Should the Indiana Pacers convert Edmond Sumner’s two-way contract?

Edmond Sumner is currently on a two-way contract. Should the Indiana Pacers change that in the coming season?

Edmond Sumner has proven this preseason that he is a good NBA basketball player. His stock is on the rise, and his improvements make him the perfect insurance policy should an actual rotation player get injured this season for the Indiana Pacers.

This has seemingly come from nowhere, at least on NBA standards. Many good NBA draft scouts had Sumner as a lock first-round pick before he tore his ACL in January of 2017. 16 months later, he concluded his first ever NBA season, playing for just two minutes and scoring only one basket. The injury seemed to derail any momentum he had in terms of becoming a quality NBA guard.

The Pacers chose to play the long game with Edmond Sumner, though. They expected something like this. When they paid the New Orleans Pelicans for the right to draft him with the 52nd pick in 2017, they knew they needed to be patient, both with his rehab and his development. In order to force themselves to be patient, the front office inked Sumner to a two-year two-way contract, which allows him to split time between the Indiana Pacers and Fort Wayne Mad Ants.

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But Sumner’s preseason play has dug up a new question. The two-way contract guarantees that Sumner can play for the Pacers this regular season, but only in a limited capacity. Should that change? Should Pritchard and co. convert Sumner’s deal to a full NBA contract?

A good way to start answering this question is to zoom out and examine this in parts. Let’s look at the two-way contract itself first.

What is a two-way contract? Well, as explained briefly above, it is a new type of contract from the 2017 CBA that allows teams to sign players to a deal that splits time between the G League and the NBA. The two-way contracts were added on to the already-present 15 roster spots each team had, and the goal of them was to allow more players to achieve their NBA dreams while also helping teams observe more young players, thus improving the product of the league. Holistically, that’s a win-win.

Players on a two-way deal are allotted 45 days to spend with their NBA team, the rest of the time is to be spent with a G League team. Many things constitute a “day” with an NBA team – travel, practices, games, etc. all count. Thus, teams need to be strategic in the way they call up and send down two-way contract players so that they can get the most out of those 45 days.

That is where the Indiana Pacers are currently at with Edmond Sumner. As it stands now, they will only get him for 45 days this coming season, and that includes practices and games. Given how he played in the preseason, that seems like a less than ideal situation.

45 days isn’t much. From the start of the season, 45 days lands you on November 30th, which would give Sumner 22 games with the team. Just over a quarter of the season seems like a poor use of a promising young player.

Another strategy the Pacers could employ is calling Sumner up on to the pro squad on game days and sending him down to the Mad Ants every non-game day. This would mean that he could be used for 45 games, which in theory would be a solid way to use him for injury insurance.

But if you go that route, then Sumner gets 0 days of practice with his NBA teammates. That would make him substantially less effective in the 45 games, thus making this strategy also a poor use of Sumner.

These standard routes suggest that Sumner’s contract needs to be converted. Let’s stay zoomed out and discuss that.

Sumner’s contract has a clause in it called an “Exhibit 10” clause, which means the team can freely convert his contract from a two-way way to a standard NBA minimum contract (and vice-versa if needed at any point). If the team decides that Sumner has earned a real NBA contract, they could convert his deal before the season starts and have him be a member of the Pacers with no limit on the number of days that he could participate.

That seems like a no-brainer given how well he has played and the minimal cost that comes with the move. But it does come with an opportunity cost.

If the Pacers make this move, they are preventing themselves from using their final roster spot in any other way. That probably isn’t a huge deal to them since they can only use that final roster spot on a minimum contract guy anyway, but if Sumner gets the spot, then the roster is full.

It also means that they would have to find two new guys to come in and fill the two-way contract slots that would be open were Sumner to get a promotion. That is, again, not a big deal if they actually want to have Edmond Sumner on the real team instead of splitting time between the pros and minors.

But both of those are minors costs (they are more like inconveniences) that shouldn’t prevent the team from calling Sumner up. They just slightly alter what the team is trying to do. Thankfully, there is another way…

There is a loophole/quirk that actually substantially benefits the Indiana Pacers in this situation. The CBA states that the 45 day counter on two-way contracts is only present during the G League season. Outside of the G League season, the days don’t count. What does that mean for the Pacers?

The 2018-19 G League season doesn’t tip-off until November 2nd. That means from October 17th until November 2nd, the team could opt to keep Sumner on his two-way contract but still keep him with the pros full time. That window gets Sumner in the door for the first eight games of the season and lets him practice with the pros at no cost to his day counter.

This would allow the Pacers to determine if Sumner’s current stretch of play is just a flash in the pan or if he is actually this good. If it is the former, perhaps he stays on his two-way contract for the rest of the season. If it is the latter, I would muse that the team calls him up to be a full-time player for the big boys.

The Pacers have options, and time, with Edmond Sumner. How they proceed is going to be fascinating to watch. If it were up to me, they would call him up on November 1st to the pro squad. But we will have to wait and see what they do.