What will the Pacers look like next year? We'll know soon.

With free agency starting at 6 PM EST on Friday, the team faces big roster decisions as it tries to figure out the best way to evolve from a plucky lottery team to... well, something better.

Over the past few years, the Pacers have done a good job at collecting young talent on cap-friendly contracts. As a result the Pacers have a nearly full roster of players that all arguably deserve roles in the regular rotation. On top of that, the team still needs to spend about $18.5 million to get to the salary floor with only one roster spot available (as it stands).

The good news is the Pacers have options. Their best players are both young enough that they can be patient and good enough that they can try to speed up the timeline. They have assets to make trades and cap space to be active in free agency. They can even be creative with contracts currently on the books like they were with Myles Turner last year.

Because there are so many options available, let's organize this into 1) what the Pacers have to do, 2) what they'd like to do, and then 3) look at a few options they might pursue.

What The Pacers Have To Do

Meet the minimum salary requirement

The Pacers have to get the team salary to at least $122,400,000 prior to the first day of the season.

As I wrote about previously, the new CBA requires the Pacers to spend at least 90% of the Salary Cap on Team Salary prior to the start of the season or else they'll only receive a half-share of their Luxury Tax distribution.

Assuming the team signs its first round picks, it will have $103,847,477 on the books with only one roster spot open. Therefore, the Pacers have to add $18,552,523 in salary prior to the start of the season as the roster currently stands.

Extend Tyrese Haliburton

This isn't actually mandatory, but let's be real: locking up Haliburton is a priority. He's going to get a "max" contract no matter what, but like all things CBA-related, the term "max" isn't straightforward.

There's the standard "Maximum Contract" which would pay Haliburton 25% of the cap in the first year of his deal. Then there's the "Higher Maximum Contract" which would pay him up to 30% in the first year. In order for Haliburton to be eligible for the Higher Max, he will need to 1) make any of the All-NBA teams, 2) win DPOY or 3) win MVP during the '23-'24 season.

Which of those accomplishments trigger a raise – and for how much – is up for negotiation. For example, the team and Haliburton could agree that if he makes Third Team All-NBA, his maximum will be 26% of the cap, if he makes Second Team it will be 27%, and he'll only receive the full 30% max for making First Team All-NBA or winning MVP. They could also just give him the 30% max for meeting any of qualifying criteria. Determining those benchmarks will be the crux of the negotiations between Haliburton's agents and the Pacers Front Office.

Once they determine the maximum contract percentage for the first year, they'll negotiate over whether he gets that amount in salary alone or some combination of salary and bonuses. They'll also bargain over the amount his salary increases year over year, with 8% raises being the maximum.

The other thing to keep an eye on is the length of the extension. The Pacers will want to sign him for an extra five years, the maximum allowable. Haliburton may want more flexibility and demand a shorter contract or at least a player option in the final year.

Whatever they decide, the contract will not kick in until the '24-'25 season. The Pacers have made it clear that they consider Haliburton to be a "partner" in the franchise, so do not expect a drawn out or contentious negotiation. I expect Tyrese will get most of what he asks for and they'll announce the deal very early on in Free Agency.

What They Would Like To Do

The Pacers want to make the playoffs. They're not keeping it a secret. However, I think it can be easy to miss the forest for the trees when predicting roster decisions through that lens.

More than making the playoffs this year, what they really want is to build a championship core around Tyrese Haliburton.

In fact, in his season-end press conference, Pritchard cautioned against setting any expectations for the season until after free agency. The Front Office believes they make their best decisions when they are nimble and opportunistic – as they were when the Haliburton trade fell into their lap – so trying to peg them to one path is a fool's errand.

Before we look at some possible additions to the roster, let's revisit Pritchard and Carlisle's end of season pressers:

On the types of players they want to add

[The team] seem[s] to feel the second unit is more or less set. Pritchard was very clear that the goal this summer is to acquire high level starters. He went as far as to say he's "obsessed" with assembling a core.
He also commented that they need to strike a balance between adding players that raise the team's floor and those that raise the ceiling. The front office constantly discusses “how do we keep our ceiling high?” They know that approach may take more time but they don’t want to limit upside. Ideally they would add guys who raise the floor and ceiling simultaneously, but those are the top players in the league.

On internal growth

Regardless of what happens in the draft and free agency, the Pacers brass is expecting the team to make a significant leap next season. Both Carlisle and Pritchard spoke about the organic growth they expect from the players on the roster, with Pritchard suggesting that increasing the win total by ten games seems reasonable. This confidence stems from the belief that the amount of reps the young players received this year will pay dividends going forward.
Pritchard also explained that the front office studies other successful teams in the league and brought up Cleveland as an example of a rebuild they'd like to emulate. While it took the Cavs "3 or 4 years," Pritchard allowed for the possibility that the maturity of Tyrese Haliburton and Benn Mathurin will enable the Pacers to jump two steps at a time. For example, he felt the team was a legitimate contender for the fourth or fifth seed in the East before Haliburton went down in January.

Takeaways

I think the Front Office believes in the players on the roster. An extra 10 wins would have been good enough for the 6th seed this past season. As such, the team will be prioritizing acquisitions that raise its ceiling significantly. If they can consolidate depth for one of those players, they'll likely pull the trigger. If not, they may simply do whatever they have to do to meet the salary floor while maintaining the flexibility to pick up a high-level starter in the future.

