Indiana Pacers Post-Draft Grades: The Good, The Bad, and the Guards

Ladies and gentlemen, the 2023 NBA Draft is officially in the books. At the time of this article being written, it is 2 AM on June 23rd, 2023 and the 2023 NBA Draft has just concluded. 2 rounds and 58 picks later, 30 NBA teams now have a few more players on their roster to worry about, including the Indiana Pacers, who made some noise in the draft world and shook up their roster a bit on draft night including a few trades and a few picks. I came into the draft with some optimism, but also some skepticism, as although this is Indiana’s third straight year drafting in the lottery, they tend to have a habit of settling with older, more experienced players with lower ceilings as opposed to younger, higher ceiling players, a la Chris Duarte in 2021. What also caught my eye before the draft were some rumblings among the league that the Pacers were willing to trade their lottery pick in exchange for a “high-level wing player” as ESPN’s Brian Windhorst put it.

There were also the usual talks from Lakers fans that were centered around Myles Turner and Buddy Hield that at this point are a formality to be repeated every few months, despite Turner’s recent contract extension and clear desire to stay in Indiana for the long term.

That being said, Indiana entered the draft season with picks 7, 26, 29, 32, and 55. That’s a total of 5 picks, however, the Pacers only had 3 roster spots, and obviously couldn’t make all 5 picks without having some sort of roster overload problem, with Kevin Pritchard himself even saying “We have three first-round picks. We will have two second-round picks… I don’t want to bring in five young kids into this organization.” With this being said, trades were imminent, and there were a few of them.

The Trades:

Since Indiana just didn’t have enough roster spots to make all their picks, they had to make some moves, the first of which was before draft night, with the Pacers sending the 29th and 32nd picks from Boston and Houston, respectively, to the Denver Nuggets in return for a 2024 first-round pick from the Thunder and the 40th pick. With that trade, Indiana was down to 4 picks in the draft, still one more than the number of roster spaces they had. With the second trade, Indiana traded their newly acquired 40th pick to the LA Lakers in exchange for the 47th overall pick and cash considerations, roughly $4.35 million to be exact. The belief with this trade was that it would be easier to convince a late second-round pick to sign a two-way contract and therefore not take up a roster spot. This left the Pacers with 4 draft picks and a decent sum of money gained. With the trades made, there was nothing left to do, but make the selections and watch the future of the team take shape

So without further ado, let’s get into these selections!

Jarace Walker (Round 1, Pick 8):

Well, we got our guy, didn’t we?

Indiana clearly had their eye on Walker for a while now and it was no secret that they were interested. As the 7th pick neared, and Walker’s name was not called, it was looking increasingly likely that he would be coming to Indiana. However, mine and probably the entire state of Indiana’s jaws were left on the floor when, seemingly out of nowhere, Indiana selected Bilal Coulibaly of Metropolitans 92 in the French League. Prior to the draft, Indiana showed little to no interest in Bilal, so this obviously came as a shocker to the fans. However, this would end up making much more sense as soon after, it was reported that Indiana was trading the rights to Bilal Coulibaly to the Washington Wizards for the 8th pick in the draft and a pair of future second-round picks, as Woj reported.

This ended up being a huge relief, as it was looking like Indiana managed to not only get their guy but steal a few second-round picks away from Washington while doing so.

Now, I hope Bilal Coulibaly has a great career in the NBA and all, but he is not Jarace Walker. Walker has been on the top of my draft board ever since the lottery, and he has been highly touted by multiple people in the Pacers’ organization. In my post-lottery article where I looked at who the Pacers could be targeting with the 7th overall pick, Jarace Walker was the one that stood out to me the most, as I stated that he was no-doubt selection if he was still on the board come pick 7. The main reason why I did say this is because Walker fits the Pacers’ biggest need, which is a power forward that can start next to Myles Turner and that can complement his skill set well. Walker is no doubt this player, as his physical tools (6’8″ with a 7’2″ wingspan and a 38-inch vertical) along with his defensive ability and surprising finesse around the rim, he is the quintessential power forward/small ball center of today’s NBA. While Walker may not be a stretch 4 exactly, he can still step out and hit the 3 occasionally, as he shot 34.7% on 2.8 attempts a game at Houston. However, with Myles Turner coming off a year averaging 18 points per game on 37% from 3, Walker does not necessarily need to be a marksman for this pairing to work. With this pick, Indiana finally gets the player they’ve been wanting alongside Myles for years now, a true power forward. While Domantas Sabonis was obviously fantastic for Indiana, he was very clearly playing out of position, as he and Myles swapped the center and power forward roles on offense and defense and the offense suffered as a result. However, with Jarace Walker slotting in at the 4 spot, Myles can fully commit to being a true center and Walker can do what he does best, which is a little bit of everything.

