{"id":763425,"date":"2026-06-17T15:21:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T15:21:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/763425\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T15:21:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T15:21:21","slug":"pacers-looking-to-trade-into-nba-draft-in-early-second-round-per-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/763425\/","title":{"rendered":"Pacers looking to trade into NBA Draft in early second round, per report"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"USA<\/a><\/p>\n

Dustin Dopirak, Indianapolis Star<\/p>\n

Wed, June 17, 2026 at 2:57 PM UTC\"\"<\/p>\n

Pacers looking to trade into NBA Draft in early second round, per report<\/p>\n

The Pacers don’t currently hold a pick in the 2026 NBA Draft, but they reportedly have a specific target where they’re trying to get back involved.<\/p>\n

According to Jake Fischer of The Stein Line, “the Pacers are looking to trade for a pick somewhere in the 30s early in the second round, according to league sources.”<\/a><\/p>\n

Trading in at that level could have a number of benefits for the Pacers. For one, they have been successful in the past in finding talent early in the second round with starting guard Andrew Nembhard being a leading example. They could also use such a trade to move thd salary of forward Jarace Walker or guard Ben Sheppard to a team with salary cap room or a trade exception, such as the Memphis Grizzlies<\/a> who pick at No. 32 and the Chicago Bulls<\/a> who pick at No. 38. That would allow the Pacers to access more of the mid-level exception to use in free agency.<\/p>\n

Teams that are over the salary cap but under the first luxury tax apron can use the non-taxpayer portion of the mid-level exception — which allows teams above the salary cap to add free agents. The non-taxpayer mid-level exception is expected to go up to $15.1 million for 2026-27. However, teams that use it are “hard-capped” at the first tax apron so they can’t spend above that number all season. At the moment, the Pacers are only $7.8 million below the first apron so they could only use that much of the exception to sign free agents. Walker is due $8.5 million, so that would allow them to use the full exception.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Pacers looking to trade into NBA Draft in early second round<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dustin Dopirak, Indianapolis Star Wed, June 17, 2026 at 2:57 PM UTC Pacers looking to trade into NBA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":763426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3774],"tags":[1784,7,642,113,126,3866,643,177,6,114,16385],"class_list":["post-763425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-indiana-pacers","tag-andrew-nembhard","tag-basketball","tag-ben-sheppard","tag-indiana","tag-indiana-pacers","tag-indianapacers","tag-jarace-walker","tag-memphis-grizzlies","tag-nba","tag-pacers","tag-trade-exception"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116766132510074320","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763425","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=763425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/763426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=763425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=763425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=763425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}