The deal
Thunder get: Forward Paul George
Pacers get: Guard Victor Oladipo, Center Domantas Sabonis
Oklahoma City Thunder: A
In theory, trading for George with one year remaining on his contract is supposed to be a risk. But the Thunder gave up so little that this doesn't really feel like one. In the worst-case scenario, George walking away in a year, they end up with a cleaner cap sheet moving forward.
Because Oladipo actually makes more than George this season, Oklahoma City also cuts its payroll by about $4 million. That's important breathing room with regard to the luxury tax. The Thunder are currently about $7 million to $8 million away with 11 players on the roster. Re-signing restricted free agent Andre Roberson or unrestricted free agent Taj Gibson will almost certainly push Oklahoma City into the tax, but the bill should be a little more manageable. It's also that much easier for the Thunder to duck the tax with a midseason move.
So how good is the team Oklahoma City has built for 2017-18? It's almost certainly not as good as the Thunder team that came within a game of the NBA Finals two years ago with Kevin Durant at small forward. George, as good as he is, is no Durant.
There's also a glaring hole at power forward, barring Gibson's return. Billy Donovan's current options are Jerami Grant, Josh Huestis and Doug McDermott, or playing Steven Adams and Enes Kanter together. (Small-ball lineups with Roberson, George and Alex Abrines alongside Westbrook and Adams could also be interesting.)
Still, this trade puts Oklahoma City back in an increasingly crowded Western Conference mix. My initial assessment is the Thunder belong in the conference's third tier along with the Minnesota Timberwolves, with the Golden State Warriors in a tier of their own and the Houston Rockets and San Antonio Spurs in the second tier. Compared to where Oklahoma City was at the end of last season, that's a jump as impressive as it was improbable.
Indiana Pacers: D-
Perhaps I'm dramatically overestimating the trade value of star players, but it feels like I could copy over much of my analysis of last week's Jimmy Butler trade and apply it here.
Yes, George's agent telling the Pacers he planned to sign with the L.A. Lakers as a free agent next summer and wouldn't remain in Indiana no matter what put the team in a tough position. No, we don't know what other offers were out there for George, who might not have had the value as a rental that his ability on the court would imply.
Nonetheless, to come away with a package similar to but worse than the one Oklahoma City got for Serge Ibaka last summer (when Ibaka was entering the final year of his contract) is a failure, as I see it.
Let's start with Oladipo, presumably the centerpiece of this trade for the Pacers. He's a useful player at a thin position in the league. He's also signed for $21 million a year over the next four seasons and has never in his career posted a league-average true shooting percentage.
Through age 25, Oladipo looks like a volume scorer with better-than-average defense for a player of that ilk. His most impressive feat to date is probably his solid usage rate last season -- using 29.5 percent of the Thunder's plays while Russell Westbrook was on the bench, per NBA.com/Stats, with not-atrocious .518 true shooting. (League average was .552.)
A player's value in a trade is determined by his production on the court minus his salary. If Oladipo is fairly paid, he should have essentially neutral trade value. If he's in fact overpaid -- and my multiyear projections suggest he is, by about $16 million over the next three seasons -- then he should actually have negative value.
Then there's Sabonis. An important lesson of both the Butler and George trades is the value lottery picks continue to have even after it's clear their performance doesn't measure up to expectations. Like Kris Dunn, part of the return in the Butler trade, Sabonis was ineffective as a rookie. In fact, his 3.3 wins worse than replacement level by my WARP metric were the league's third-lowest total, ahead of only fellow rookies Brandon Ingram and Isaiah Whitehead.
It's possible Sabonis was miscast in a Thunder starting lineup short on 3-point shooting. Sabonis operated as something of a stretch-4 and rarely ventured inside, attempting just two free throws in the season's first 26 games (all starts). After a strong month of November, Sabonis shot just 29-of-110 (26.3 percent) from beyond the arc the remainder of the season.
Playing alongside stretch-5 Myles Turner may afford Sabonis more ability to play down low, where he was effective at Gonzaga. But Sabonis is heavily reliant on his left hand, which caused problems when defenders read the scouting report. He shot just 38.5 percent on post-up plays, per Synergy Sports tracking, and wasn't particularly effective in the pick-and-roll. Even the most optimistic assessment must concede Sabonis isn't as valuable as he looked when he was drafted No. 11 overall a year ago.
And that's it. The Pacers were unable to come away with any draft picks and will have to hope to build around an Oladipo-Turner core in the summer of 2018, when they can have $50-plus million in cap space if they waive Monta Ellis and Al Jefferson (stretching the latter's $4 million guarantee) and Thaddeus Young declines his player option.