The Indiana Pacers may be ready to move one of their key pieces.
For all you hope-drunk folks out there, it’s not Paul George. It’s Monta Ellis, per Basketball Insiders’ Steve Kyler:
Not sure there is much the Pacers have to offer without ripping up the core, which I do not see them doing.
I know they’d be open to moving Monta Ellis, but I am not sure what he returns. Maybe Orlando? I think they need a flat out scorer and there is some history with Vogel, but at this point, nothing is there.
It’s unclear what, if anything, Ellis would fetch the Pacers on the open market. He has two years and roughly $22.9 million left on his deal after this one (player option for 2018-19), and teams aren’t exactly lining up to acquire guards who don’t drain threes with average efficiency.
Ellis, though, definitely looks out of place in Indy. The Pacers brought in a ball-dominant guard with Jeff Teague to run the offense and are trying to gravitate away from methodical half-court sets—Ellis’ bread and butter. They could always try moving him to the second unit, as they did for one game, but the combination of him and Al Jefferson could render the Pacers’ defense more susceptible than it already is.
This isn’t to say the Pacers only have a Monta Ellis problem. They have an everything problem. This isn’t the squad that team president Larry Bird thought he put together, and that has just as much to do with the fits of Thaddeus Young, Jefferson and Teague, not to mention the continued presence of Rodney Stuckey.
One thing’s for sure, the Pacers need to make a move so that they’re not stuck in the middle (aka NBA purgatory) for the entire season. As for whether that move will entail hitting the reset button or doubling down on their current model, we don’t know.
