The Pacers acquired center Stanko Barac from the Miami Heat for a 2nd round pick in 2009.  Barac is 7′1″, 240 pounds and he’s from Croatia.  He played in 62 games there and he averaged 7.3 points, 4.3 rebounds, 0.7 assists and 1.0 block shot per game.  Most of Barac’s shot attempts come from up close where he hit 54.8% from the floor, 35% from three point range and 61.9% from the free throw line.  Barac has the look of a project so don’t expect much out of him this season.

The Pacers have to decide whether or not they would be better off with or without Jermaine O’Neal.  The easy answer is that trading him would hurt the team, but it really depends on what they get for him.  Regardless, the Pacers have some nice young basketball players and it’s likely that they could survive without O’Neal if they got a nice return for him.  Ike Diogu and Danny Granger both look like they could be stars in the future.  But the Pacers don’t have any draft picks and they would really like to either trade or buy their way into the draft.  We’ll see if they have any success on improving the team in the next couple of days.