Pacers Acquire Collison in Four Way Deal
The Indiana Pacers just added strength at the point guard position with the acquisition of point guard Darren Collison in a four-team, five player deal on Wednesday.
In the deal, the Pacers obtained Collison and NBA journeyman James Posey from the New Orleans Hornets, the Hornets got forward Trevor Ariza from the Houston Rockets. The Rockets obtained Courtney Lee from the New Jersey Nets, and the Nets acquired Troy Murphy from the Pacers.
In this deal, the Pacers were the winners. Collison averaged 12.4 points and 5.7 assists in his rookie season, but he really flourished for the Hornets when star point guard Chris Paul went down with a knee injury. Collison averaged 18.8 points and 9.1 assists per game in the 37 starts Paul was out. Posey has not been the same since being a key player in the 2008 NBA Finals for the Boston Celtics. In two seasons, he has averaged only 5.2 points and 4.3 rebounds per game, and the Hornets wanted to save money by cutting the remaining parts of his two year, $13M contract.
The Hornets get a good defender in Ariza, who was expected to be a bigger wing scorer for the Rockets. Ariza did average career highs in points (14.9 PPG), and will join Paul and F David West and should go back to being more of a defensive stopper that he was when he was a member of the 2009 champion Los Angeles Lakers.
Courtney Lee averaged 12.5 PPG in 71 games for the Nets last season, including 66 starts. He is expected to be a backup to starting shooting guard Kevin Martin for the Rockets, and join guard Kyle Lowry as a second string backcourt mate, as Lowry will back up Aaron Brooks.
Murphy is a great rebounder that will help out the Nets frontcourt, An added bonus that he provides is that he can shoot from three point land, being a 39 percent career three-point shooter. He averaged 13.3 points and 9.2 rebounds in 262 career games for the Pacers.
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