If you look around the league, you'll find precedent for building organically. Two years ago, the Cavs jumped from a 22 win team to a 44 win team on the back of internal development and the addition of Lauri Markkanen. The Cavs ultimately faltered in play-in tournament but their growth opened the door for the Donovan Mitchell trade.

The Thunder, another team slightly ahead of us in their rebuild, jumped from 24 to 40 wins last season entirely on internal development. They were one win away from the playoffs but lost to Minnesota in the second play-in game. Whether they choose to stay the course or make an aggressive acquisition remains to be seen.

The point is, the Pacers can reasonably expect to be in contention for the playoffs by more or less running it back. They may fail in the play-in or, as Pritchard suggested, the maturity of Haliburton and Maturin may help them skip a step.

So where does the team need help?

Depth Chart

Obviously these lineups should be taken with a big grain of salt. Pritchard dropped some not-so-subtle hints about moving Buddy to the bench and the idea of Carlisle starting Walker deserves a healthy dose of skepticism. Nevertheless, I have a hard time seeing Buddy lose his starting spot given the importance of his shooting. He was part of 4 out of the 5 lineups with a positive points-per-possession differential last year (min. 100 possessions). As far as Walker goes, I'm putting him in the starting lineup because the roster balances out much better that way.

Starters: Tyrese, Buddy, Mathurin, Walker, Myles

Bench: TJ, Nembhard, Nesmith, Nwora, Jackson

Reserves: Sheppard, Duarte, Jalen Smith, Theis

So where are the weaknesses? Surprise, surprise: the starting four looks suspect. I'm also concerned about bench scoring. While our bench was one of the best units in the league last year, I wonder how well it will fare without Maturin handling the scoring burden. Perhaps a resurgent season from Duarte can solve that issue...or maybe that's the impetus that moves Buddy to the bench. Either way, it's something to keep an eye on as we make moves.

Possible Acquisitions

Restricted Free Agents

Cam Johnson, Herb Jones, Rui Hachimura, Miles Bridges and Grant Williams all make varying degrees of sense for our roster. The first four names will be tough to pry away from their current teams (although Bridges doesn't fit our culture so I doubt the Pacers will target him anyway).

Grant Williams will be available for the right price. I don't know how much he raises the ceiling but he'd be a solid placeholder at the starting four until Walker can take over. He competes on defense – though he's far from a stopper – and he can spread the floor on offense. Unfortunately, he wouldn't help much with rebounding.

Unrestricted Free Agents

Trey Lyles, Bruce Brown, or Dillion Brooks would all help raise the floor without raising our ceiling much. As would Max Strus as a guard option, though he wouldn't make sense without additional roster moves.

Jerami Grant would be a tremendous signing if things fell apart in Portland and the Blazers decided to trade Damian Lillard. He can play either forward position, stretch the floor, and provide half-court offense at the end of games.

I doubt he has any interest in playing for the Pacers, but from a purely financial perspective, we could try to entice Draymond Green with a massive contract. His defense and rebounding would fill glaring holes on our roster. Perhaps he could even mentor Walker – if he doesn't punch him first.

Trade Candidates

It's been reported that the Pacers have pursued De'Andre Hunter. If the plan is to copy the Cavs, I suppose you could argue that acquiring Hunter would be a move similar to bringing in Markkanen. Both are (were) slightly disappointing, often injured, former high draft picks on the first year of their post-rookie extensions. Hunter has upside if he can put it all together and his defense probably raises the floor for next year. Having said that, as with all trade candidates, it all comes down to cost.

Jonathan Kuminga is another name that the Pacers have reportedly tried to acquire via trade. In my opinion he's the rare prospect that raises the ceiling without touching the floor. A freak athlete and active defender, he possesses the physical profile we're looking for in a forward. The upside is that he's only 20 years old and he shoots better from three than you'd expect. However he doesn't have much polish to his game and he struggled to make an impact on the Warriors.

It's unclear what the Warriors would want for him, but we do make a good trade partner for contending teams who are trying to fill out their roster while managing the Luxury Tax. We have the opposite problem as we have too many rotation players on team friendly deals. Providing depth to a team like the Warriors or Suns could prove valuable.

Depending on how the Warriors view Chris Paul, we could potentially send them Buddy Hield, TJ McConnell, and, say, Nesmith or Nwora for Paul and Kuminga. We would still have plenty of cap space to and an extra roster spot to play with. That might be the kind of trade that raises both our long term ceiling (Kuminga) and our floor given Paul's track record of helping young teams make the playoffs.

Of course, as I mentioned above, we might just try to stay flexible by brining in a veteran on a large expiring deal like Gordon Hayward. He would fill a need when healthy and keep our books clean for a run at OG Anunoby or another free agent next year.

Renegotiation and Extension

One possible solution to our salary dilemma is a maneuver that we are familiar with from Myles Turner's extension last season. If we strike out on any big deals, we may just sign a solid free agent who doesn't take us to the floor, then renegotiate Buddy's contract to make up the difference. Buddy is a locker room favorite and it would keep him under contract for an extra year or two. This is a last resort, but good option to have if better deals do not materialize.

What are you hoping the team does when it all kicks off tomorrow?

Tagged in:

FA Trades