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.
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.
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Hield is in the last year of his contract for the 2023-24 season at $19.2 million and is slated to be one of the top free agents next summer. Hield is the NBA leader in 3-pointers made over the last five seasons with 1,381. Golden State’s Stephen Curry (1,261) and Portland’s Damian Lillard (1,118) rank second and third, respectively, behind Hield’s 3-pointers made in the past five years.
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.
Hield joined the Pacers during the 2021-22 season in the Tyrese Haliburton trade from the Sacramento Kings and immediately emerged as a positive veteran leader and productive running mate alongside the franchise’s cornerstone in Haliburton. Hield, 30, averaged 16.8 points and five rebounds while shooting 42.5 percent from 3-point range last season.
“I love Buddy,” Pacers president of basketball operations Kevin Pritchard said in April. “There’s some things that he does that’s not on the court, the way he keeps practice light.”
(Photo: Trevor Ruszkowski / USA Today)
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