What should the Pacers do with the 18th pick in this year’s NBA draft?

The Indiana Pacers have the 18th pick in the NBA draft. Should they hold onto it or look at moving up or down in the draft?

The Indiana Pacers don’t have a lottery pick, but that doesn’t mean they should ignore the results of today’s NBA draft lottery.

May 14th is one of the few most important days in modern NBA history. No, not because of game one of the Warriors-Blazers series. On this fateful day, one franchise-altering ping pong ball will bounce into place, allowing the lucky team to acquire the best prospect in over a decade. With Zion Williamson, the direction of the franchise who drafts him will increase exponentially.

The Pacers are not apart of the Zion sweepstakes. In making the playoffs, the Pacers won’t participate in May 14th’s draft lottery. By a small miracle, the Pacers have actually won a tiebreaker and will pick in the 18th selection.

In this draft — a dearth of high-end talent and players massively overvalued (and undervalued) by the NBA — 18th is one of the better positions a team could ask for.

The Pacers have multiple options when dealing with this pick. They could pick at their current slot, move up, move down or trade the pick. Let’s go through the pros and cons of all four options and make a decision on which would be my preferred move for the Indiana Pacers.

Staying put

The easiest and most straightforward option for the Indiana Pacers is to keep their pick and make a selection when they come on the clock. This is the decision Kevin Pritchard has made in both 2017 and 2018, drafting T.J. Leaf and Aaron Holiday respectively. With this option, the Indiana Pacers will trust in their scouts, watch as the board unfolds and make their selection when the time comes.

In the 2019 draft especially, drafting in the late teens is an advantageous position. In this draft, the NBA overvalues plenty of prospects who have no business going in the lottery, including Nassir Little, Rui Hachimura, Sekou Doumbouya and more, depending on who you ask. Those prospects are all massive landmines for the teams drafting in the lottery. I am confident in saying none of these prospects will fall to Indiana.

With bad prospects rising higher, good prospects will inevitably fall. I’ll have more detail on these great prospects later on that could fall to Indiana at 18 include Grant Williams, Goga Bitadze, PJ Washington, Brandon Clarke and more.

Williams and Clarke are both top five talents for me and Goga and Washington are near top ten; all three would be monumentally great values for Indy at 18. Clarke and Washington could very well be gone, but there’s a reasonable shot Williams is there at 18.

My one issue with drafting in general is I am not sold on Kevin Pritchard as a drafter. He obviously hasn’t had a real sample to prove his ability to draft, but the sample we have so far is conflicting.

The Aaron Holiday pick (which I and many others believed was a reach) ended up being solid, though the jury is out on whether he can be a good NBA player, as he was not one in his rookie season, like most rookie point guards. Leaf is not an NBA caliber rotation player. He’s a whatever 10th man, but should never be playing meaningful minutes.

I have to mention the Pacers’ adoration for UCLA prospects and my trepidation relating to it. In this draft, all of the UCLA prospects are bad, to put it lightly. Kris Wilkes is an unathletic, little-feel no defense wing, Jaylen Hands is a small point guard who isn’t good enough to contribute and Moses Brown is like you if you were seven feet tall. Drafting any UCLA prospect would be a disaster and while I generally trust this front office this is a caveat I have to put out there.

All in all, staying put and drafting is a good option for the Pacers.

Trading up

I hinted at this in the previous paragraph, trading up isn’t the best option for Indiana because of a lack of top-end talent in this draft. Unless they can acquire the top pick (they can’t), trading up is too risky a proposition for me to endorse.

Indiana would be much better to use their assets to acquire an established contributor, as this draft isn’t strong at the top.

There are too many landmines to make moving up a worthwhile risk. There are certainly prospects worth trading up for and prospect I would be interested in drafting for Indiana.

The main name here is Coby White, who Indiana wouldn’t have to move up more than 10 spots for. He projects best as an off-ball scoring guard and would be a perfect fit next to Victor Oladipo.

Prospects like Darius Garland and the aforementioned Clarke would be fantastic in Indiana. However, there’s a decent chance a fantastic talent falls to 18 anyway, making the trade up option a questionable one.

Trading the pick

If I were a GM of a team picking at the top of the draft, I would be looking to trade down unless I am picking first. There’s just not enough talent in this class to recoup the value a team could amass in a trade down.

At 18, the Pacers could enter trading out of the pick for future draft capital. This isn’t the worst option ever, as the 2020 draft is generally much stronger at the top than this current draft. If they could acquire a likely high pick next year, they do it, though this option is relatively implausible.

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The more realistic scenario where the Pacers trade their pick is to a team straight up for a veteran or as a part of a package for a star.

We’ve seen Indiana move their picks for contributors in the past (George Hill, Thad Young) to solid results, so Kevin Pritchard doing so wouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. If a wing with some creative ability comes on the market, the Pacers a straight swap for 18.

Moving Indiana’s first-round pick in a deal for a star isn’t something I would be opposed to. We’ve seen rumors fly around surrounding Jrue Holiday and Mike Conley.

Using the 18th pick to acquire one of those All-star level point guards would be a sensible decision, especially Holiday. If the difference between acquiring an All-star and not is the 18th pick, I would not hesitate to include the pick (assuming the rest of the package is reasonable).

My decision

The best and most realistic option for Indiana here is to keep their pick, given the surplus of value that will probably be available to them at 18. However, this decision would require trust in Kevin Pritchard and his staff to find the value where the rest of the league is lagging.

Pritchard has shown a willingness to make big moves on the trade market, so landing another star isn’t out of the question. I’m not sure who the star in question is, though, and how much it will cost to get him.

Conley is fantastic, 31, injury prone and has an albatross of a contract. David Griffin is unlikely to trade Jrue Holiday, ditto for Bradley Beal. If any of these moves can happen, especially Beal or Holiday, say sayonara to the pick. Whatever ends up happening, the draft is the first stage in a pivotal offseason for Kevin Pritchard.