format in like a end of segment discussion a couple weeks ago. So, if you didn’t see it, the league announced they’re trying international versus world. There’ll be one international team and two, what did I just say? International versus world. They’re trying USA versus world at Allstar this year with two USA teams, 16 players total, and one international team with eight players total. So, how they’re doing that functionally is it’ll still be 12 players in each conference who are chosen as the all-stars. And if that happens to break out perfectly as 16 and eight, great, no problem. And if it doesn’t, then Adam Silver will pick, okay, I need a 16th USA guy, I pick you. Or I need an eighth international guy, I pick you. Great. So what if that happens? The teams will have imbalanced sizes, but that’s their way of getting the roster sizes that they want. And so of course, you’re still picking 12 in each conference regardless of position. That’s first. So technically, being in the East is probably still beneficial for Seiak because that’s the place to start. That is how all-star picking is done. So, here’s the thing. Let’s get this out of the way. Obviously, he’s going to be dramatically hurt by the Pacers record, right? You can go through the stats, and I will in just a second, but how many people are going to look at Seakum stats and go, “Well, for what? They aren’t winning at all. Who cares that he’s doing this stuff?” And like, that is in some ways fair and in some ways not at all because everybody knows how hurt the Pacers have been. But that helps you when you’re good, right? I still maintain that Sabonis’ second all-star appearance with the Pacers when he was added in as a replacement. He he only got because the Pacers were fourth in the East at the time of their replacement and then they dropped to like ninth like a week later. So, the standing spot I think certainly matters and it it should I do think rewarding winning for Allstars is fine, but just let’s just do this. Let’s round down to the nearest half a stat for all of Seakum’s big three. So 23.5 points per game, 6.5 rebounds per game, 4.5 assists per game this season in the NBA. Four guys. Pascal Siakov is one of them. The other three are Joic, Donic, and Giannis. That’s it. That’s the whole crew of four. Pretty good company for Seakum to be a part of. He is producing, right? A lot of guys can score at that level. Uh a lot of guys can rebound at that level. Some guys can pass that level. Very few can do all three. and that’s why he can play with the second unit and the starting five and do all these things. And that was my case for his all-star candidacy last year through and through is that the Pacers stunk to start the season. But the only consistent thing they had was Pascal Seakum and he averaged fewer points, fewer rebounds, and fewer assists last year and they finally surged and got a good enough record that they could ignore it. Seakum had to be in the All-Star game. So the same thing applies this year. So start there. 12 from each conference. Seakkum’s statistical case very strong. Of those of course four players that I just named, two were in the west, two were in the east in terms of the meeting Seakum stats category. That’s part one of this the stats part. But I wondered initially when this format came out that eight international players would be a thing. My gut reaction was like does that actually hurt him? Like let’s pretend you’re the you’re one spot out of making the All-Star team in either conference. If you only have a pool of eight you can be a part of and the international pool is actually good players, it seems like that would be harder to crack into than a group of 16, especially with how again the international boom is really coming for the NBA. So in my head at first I was like, dang, that really hurts him. Like if he barely misses All-Star, it’s going to be harder for him to get picked because he’s on a more selective team than the other group. But then I really thought about it again and I thought the opposite. This was what happened to me today. Does it help him that there, yes, there are, you know, less international spots, but the absolute all-star stud level all-star guys, there’s probably only 10, nine in the entire NBA. And so, if it gets to the point where one of those guys gets hurt or two of those guys get hurt before all-star, like Siakum gets a by default look even stronger than he would because they need to fill the international team. I’m kind of torn between both of these. So, let’s let’s work backwards at first. Off the rip. Jokic, SGA, Luca, Giannis, Wambi. Done. Those five are going to be on the international team. Check. Done. Don’t have to think about it. Don’t have to discuss it. They’re going to make it anyway without having to be named. I think Al Prrenon is the next best international player. I think he should get some MVP votes. Not consideration, different thing. Votes. He’s been really good this year. He’s a lock to me. That’s six. So, you need two more. And then I think your group of four for those spots, presuming I’m not missing anyone, which is always possible because Embiid’s not that guy anymore, is a combination of Denny Aia, Pascal, Seakum, Larry Markin, and France Vagner. Great players, all international, all very good. And so right now, you could easily make some strong statistical cases for Markin and Avdia and France has been awesome. And the Magic are surging thanks to him. And of course, Yakam is very good. So, if like some of those guys get hurt, does that really help Seakum’s candidacy? If he keeps balling, does it help his candidacy? If the Pacers win more games, does