O’Neal keeping the pace

Jermaine O’Neal has decided against opting out of his current contract, and therefore will stay with the Indiana Pacers. O’Neal currently has 2-years and $44 million left on his contract, but still had an opt-out clause worked in. He had till June 30th to decide if he wanted to become a free agency, but he wasted no time saying he wanted to be a Pacer. Or did he?

It’s no secret that O’Neal actually has no interest of being in Indiana. Jermaine’s stated plenty of times before that he has no interest in being part of a rebuilding project, and thats exactly what the Pacers are.

It’s also no secret that Larry Bird does not want O’Neal to be part of this team. And who can blame him? Two seasons worth of knee injuries, not performing anywhere close to All-Star caliber, who’d want him on their team? Jermaine played in just 42 games last season, scoring about 13 points and a tad under 7 rebounds a game. Bird has expected O’Neal to stay with the team, as there was no chance O’Neal could make similar money in free agency.

If you notice, I just said who’d want him on their team? And, I’m serious!!! Who wants a guy with a bum knee and can’t play an entire season, and makes $20+ million a year. He’s played only 206 games over the past 4 seasons. That’s an average of about 51 games over an 82 game season, thats numbers you expect from a 8th or 9th guy on the bench. With two years left on his deal, you aren’t going to find many teams who want cap relief trying to get him as they’ll have to wait themselves.

I’m not sure who the Pacers could get for him in a deal. My guess is that he’s a Pacer all season and pretty unhappy about it. What do you guys think?

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Tags: Indiana Pacers, NBA