If it hasn’t been obvious by now, Jarace Walker was the perfect pick for Indiana at 8, and the fact that the Pacers were able to go one slot lower to take him while getting some extra cash and picks just makes it all the sweeter

Final Grade: A (Best available pick. Pacers got a good one here)

Ben Sheppard (Round 1: Pick 26)

Now I’m going to be totally honest here and admit that I don’t know much about Ben Sheppard. To be completely honest, I was expecting a pick like Leonard Miller or even Nick Smith Jr. at this slot, so hearing Sheppard’s name surprised me. I did a little digging on him and saw that he is only the third Belmont basketball player to be drafted in the NBA, the first 2 being Joe Gaines in 1972 and Dylan Windler in 2019, respectively.

He was also very happy to be selected by the Pacers, as evident by his draft reaction video.

Sheppard is a prototypical 3-and-D wing who stood out in his 4 seasons at Belmont on both ends of the court. Sheppard has a smooth and clean stroke from 3, shooting 41.5% on 6 attempts a game as a senior while averaging close to 19 points a game. Sheppard also has a surprising ability and confidence in initiating the offense and getting his shot off the dribble. He is also a decent playmaker, averaging 3 assists per game in college which can partially be attributed to the fact that he grew up as a point guard before a late growth spurt.

However, Sheppard’s main calling card on offense is his shooting, with his quick and high release allowing him to get shots up at will, even without much space on the perimeter. He has also shown potential as a slasher who can get the contact at the rim and even get to the free throw line, shooting 4 free throws a game in his senior year. Sheppard has proven that he is more than just a shooter on offense and is still working on his game. On defense, Sheppard shines on the perimeter, as he can guard 1-3 and even smaller power forwards if the matchup calls for it and is great at contesting outside jumpers, while also averaging 1.4 steals per game as a senior. His rebounding is also a plus, as he averaged 5.2 a game as a senior at the guard position.

At Belmont, he showed a very clear understanding of his role, as he switched from the go-to guy to a star role player and let his teammates shine, as was seen in his breakout performance at the NBA Draft Combine.

However, Sheppard is not exactly the athlete that Jarace Walker is, with him maxing out at just a 35.5-inch vertical. He’s also not the fastest guy in the gym, mostly relying on quickness and shiftiness to get his shot rather than outrunning guys. In addition to this, the selection of Sheppard also calls into question the Pacers loaded guard play, as he now joins a rotation of Buddy Hield, Chris Duarte, Bennedict Mathurin, Mojave King (who was taken 47th), and Kendrick Brown. Going into the season, it will be interesting to see how Rick Carlisle distributes the minutes in the guard position and where Sheppard fits into this puzzle.

However, the main gripe with Sheppard, and perhaps the reason why he fell to 26 in the draft, is that he turns 22 in less than a month, which severely puts a ceiling on his upside. We have seen the Pacers take low-ceiling, high-floor guys in the past with Duarte and Sheppard’s ceiling will probably be that of a high-quality role player so this should not mean too much at the NBA level.

For Ben Sheppard, the most Pacers fans should expect out of him is a decent 3-and-D role player who can come off the bench and give you a spark, a la Justin Holiday. All things considered, I’m not mad with this pick at all, and I really think Ben can carve a place for himself on this Pacers roster.

Final Grade: B (Decent 3-and-D wing, will most likely benefit from learning from Buddy Hield, and a pretty good pick at 26)

Second Round and Final Grade:

The second round was more or less unremarkable, as Indiana ended up getting the aforementioned Mojave King from the G League Ignite with pick 47, and Miami’s Isaiah Wong with pick 55, both guards by the way. This does call into question Indiana’s bloated guard rotation at this point, as they will have some major competition to get extra minutes at the shooting guard spot. One can only ponder why the Pacers passed on Indiana’s own Trayce Jackson-Davis twice with him falling to the second-to-last pick, going 57 to the Warriors.

Either way, Indiana had a pretty decent draft all things considered, and actually came out as one of the biggest winners of the draft in my opinion. After all, trading down and still getting Jarace Walker while getting extra money and a few draft picks is a great move, and Ben Sheppard was also a good selection at pick 26. The only problem with the Pacers’ draft selections was the overabundance of guards taken, as every pick with the exception of Walker was a guard, and the passing over of perhaps more worthy candidates in the second round like the aforementioned Trayce Jackson-Davis.

Other than these gripes, however, Indy made out like a bandit in the 2023 NBA Draft and they will ultimately get a pretty high grade.

Final Grade: B+ (Walker was a bullseye pick, Sheppard was pretty good, falls apart in the second round more or less)

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