The Indiana Pacers announced Wednesday that they have acquired guard Jalen Lecque in a trade with the Oklahoma City Thunder. In exchange, the Thunder receive forward TJ Leaf and a future second-round draft selection.
NBA Rumor: TJ Leaf Trade?
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TJ Leaf traded to OKC
Adrian Wojnarowski: The Pacers are trading F TJ Leaf a future second-round pick to OKC for Jalen Lecque, source tells ESPN.
Expect this to be a quiet deadline in Indiana, but the Pacers are looking for a home for 2017 first-round pick T.J. Leaf, who has struggled to crack the rotation in his third pro season. The forward from UCLA makes $2.8 million and is under contract for $4.3 million next season. While his deal could potentially be folded into the four-teamer with Atlanta, Houston, Minnesota and Denver, that doesn’t seem to be in the cards. (JH)
The Pacers aren’t unhappy with Leaf’s development. He’s a victim of the numbers game on a team that drafted 6-11 Goga Bitadze befor this season. They’re seeking to help Leaf find a team that will give him minutes to develop. What the Pacers get in return for Leaf, if anything, will be minimal and isn’t the priority.
January 23, 2021 | 6:16 am EST Update
After a 125-113 loss to the Cavaliers on Friday night, the Brooklyn Nets leave their road trip to Cleveland 0-2 and have a slew of defensive breakdowns to review in their next film session. “This was two humbling losses,” Nets point guard Kyrie Irving said after Friday’s game.
“We just need to find a way to play harder,” Nash said. “Dig deeper. We are not a defensive roster. We have to take more pride, contest more shots, fight, scrap, claw, and that’s what I think is missing as much as anything schematic that we’re breaking down.” Nash added: “I think the bigger message is that just showing up to the gym is not good enough.”
“We’ll try to play 10 guys at least, share the minutes around,” coach Steve Nash said. “Obviously, like I said before last game, it’s hard to contain [minutes] sometimes when you’re in close games. But we’ll do our best, and also try to lean on developing a second unit. “There’s a couple positives to trying to play more guys, go deeper in the rotation, limit or share or spread around the minutes of our big three; Kyrie [Irving] and James. We’ll try to be as cautious as possible. But you know my take on that. Whenever you’re trying to be cautious, it always ends up being impossible.”
StatMuse: The Cavs have the worst offensive rating in the NBA. They had failed to score 100 points in 9 straight games. They just scored 147 (113 in regulation) and 125 on the Nets in back-to-back games. pic.twitter.com/VQ25SxKXPg
Malika Andrews: The Nets have allowed 134 points in the paint over their last 2 games (both against Cleveland). That is their most allowed in any 2-game span over the last 25 seasons. (64 in Wednesday’s game, 70 tonight), per @ESPNStatsInfo.
Ricky Rubio: 'We need like a three-hour team meeting'
Jon Krawczynski: Ricky Rubio says the Wolves need a team meeting. “I don’t think we can have more than a 10-minute meeting, but we need like a three-hour meeting. But after talking, we gotta execute the words that we have, or should have.”
