{"id":794552,"date":"2026-07-24T09:24:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T09:24:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/794552\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T09:24:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T09:24:21","slug":"pacers-gm-buchanan-talks-oubre-nance-centers-two-ways","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/794552\/","title":{"rendered":"Pacers GM Buchanan Talks Oubre, Nance, Centers, Two-Ways"},"content":{"rendered":"

After Tyrese Haliburton<\/a> joked last week<\/a> during an episode of the Mind The Game podcast about how his efforts to recruit LeBron James<\/a> to Indiana went nowhere, Pacers general manager Chad Buchanan confirmed during an appearance on the Setting The Pace podcast (YouTube link<\/a>) that the team won\u2019t be adding James to its roster despite having presented its case to agent Rich Paul.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re expecting the LeBron to Pacers announcement to come, it\u2019s not coming,\u201d Buchanan said, per Dustin Dopirak of The Indianapolis Star<\/a>. \u201cI don\u2019t want to break everybody\u2019s hearts. Much respect to LeBron as a player, obviously, and to Rich Paul. I think every team made their pitch to Rich as to their situation, what they could offer, as did we. We also know that he\u2019s narrowed it down to some other teams. Hopefully he stays in the West. I don\u2019t know where he\u2019s going to end up, but I can tell you it won\u2019t be in Indiana, unfortunately.\u201d<\/p>\n

Buchanan spoke at length during the podcast about the roster moves the Pacers have\u00a0made so far this offseason, including signing Kelly Oubre Jr.<\/a>, waiving Micah Potter<\/a> to add Larry Nance Jr.<\/a>, and their two-way contract changes.<\/p>\n

While the conversation is worth checking out in full for Pacers fans, here are some of the highlights, as relayed by Dopirak:<\/p>\n

On using a portion of the mid-level exception to sign Oubre<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Buchanan said the Pacers felt good entering the offseason about their starters and their top reserves but felt they needed a bit more depth on the wing. Although they explored potential trade scenarios, they kept coming back to Oubre, whom they viewed as a \u201cwin-now\u201d player who could contribute on both sides of the ball.
\n\u201cHe impacts the game on the defensive side of the ball as much as he can on the offensive side, which was appealing to us,\u201d Buchanan said. \u201cLast year was probably the best shooting year of his career. We think there\u2019s more room from that regard for Kelly. I think he\u2019ll see more open shots created in our system than he\u2019s probably seen in his career. Optimistic that he\u2019ll be able to knock down shots for us, but also provide some presence as a defender, being able to guard multiple positions, which is important for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

On waiving<\/a> Potter to sign<\/a> Nance:<\/p>\n

Potter had a better season in 2025\/26 than Nance did, averaging 9.7 points and 5.0 rebounds in 19.3 minutes per game with a .515\/.423\/.842 shooting line while Nance averaged just 3.7 PPG and 2.7 RPG in 12.8 MPG and battled injuries. However, the Pacers valued Nance\u2019s defensive versatility and veteran know-how, according to Buchanan, who said the 33-year-old was Indiana\u2019s \u201cbest option that was gettable\u201d among this summer\u2019s frontcourt free agents.
\n\u201cI think our coaches felt really comfortable with his basketball IQ, his experience, and just his personality felt like a really good fit with our locker room as well,\u201d the Pacers\u2019 GM said. \u201cLarry really had targeted us, wanted to be here with the Pacers and I think he\u2019s very motivated to have a bounce-back season. I think he would be the first to admit that last year didn\u2019t go the way he hoped it would. He\u2019s very motivated to come in and fit in and play well for us this season.\u201d
\nNance won\u2019t be handed the backup center job, Buchanan added, noting that Jay Huff<\/a> and forward Obi Toppin<\/a> will also be in the mix behind starter Ivica Zubac<\/a>. \u201c(Nance has) gotta come in and earn it. Jay Huff has gotta earn those backup minutes as well. You have Obi as an option to come in and play some backup five,\u201d Buchanan said. \u201cThere\u2019s different looks that our coaches could utilize at the backup center spots. There\u2019s might be some nights where our coaches will value the defensive versatility in Larry as opposed to the shooting and rim protection that Jay provides. It\u2019s probably going to be night-to-night who plays there, but heading into camp it\u2019s an open competition at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the Pacers\u2019 two-way slots:<\/p>\n

Indiana has re-signed Kobe Brown<\/a> and Jalen Slawson<\/a> to two-way deals and carried over Ethan Thompson<\/a> on his two-way contract from last season. However, there\u2019s also an expectation that the team will sign No. 38 overall pick Braden Smith<\/a> to a two-way deal at some point. Buchanan expressed a desire to find a way to keep all four players, which could mean inking Smith to a standard contract, though that would leave the Pacers with a full 15-man roster and barely any wiggle room below their first-apron hard cap for the rest of the season.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re very, very tight to the first apron where we\u2019re hard-capped now,\u201d Buchanan said. \u201cWe have different options to fill that 15th spot. We\u2019re still kind of making that decision, making some choices at the back end of the roster, the 15th spot and the two-way spots. Braden is a guy we valued in the draft for his play-making, his IQ and his toughness. We haven\u2019t decided exactly what we\u2019re gonna do now because we have several guys that we like and we want to keep. We\u2019re trying to figure out what\u2019s the best avenue to keep all those guys in play for us.\u201d
\nBuchanan added that the Pacers were \u201cpleasantly surprised\u201d by what they saw from Brown at the end of last season after he came over with Zubac from L.A. \u201cWe felt like this was a pretty good fit, our system, our coaches\u2019 trust in Kobe,\u201d the GM said. \u201cAs we looked at our roster spots, where we were at in the cap. We knew we were going to have some limitations on what we could probably offer at that position. We talked early on with Kobe\u2019s representatives about, \u2018Hey, we really would like to retain Kobe and have him back with us, but we don\u2019t know if we\u2019ll have the flexibility to make that a standard guaranteed spot. We\u2019d love to have him on a two-way if that\u2019s an option on your end.\u2019 \u2026 I think Kobe felt comfortable in his time here with us and wanted to continue on that path. We\u2019re excited to have him back.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After Tyrese Haliburton joked last week during an episode of the Mind The Game podcast about how his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":794553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3774],"tags":[7,2456,18764,31821,113,126,3866,29326,4960,3147,4042,2988,185,32137,6,3308,114],"class_list":["post-794552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-indiana-pacers","tag-basketball","tag-braden-smith","tag-chad-buchanan","tag-ethan-thompson","tag-indiana","tag-indiana-pacers","tag-indianapacers","tag-jalen-slawson","tag-jay-huff","tag-kelly-oubre","tag-kobe-brown","tag-larry-nance-jr","tag-lebron-james","tag-micah-potter","tag-nba","tag-obi-toppin","tag-pacers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116974234117882636","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794552","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=794552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/794553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}