Chess, not checkers for the Pacers front office
You don’t often get a Shams alert for a trade during the NBA Finals involving one of the teams playing in the NBA Finals but that’s what happened this afternoon. The Indiana Pacers are dealing the 23rd pick in this year’s draft along with the draft rights to Mojave King to the New Orleans Pelicans in exchange for their own 2026 first-round pick—that the Pelicans acquired from the Toronto Raptors, who got the pick in the Pascal Siakam trade.
NBA draft deal: The Indiana Pacers are trading their No. 23 pick and the rights to Mojave King to the New Orleans Pelicans for Indiana's own 2026 first-round pick back which the Pelicans had previously acquired, sources tell ESPN.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) June 17, 2025
You might be thinking yourself, “Why would the Pacers do this? They just punted on this draft in order to get their pick back for next year? Don’t they expect to be better than a 50-win team next season after making it to the NBA Finals and still having a chance to win the championship right now with two more wins?”
The answer can be said in one word: flexibility. This trade opens up a world of possibilities for Kevin Pritchard and the Pacers front office. Now they can go big-fish hunting this summer with their full chest of picks available for trade. Before this trade, the Pacers would have been without a pick in 2026 and therefore unable to deal their 2027 pick beyond making it a pick swap. Their first available pick to trade without restriction would have been for three years from now in 2028. This trade now allows the Pacers to trade either of the 2026 or 2027 first rounders this summer and gives them the ability to offer a larger total sum of picks and swaps in any potential deals for major upgrades as the Pacers will be looking to either repeat as NBA Champions or get back to the Finals to win it all for the first time.
Who they could get in such a deal is the question. Desmond Bane just went for a tremendous haul to the Orlando Magic. The Pacers could try and make a deal for an up and coming player in New Orleans’ Trey Murphy III. It will cost a lot but he is an excellent player that would seem to be a great fit. We know the two teams are already talking to each other because of this draft pick deal, might as well make it the precursor to a huge one.
The need for this seemingly odd trade when taken at face value is because of the Stepien Rule, named after a former Cavaliers owner who traded future draft picks to a wild extent in the 1980s and forced the league to save teams from themselves. NBA teams have since been unable to trade first-round picks over consecutive years. This is why you’ll see teams trade picks and then pick swaps in alternating years when they make massive blockbuster deals. As long as they have at least a pick in every other year, even if it isn’t their original selection, the deal is legal.
The Stepien Rule is also why the NBA Draft is forced to have players wear the hats of teams they know they aren’t going to be playing for. Teams can trade draft rights without issue but just straight picks causes the Stepien Rule to come into play because it could make deals impossible if one of the teams had already dealt their pick for the next draft in a prior deal. So you can partially thank the Stepien Rule for all those Kawhi Leonard in a Pacers hat pictures.
A couple of less fun reasons for the Pacers to do this deal involves the luxury tax which they are likely to hit while re-signing Myles Turner and the health of their star in Tyrese Haliburton. With reports of him suffering a calf strain in Game 5 with the extent of the injury to be determined with an MRI, the risk for the injury getting worse if he tries to play through it is not zero. Just thinking of Kevin Durant in the 2019 NBA Finals or Damian Lillard in the first-round this season. If the worst-case scenario did happen—which hopefully they don’t allow him to play if the medical staff even thinks it’s a remote possibility—the Pacers now have their pick for next year’s draft if it becomes a lost season.
"Once the Pacers and Haliburton get the results back on this MRI, on that calf strain, they're going to be able to identify the severity and then huddle and map out exactly what the plan will be going into Game 6."@malika_andrews and @ShamsCharania discuss Tyrese Haliburton's… pic.twitter.com/XANI9ehLog
— NBA on ESPN (@ESPNNBA) June 17, 2025
With the luxury tax coming for the team, the Pacers avoid having that guaranteed rookie deal on the books for one of the roster slots this year which may save them a few million and possibly avoid the very restrictive second apron that further limits a team’s ability to make transactions.
This trade also means the Pascal Siakam trade was essentially for three mediocre first-round picks over two seasons along with Bruce Brown and salary filler. A hell of a steal for the Eastern Conference Finals MVP. Mojave King was part of the Paul George trade tree so this deal will now cause another branch to continue on the ever-growing graphic.
Finally updated the Paul George Transaction Tree:
6 current Pacers players with a transactional heritage that’s connected to Paul George:
Tyrese Haliburton
Andrew Nembhard
Ben Sheppard
Pascal Siakam
Johnny Furphy
Tristen Newton pic.twitter.com/wyP6ShugBs
— iPacers.com (@iPacersblog) November 12, 2024
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