{"id":749911,"date":"2026-06-01T19:45:24","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T19:45:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/749911\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T19:45:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T19:45:24","slug":"pacers-notes-zubac-first-round-picks-sharp-taylor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/749911\/","title":{"rendered":"Pacers Notes: Zubac, First-Round Picks, Sharp, Taylor"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pacers saw a big hole in their lineup after Myles Turner<\/a> signed with Milwaukee. That\u2019s why they acquired center Ivica Zubac<\/a> from the Clippers in February, even though they wound up losing a lottery pick in this year\u2019s draft.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou look at these teams that are still playing [in the playoffs], they all have very, very good starting fives. You\u2019ve gotta have five good starters to go deep into the playoffs,\u201d Pacers GM Chad Buchanan told The Ride With JMV (107.5 The Fan) as relayed by Tony East of Forbes.com<\/a>. \u201cWe can\u2019t go out there with maybe a hole at one of those positions and expect to compete for a championship.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fact that Zubac has a cap hit under $22MM to next two seasons, as well as not sacrificing any core players in the deal, made it more attractive to Indiana\u2019s brass.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was all of us on board with this (trade). Like I said, we\u2019re still excited about this group. Nothing\u2019s changed,\u201d he said. \u201cSome of the other options moving forward, if (we\u2019d) have waited until this summer, (were) going to require (us), because of where we\u2019re at cap wise, to sacrifice some of (our) core players. And we just didn\u2019t want to do that. With Tyrese (Haliburton) coming back and Pascal (Siakam) still in his prime, we didn\u2019t want to keep the status quo going into next year,\u201d he added. \u201cWe\u2019re big fans of Zu. Still are. That\u2019s why we made the trade.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s more on the Pacers:<\/p>\n

While Indiana lost its lottery pick, it still has five first-rounders over the next six seasons to use as bargaining chips in a trade \u2013they own first-rounders in 2027, 2028, 2030, 2031, and 2032, East<\/a> points out. They cannot trade their 2027 first-round pick until this month\u2019s draft is over.\u00a0 Also, once the draft ends, teams will be able to move their 2033 first-round picks. \u201cWe have some flexibility. We have five of our next six years [of first-round draft picks],\u201d president of basketball operations Kevin Pritchard<\/a> said. \u201cSome of those trades where it\u2019s four and five and six picks, they\u2019re out. They\u2019re done. They\u2019ve shoved their chips in and they\u2019re done. And we\u2019ve got a full slate, five out of six.\u201d
\nSpeaking of this year\u2019s draft, Houston Cougars guard Emanuel Sharp<\/a> visited the Pacers for a workout last weekend, East tweets<\/a>. The Pacers currently don\u2019t own a pick but that doesn\u2019t bother Sharp. \u201cEverywhere you go, you\u2019re being evaluated. That\u2019s how I approach it. It\u2019s not whether the team has a draft pick,\u201d he said. Sharp is ranked No. 45 overall on ESPN\u2019s Best Available list.
\nThe Pacers\u2019 G League affiliate, the Noblesville Boom, announced Monday that assistant coach Bryce Taylor has been promoted to head coach, the Indianapolis Star\u2019s Dustin Dopirak<\/a> reports. He succeeds Tom Hankins, who has coached the team since 2021 when it was still the Fort Wayne Mad Ants. Taylor has been an assistant coach with the G League affiliate the last three seasons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pacers saw a big hole in their lineup after Myles Turner signed with Milwaukee. That\u2019s why they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":658662,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3774],"tags":[7,18764,14883,113,126,3866,532,17818,6,114,17820],"class_list":["post-749911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-indiana-pacers","tag-basketball","tag-chad-buchanan","tag-emanuel-sharp","tag-indiana","tag-indiana-pacers","tag-indianapacers","tag-ivica-zubac","tag-kevin-pritchard","tag-nba","tag-pacers","tag-tom-hankins"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116676573512068954","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749911","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=749911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749911\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/658662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=749911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=749911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=749911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}