For all of the good feelings about what Minne… | HoopsHype
The Pacers, with a longtime owner in Herb Simon who has always preferred retooling over rebuilding, went from missing the playoffs for three consecutive seasons to back-to-back Eastern Conference finals appearances and this NBA Finals run that they hope ends with the franchise’s first title. And Haliburton, the two-time All-Star out of Iowa State who was drafted 12th overall by the Kings in 2020, has been the one leading the way. “Our team was kind of at a crossroads,” Buchanan told The Athletic by phone on Friday while reflecting on the Haliburton trade. “We didn’t really have a guy, like a young player, that you could really build around. Now Domas (Sabonis) was a terrific player and a very productive player. But we felt like in today’s modern NBA, it’s hard to build around a center unless you’ve got, like, a (Denver Nuggets star Nikola) Jokić — an MVP-caliber center. So we tried to target some young guards, playmaking guards around the league that we thought maybe fit the bill. They’re very hard to acquire, obviously.
