The Indiana Pacers and Dallas Mavericks agreed on a trade this afternoon. Point guard Darren Collison and swingman Dahntay Jones were sent to the Dallas Mavericks for French center Ian Mahinmi.
Dallas had to finish a sign and trade with Mahinmi to complete the deal. Iahinmi will receive $16 million over the next for seasons. Collison and Jones are both in the last year of their deals.
Dallas signed Chris Kaman today and made Mahinmi expendable.
Lance Stephenson and Orlando Johnson will be taking Jones’ role. Have they impressed enough in Summer League to commit that much to the pair?
We breakdown which team will benefit the most from this trade.
The Indiana Pacers just signed Roy Hibbert to a max deal and needed a backup center. Longtime member of the Pacers, Jeff Foster retired mid-season and left a hole at center. They signed Kyrylo Fesenko as a stopgap, but he never produced at the position. That meant more minutes for Lou Amundson, who was streay and currently an unrestricted free agent.
Ian Mahinmi has had limited success in the NBA with the San Antonio Spurs and Dallas Mavericks. He hasn’t logged many minutes and averaged a career-best 18.7 minutes per game in 2011-12. He has the potential to be an upgrade over Amundson. The Pacers will know what they have by second season of this deal.
Collison and Jones both lost playing time last season. George Hill overtook the Collison’s spot as starting point guard. Jones lost playing time to Lance Stephenson and Leandro Barbosa. They lost playing time because of the emergence of younger talent and from the Barbosa trading deadline deal. They are still very talented and Dallas need their skill-sets.
Dallas will reap the benefits of this trade right away. They lost Jason Kidd and Jason Terry via free agency and Collison and Jones will help immediately. The Mavericks tried to hit a home run by shedding payroll in hopes of signing Deron Williams or Dwight Howard, but those deals never materialized. They must go on without them and surround Dirk Nowitzski with enough talent to make the playoffs.
This deal is a win/win for both teams. The Pacers needed a backup center and Mahinmi’s upside and size made him attractive. Dallas needed to fill their roster this season and only had to commit one year to both of these players. They are setting themselves up with enough cap space to go after big names next off-season. Both teams got what they wanted and rid themselves of unneeded talent.
