{"id":669045,"date":"2026-03-20T16:29:21","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T16:29:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/669045\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T16:29:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T16:29:21","slug":"after-five-games-with-team-pacers-center-ivica-zubac-reportedly-suffers-fractured-rib-out-for-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/669045\/","title":{"rendered":"After five games with team, Pacers’ center Ivica Zubac reportedly suffers fractured rib, out for season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ivica Zubac played just five games as the Indiana Pacers new starting center, and now his season is reportedly over.<\/p>\n

Zubac suffered a fractured rib on Wednesday against Portland and is out for the season, reports Dustin Dopirak of The Indianapolis Star<\/a>. This doesn\u2019t seem out of place for a tanking Pacers team in a \u201crace\u201d to have the best lottery odds possible heading into this June\u2019s NBA Draft.<\/p>\n

Zubac was out with a sprained ankle when the Clippers traded him to Indiana at the deadline for draft picks \u2014 potentially including this year\u2019s pick, if it falls outside the top four. Indiana currently has the worst record in the NBA and, with that, still only has a 52% chance of keeping its pick, while there is a 48% chance it goes to Los Angeles. <\/p>\n

Zubac averaged 11.6 points and 7.2 rebounds per game with Indiana, but wasn\u2019t exactly inspiring winning as the team dropped all five of those games. With Zubac out, expect Jay Huff to get the starts for the Pacers.<\/p>\n

Zubac was brought in with an eye towards next year, when the strong pick setter and rim roller will be paired with Tyrese Haliburton \u2014 out for the season with a torn Achilles \u2014 and the core of a Pacers roster that went to the NBA Finals last June. The trade was never about this season.<\/p>\n

Which is good, because Zubac\u2019s season is over. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ivica Zubac played just five games as the Indiana Pacers new starting center, and now his season is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":669046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3774],"tags":[7,113,126,3866,6,114],"class_list":{"0":"post-669045","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-indiana-pacers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-indiana","10":"tag-indiana-pacers","11":"tag-indianapacers","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-pacers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116262454876192611","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}