it help his candidacy? Or does it hurt that he’s restricted in that his team stinks and then there’s only eight guys available for the roster that he would be on if he is named an all-star? These are all very conflating to me. I do think if there were one if there was one fewer really really talented international guy because I think all 10 I said could be all-stars this year. So to me if there was one fewer and you were one injury away or only to beat one guy to be top eight for your pool, his case would be really strong. Like it’d be really easy. But having to beat two with the Pacers being two and 16 does make it harder. But I think in the end I I I think he’s come out in the wash and if he just keeps playing well and keeps playing a lot, he’ll at least come up in these discussions, especially when it comes time to say, “Okay, who’s the actual international pool that the NBA is going to be picking from?” Uh, speaking of the Pacers winning more games for Seattle’s candidacy, let’s talk about what a two-6 start is really all about after I got a ton of notes from Raptors fans about the Pacers are better than the typical two and 15 team that’s actually a good win and blah blah blah. I want to talk more about that line of thinking and this Pacers group to close out today. He’s locked on Pacers. But first everybody, I want to tell you about FanDuel. The NBA season is back. There’s no better way to get in on the action yourself than with FanDuel. They’re the official sports betting partner of the NBA. Even if you miss the start of the game, you just want to ride the hot hand. 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They’re two and 15. And that made me think, okay, I really wanted to do this anyway. This is the perfect time to actually do it. What does this start actually mean? And what really really really made me want to do it is I saw that line of thinking I mentioned going into the break is some Raptors fans saying something to the effect of oh the Pacers are two and 15. Yeah, but they’re better than that and they’re healthier now and they are healthier now and they’re a little better than that but also like they were really bad for long stretches of the season. Them being healthier now means their record is not reflective of the quality of the team they currently have like today right the second me talking but like their expected win loss given their net rating is in fact three and 15. like they were horrible horrible first stretchers of this season. Let’s actually contextualize this though. I I think there is actual evidence that says the argument the Pacers are Let me be Let me be very clear before I start. The Pacers deserve the record they have. I’m not saying they’re good. I’m not saying these are silver linings. I’m discussing something said by other people. And I want to mention something about a team that started worse than the Pacers and then surged in the same season as it relates to this team. Okay, so for example, the Pacers have led by double digits in six games. It’s not very many, right? They only won uh one of those, which is just wild. They were up by 14 against Dallas, 12 against Atlanta, 10 against Utah, they lost all those games. 10 against Toronto, they lost that game. 24 against Charlotte, they won that game. and then 11 against Toronto. Really weird, but that’s a sign of like progress. You can actually grow a double digit lead in a third of your games or so. They only won one of them though. Three fourths, three or four games, excuse me, my own notes, it’s hard to read. Three of their four games decided by one possession. OKC on opening night, double overtime, the Dallas Aaron Emith miss, the Giannis buzzer beater, and the Brandon Ingram buzzer beater. Four times. Like you flip a coin on those. They’ve lost a coin flip every time. That’s fine. It happens sometimes. The playoffs just happened where they won the coin flip every time. They’ve lost the coin flip every time. That certainly hurts. They would have five wins if the coin flip went their way a few more times. Clutch games. They have a ton. Eight of them second in the NBA I believe uh in clutch losses with seven second to last obviously in clutch wins with one only one team with fewer being Charlotte. Right. They’re in a lot of games. That is a sign. That’s the first one of the things I’ve said. Excuse me. that is like better than your record stuff is that you’re in a lot of these games late. Leading by six double digit times, eh, I guess that means you have a good high level. And I think that’s very true of this team. Being decided by one possession, yeah, maybe your record’s not perfectly reflective of your season. The clutch game thing is a thing cuz that means after 43 minutes, you are there like you can win or you’re ahead even in a lot of these cases. And they haven’t won outside of beating Golden State at home, they have not actually won. Uh, their clutch game number this season is Oh, whoops. That’s not I don’t know what happened. I don’t know why uh NBA.com is just a mess. Every stat site is changing. ESPN changed their box score. Basketball reference changed their player page loud. I’m not happy about any of this. Um, excuse me. The Pacers right now have played eight clutch games. They’re one and seven of them. So, almost half their games. They’ve been clutch. They’ve been right there late and they have not been able to win. For for reference, to be clear, other awful teams, the Hornets, five clutch games. The Wizards, six clutch games. The Jazz have seven. Right. The Pacers have more than a lot of the awful, awful, awful teams. They’ve been right there. They just can’t win. Leads in the