More changes for the Pacers

Today provides even more news in what has been a pretty busy off-season for the Pacers. Indianapolis sent Anthony Johnson to Dallas for the rights to Darrel Armstrong (a free agent) and a pair of recent late-round draft picks.

Since the end of the season Bird and Walsch have been systematically purging their roster of lots of mainstays from recent playoffs teams. Their recent deals have sent packing four veteran rotation players who all averaged more than 22 mpg last season. To recap:

Out
Peja
Austin Croshere
Jonathan Bender
Anthony Johnson

In
Marquis Daniels
Al Harrington (potential rumored sign-and-trade pending)
Four players (Josh Powell, Rawle Marshall, Shawne Williams, James White) taken in recent drafts

This doesn't look much like the behavoir of a team focused on winning as much as possible in the next couple years. Such a team would retain their veteran, playoff-tested 'core' and build around them. Bird and Walsch are dumping much of that core and bringing in lots of recent late-first and second-round picks.

Assuming Indy doesn't trade Jermaine O'Neal anytime soon this loooks suspiciously like a Danny Ainge-esque rebuilding strategy: keep the resident All Star on your roster, recycle the other veterans with trade value, load up on lots of recent draft picks and count on some of them working out.

Like the Celtics, this trade route may leave the Pacers with more wing players than they know what to do with. If they complete the widely rumored sign-and-trade to bring Al Harrington home they'll have a 2-3-4 rotation of: Jermaine O'Neal, Stephen Jackson, Danny Grainger, Al Harrington, Marquis Daniels, Fred Jones (recently retained), and all their young pups. In light of all these recent moves I can't help but wonder if we'll be hearing trade rumors involving Jackson soon...