NBA

Pacers fan here, solid moves so far to get Bruce Brown and flip Duarte for a chance of Obi Toppin developing with more playing time. Both low risk, Bruce being potentially high reward. He should immediately shore up the defense which has been pretty porous at times with the young roster.

The deal for Brown is better than it looks in terms of avg/year since the Pacers needed to get to the salary floor and it means he will be on a good value one-year contract next year which should be good regardless of if he’s a key part of the team or if they underperform and he needs to be traded to a contender. Reminds me of Myles Turner’s extension, overpay in a year you have extra money to have a bargain payroll later.

Typical low key moves to try and accumulate incremental value, which is probably the best you can do in a small NBA market, Thunder style. Pacers are the kind of team to never be able to sign any top free agents, so getting Brown was really solid.