fourth quarter. Five times the Pacers have led in the fourth quarter of a game this season. Obviously, the two they won and then a loss against Toronto two days ago. The Nets at home. Yikes. And OKC the double overtime loss. Right. Five times they’ve led in the fourth quarter. If they had won all those, they’d have obviously a five and 13 record. nine of their 18 games, half they’ve led in the second half add in to the five you already heard their loss in Minnesota, their loss against the Bucks, their loss in Dallas, and their loss in Golden State. That is not a compliment. Not being able to hold leads in the second half of a game is not a compliment about your team. They have some dreadful lows during their losing streak. What that does show again though is for long stretches of many games, they can be as good and have been as good as their opponents. So, what this tells me is they’re wildly inconsistent and a lot of times inconsistent just means bad and this team is a perfect outlier for everything. They’ve been so hurt that it doesn’t matter. So, what I believe is true is that right this second, me talking to you on Wednesday when the Pacers played the Raptors, yes, the talent the Pacers had available, if that specific group was available for all 17 entering that day and now 18 games, the Pacers would have a better record than two and 16. I think everybody thinks that. I think the Pacers think that. However, it’s not like they don’t deserve their record. They can’t play with the lead. They can’t close the game they’re leading. They can’t do it. And it’s been such a trend that it’s a real concern about their program. And it’s a pro like for this specific season to be clear. And so, it’s something they do need to clean up. But I’ll say this and this there there were so many stats that were pointing to like half their games or more basically have been like a situation where they were in position to win like pretty far into the game. That is generally a sign to me that you might be better than your record. They got absolutely but on the on the flip side of that they got absolutely throttled six games in a row right at terrible stretch. So that hurts their net rating, which hurts their expected win loss. But they have a lot of stuff that made me go, huh, maybe they are closer to winning games than their record suggests, even though their expected win loss from their net rating is again three and 15. Now, let me talk about two more things. Two teams ever, ever this I can’t even believe this is possible. So I was actually told this by somebody who is a stats person that I know uh and they’re wrong. And I’ve repeated this because they’ve sent me things before that were true that they said I think it’s when the Pacers dropped to two and 14 that no one had ever made the playoffs starting two and 14 or worse before. That’s not true. That is not true to contextualize what I the Pacers and Wizards are air quotes playing for. Uh the 196768 Bulls, the second year of the Chicago Bulls, there were only six teams in their division. Four of them made the playoffs. That Bulls team started two and 16 on the nose where the Pacers are now. They won 29 games total that season, made it in the playoffs as the last possible seed available, and then lost in the first round. More relevant though to the Pacers is is an actual like real team, the 1984 885 Cleveland Cavaliers, coached by one legend, George Carl. They had the 14th best offense and the 16th best defense by the end of the season that year. They went 36 and 46. They started that season 2 and 19. horrible world be free. Their star clashing with George Carl and yet that team figures it out and goes 34 and 27 the rest of the way and they make the playoffs and they lose in the first round. They win one game. The ceilings of teams that start as bad as the Pacers is very bad. Uh I’m not saying they should be expected to do anything this year, but to just kind of contextualize the record, they’re probably a little better than the win loss number says, even though I initially when I heard all those thoughts was like, I don’t believe this. Like I’ve watched them this year. I don’t really know if I believe it. I do think that’s a little true. I do think that it’s po I’m not saying they I’m not giving any sort of recommendation about their direction. I’m saying history says it’s possible that they could turn it around. I’m not saying that they will or I believe that they will. I’m saying history says it’s possible even though it hasn’t happened in 40 years. And I’m saying that if they can clean up either a bad stretch or their close game wos, they can win plenty of games the rest of the season should they want to. That’s for you to decide. I’m not here to tell you how to think on that particular thing. It’s Thanksgiving. Be thankful that I’m not going on my soap box about tanking. Uh thank you all so much for listening. Speaking of thankful, uh tomorrow we’ll be talking Pacers Wizards after that game in Gamebridge. Saturday, of course, we’ll be talking Pacers Bulls backtoback at home for the Pacers. Their first backtoback in weeks. Looking forward to breaking it all down for you guys right here. I am running out of steam. So is my voice. You can find me on social media, Tony AR. This podcast is on many platforms at Lockdown Pacers. Thank you all so much for listening. See you very soon.

More trade rumors concerning the Indiana Pacers were published this week. Do they make sense? Could Pascal Siakam be a 2026 NBA All-Star in the new All-Star format? What a 2-16 start really means. Host Tony East breaks it all down.

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