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Portland shipped Jermaine O'Neal and veteran center Joe Kleine to Indiana for Dale Davis Thursday.
|  | | Jermaine O'Neal adds to the Pacers' impressive group of young players. |
O'Neal had been rumored to be going to Chicago for the past few months. Davis had told Indiana that he wanted to be traded and gave the Pacers three teams -- Miami, New York and Dallas.
"I just don't think he was as talented as the guys who were
playing in front of him," Blazers coach Mike Dunleavy said of O'Neal.
The Blazers will now have one of the deepest frontcourts in NBA history with Davis, 31, who is in the final year of his contract, joining Rasheed Wallace, Arvydas Sabonis and newcomer Shawn Kemp. The Blazers will use Kemp and Davis to replace Brian Grant, who was involved in the three-team trade that brought Kemp to Portland.
"This trade will be very good for both teams," Blazers GM Bob Whitsitt said. "Jermaine should get a lot more playing time. We tried to help Jermaine. We found a deal we liked and we took it. We believe we are a contender."
The Pacers now have three young players who didn't attend college in the 21-year-old O'Neal, Jonathan Bender and Al Harrington, giving them a solid, young nucleus. O'Neal is expected to get a lot more playing time in Indiana than he did with Portland, likely taking minutes from aging center Rik Smits.
"He has rebounding, shot-blocking ability. We feel he can play
any one of the three (front-line) positions, including center. He's
got athletic ability and great skill," Pacers president Donnie
Walsh said of O'Neal. "This continues our idea of trying to keep this team
in a position to be good both immediately and in the future."
Davis, an All-Star last season in his ninth year, averaged 10 points and 9.9 rebounds a game for the Pacers last season. O'Neal averaged 3.9 points and 3.3 rebounds in his fourth NBA season. Kleine, who is going into his 16th season and will now be on his eighth NBA team, averaged 1.6 points in seven games with Portland last season.
O'Neal, entering the second year of a four-year, $24 million
contract he signed last summer, demanded to be traded in mid-June.
Dunleavy said O'Neal could improve his chances at more minutes by
playing on Portland's summer league team, but on the day he was
supposed to leave for Long Beach, O'Neal went shopping for hats at
a department store.
"I finally get a chance to show what I can do," O'Neal said
from his home in Columbia, S.C. "I don't think anybody really
knows."
"We developed Jermaine and we liked him, but we was frustrated
and didn't want to be here," Whitsitt
said. "I still think he'll be a really good player in this league.
The book on Jermaine will be finished 10-15 years from now."
The Blazers have been scheming to stop Shaquille O'Neal since
they blew a 15-point lead to his Los Angeles Lakers to lose Game 7
of the Western Conference finals. Adding Kemp and Davis gives the
Blazers a fighting chance to at least slow him down and disrupt the
Lakers' chances to repeat as champions.
"We're trying to win a championship," Whitsitt said. "We're
close, and we're trying to do all we can while we're in that
window."
The moves also will mean more rest for Sabonis, who was so
banged-up he couldn't play for Lithuania in the Olympics.
Information from ESPN.com senior writer Andy Katz and The Associated Press was used in this report.
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