The situation has changed! If you look at it in three years, is this transaction still a win-win situation?

Goal G4, the Pacers defeated the Knicks 130-121 at home.

In this game, Halliburton played his best in his career, playing 37 minutes in the game, 11 of 23 shots, 5 of 12 three-pointers, 5 of 6 free throws, and scored 32 points, 12 rebounds, 15 assists, 4 steals and 0 mistakes. This is the first time in the history of the playoffs that there was a 30+10+15 triple-double in a single game while not making a mistake.

The key point is coming. After winning the G4 of the Eastern Conference Finals, the US media NBA Memes posted a picture of Halliburton wearing the Kings jersey and the 2020 draft results, and wrote: "Kings fans, how do you feel?"

2020 draft, the Kings selected Halliburton with the 12th pick in the first round, but after only playing for more than a season in Sacramento, the Kings sent Halliburton to the Pacers. The specific content of this deal is:

——The Kings give Halliburton, Hilder, Tristan Thompson

—The Pacers give Sabonis Jr., Justin Holiday, Lamb, a 2023 second round pick

Let's talk about it first. When this deal happened, the whole league was shocked, because Halliburton, who was in the second grade, has shown the potential of the future All-Stars. Fans and even general managers of other teams believe that Halliburton is the King's non-sale product.

But objectively speaking, the Kings got a bad deal in this deal. Sabonis Jr. had been selected for the All-Star twice at the time. He averaged 18.9 points, 12.1 rebounds and 5.0 assists before the trade. The contract was very cheap, with an annual salary of only 20 million yuan.

The Kings' motivation for making this deal is very clear. Fox and Halliburton's double defenders will inevitably hinder the other party's growth. So the Kings' management made a decision to keep Fox, who had been trained for many years, send off the young Halliburton, introduce two All-Star Sabonis Jr., and form the internal and external core with Fox.

The Athletic gave the trade rating at that time: Pacer B-, the king is B+, and the king is even more favorable than Pacers.

You don't say that the transaction still has results. In the 2022-23 season, in the first year after the transaction was concluded, Fox and Sabonis led the team to a third record of 48 wins and 34 losses in the Western Conference, helping the Kings end the embarrassment of not entering the playoffs for 16 consecutive years.

Although the Kings were finally eliminated by the Warriors in the playoffs, this year, Mike Brown was elected the Best Coach, and Fox + Sabonis Jr. joined hands to be selected for the All-Star and the Best Team three teams. The outside world is full of expectations for this King.

At the same time, in the 2022-23 season, Halliburton averaged 20.7 points, 3.7 rebounds, 10.4 assists and 1.6 steals per game. While successfully selected as the All-Star, he also led the team to win 10 more games than the previous season.

So, at that point in 2023, the conclusion about this deal is more like a "win-win" - the king wins the present, and the Pacers wins the future.

However, after 2023, things have begun to develop differently.

Pacers are getting better and better under the leadership of Halliburton. They have won 47 and 50 respectively for two consecutive years, and have reached the Eastern Conference Finals. Currently, the Eastern Conference Finals Pacers are leading 3-1 with a score of 25 years, only one victory away from returning to the finals.

Halliburton in the past two years is also quite interesting:

——2023-24 season, he averaged 27+12 in the first half, led the team to the midseason finals and was selected as the All-Star. Although it declined in the second half, he was finally selected as the third team of the best team and won the assist king

—2024-25 season, his condition was not good in the first half, so he missed this year's All-Star, but he made great efforts in the second half, and was finally selected as the third team of the best team again. He scored key goals many times in the playoffs, and he is likely to be elected as the Eastern Conference Finals MVP

Look at the Kings, it was not as smooth as expected.

In the 2023-24 season, the Kings won 46 wins in the regular season, but in fact they only won 2 games less than last season. However, because the Western Conference became cruel, the Kings could only play in the playoffs and did not even make the playoffs in the end.

This year, Fox averaged 26.6 points, 4.6 rebounds and 5.6 assists per game, scoring a career high, but missed the All-Star; Sabonis Jr. averaged 19.4 points, 13.7 rebounds and 8.2 assists per game, with the highest rebounding + assist career, and was selected into the All-Series third team.

This season, the Kings' lineup has undergone a drastic change. Head coach Mike Brown was dismissed, Fox failed to renew his contract, and was traded to the Spurs before the deadline. Laven came, but the combination of Laven + DeRozan + Sabonis Jr. did not work. In the end, he only won 40 games and was eliminated in the play-offs.

As one of the protagonists of that trade that year, Sabonis Jr.'s regular season performance this season: averaging 19.1 points, 13.9 rebounds and 6.0 assists per game, shooting percentage of 59.0%, and real shooting percentage of 65.5%.

Only look at the data, Xiao Sa is really not bad, and he can also play at the All-Star level in some games. However, his influence in the game is not good. Not only can he not increase the team's upper limit, he can't even maintain the lower limit.

This was reflected in the 2023 playoffs. Sabonis Jr. was seriously lost in that round, averaging only 16.4 points, 4.7 assists and 3.7 turnovers per game, and a shooting percentage of 49%, which is a huge difference from the regular season.

Obviously, from this point of time, the evaluation of this deal has changed from a win-win two years ago to a single victory for the Pacers. The main reason is that Halliburton has grown rapidly, and now he is definitely a better cornerstone than Sabonis, the younger one..

However, I personally think that the King's failure is not just because of this transaction. They have made many mistakes in their operations, such as insisting on cultivating Fox, but ultimately unwilling to renew the contract with a maximum salary; and for example, the combination of DeRozan + Lavens + Sabonis Jr. was not optimistic at the beginning, and in the end they failed.

In a sense, I have to be glad that Halliburton was traded to the Pacers. Otherwise, with the ability of the King's management, Halliburton would not be able to grow up like this.