šŸ’”

This post has been updated. In a rush to get something out quickly, I failed to get all the facts. I guess I'm one of those journalists now. Life comes at you fast.

According to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, the Pacers have fulfilled their promise to trade some of their picks in the upcoming NBA Draft.

The trade makes more sense knowing that the Pacers won't be receiving Denver's 2024 first. The Pacers will likely get a pick that is significantly better than 29 next year, which helps explain why they moved down from 32 to 40 in the second round.

At the end of the day, the need to ease the roster crunch remains the primary motivation for this deal. The Pacers only have three open roster spots as things stand and, prior to this trade, they had five picks in tomorrow's draft.

To properly analyze the trade, it is important to understand the distinction between "standard" and Two-Way roster spots. While the Pacers only have three standard roster spots available, they effectively have an additional two spots at their disposal in the form of Two-Way contracts (if we assume they are keeping Kendall Brown and not Gabe York).

First round picks are guaranteed standard NBA contracts, while second round picks are not and can be signed to Two-Way deals. However, it is common practice to sign players taken at the top of the second round to standard contracts and it would have likely rankled whoever we took at 32 if we'd tried to sign him to a Two-Way.

Therefore, by eliminating a first round pick this year and moving back in the second round to a position where the player we select will be amenable to signing a Two-Way contract, we effectively reduced the number of standard contracts that we would be required to hand out by two.

As such, we have two first round picks this year and three open roster spots, leaving us one spot open as we enter free agency. Of course don't get married to that math, I expect this trade to be the first in a series as Pritchard & Co. reorganize the roster.

In that vein, this trade may actually help us make a subsequent trade to move up in the draft. As we have experienced ourselves, owning 3+ picks in the same draft is not always ideal. Therefore, being able to offer the '24 pick we received from the Nuggets in addition to the 26th pick is likely a more attractive offer than 26, 29, and 32 in the same year.

As always, I'm looking forward to your reactions in the comments.

Tagged in:

Draft