Report: Indiana Pacers, Buddy Hield start dialogue to find trade partner

One of the NBA’s top sharpshooters, Buddy Hield, could be on the move this fall as contract negotiations between he and the Indiana Pacers have stalled.

According to NBA insider Shams Charania, Indiana will now look to trade him since he and the team couldn’t come to terms on a deal. Here was his report of the news for The Athletic:

“After contract extension negotiations stalled out, Buddy Hield and the Indiana Pacers have started a dialogue to work on finding a potential trade with another team, league sources say.”

Charania added that Hield’s open to other landing spots but no talks with other teams have really kicked up yet.

“Hield is open to a trade elsewhere, according to rival team sources, but no deal is imminent and there aren’t any current substantive talks with any other team. The Pacers did offer Hield an extension in recent weeks, but it’s believed their proposal did not make the seven-year guard feel desired, league sources said.

“Multiple teams are expected to express interest in a possible trade for Hield and those conversations are expected to continue as NBA training camps open up over the next two weeks.”

So, Buddy Hield is looking likely to leave Indiana before the start of the 2023-24 NBA season, which will be his eighth as a pro since leaving Oklahoma, where put together the greatest shooting season of all time at the college level in 2016. JJ Redick is the only player who could conceivably have an argument otherwise, but Hield’s sheer volume in ’16 is hard to match: 25 points a game, 55% from inside the arc and 45.7% from three on more than eight attempts per game. The numbers are just bonkers.

You can also credit that specific ’16 Oklahoma team with helping supercharge the three-point explosion at the college level — on the heels of the Golden State Warriors’ first title in 2015. OU’s backcourt of Hield, Jordan Wooadard and Isaiah Cousins combined to shoot 44.5% from three on 17.8 attempts per game from beyond the arc.

They were the collegiate splash bros. No team before or since has launched threes with that combination of volume and efficiency. Even though, at the time, such an offense was called “gimicky” and was surely not to work in the NCAA Tournament.

Well, it did, as Oklahoma advanced to the Final Four before ultimately losing to Villanova, who won their first title under Jay Wright that season with a system that’s actually the closest thing any college coach had to what the Warriors were running — and then he did it again in 2018 with even more of a Warriors-esque team — evidenced by the fact that at least three different Wildcats off that team have spent some amount of time with the Dubs, while Steve Kerr handpicked two other stars off that ’18 team (Mikal Birdges, Jalen Brunson) to lead Team USA in the FIBA World Cup this summer.