NBA Free Agency 2018: One signing every team should make

Indiana Pacers — Will Barton

The Pacers are one of the most intriguing teams this summer, and maybe the most interesting team outside of the contenders for LeBron James, Paul George and the rest of the league’s elite talent. Indiana far exceeded expectations last year and will have cap space in a summer when few teams do. That should get them meetings, if not signatures, to nab the type of players they need to take the next step in an Eastern Conference that is fairly wide open in 2018-19 depending on what happens in free agency.

Names like Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Avery Bradley make sense. Throwing an offer sheet out to Aaron Gordon could be interesting, but perhaps futile if Orlando decides to match whatever is offered for him. Marcus Smart would make a lot of sense, and give them a Lance Stephenson replacement that is much better than Lance Stephenson. But Will Barton might be both the most readily available and fill a need of scoring and ball handling off the bench.

Barton would be something completely different that what the Pacers had last year. He’s more singular-focused than the players than the Pacers had and his tendency to just go out and seek out buckets would take an adjustment. But this would also take pressure off of Victor Oladipo to do most of the creating and give the offense some more juice. If the Pacers can replace what Cory Joseph and Darren Collison offered with Barton, that’s a win. It helps, too, that the Nuggets are going to have a hard time keeping Barton and they can likely negotiate from a position of strength.