While the Ivica Zubac trade was an incredible move that has very clearly lacked any real downsides, it did ultimately cost the Indiana Pacers their first-round pick. The business of trading for Zubac was always a risk, but the Pacers were seemingly okay with giving up on any of the prospects outside of the top four.
However, what this means for Indiana is that their gap year came without the infusion of any young talent. Trading for veteran stars can certainly improve a team rapidly, but they do not offer the same level of cap flexibility that draftees do.
Ivica Zubac is set to make approximately 20 million a year for the next two seasons before he will surely demand a raise. The fifth overall pick, Keaton Wagler, who the LA Clippers took with Indiana's pick will make half as much per year during his four year rookie contract.
But, there is a windfall available to Indiana if they do take a step back. They own their own pick outright in three of the next four years, and thanks to the new draft lottery rules, they could luck into a top pick while still making the playoffs.
Suddenly, the Pacers can gain all the benefits of a gap year without subjecting fans and players to the same 19-win season they just endured.
The new odds are ever in your favor
Somehow, the draft lottery has gone from the only avenue for bad teams to gain the talent they needed to escape their fate to an anti-tanking self-immolation targeting the weakest and worst of the NBA to maximize the already flourishing.
While that is disgusting in the larger NBA environment, it certainly does help the Pacers quite a bit. In the past, Indiana's only real way of getting cost-controlled star-level talent was in ambitious trades.
The Pacers acquired both Aaron Nesmith, Obi Toppin, and Tyrese Haliburton while they were on their rookie deals. While the three 2020 draftees blossomed upon making their way to Indiana, they were not drafted here.
Those players were all steals in both the trade value paid for them and the players they became, but the truth remains that Indiana's path to greatness will no longer be through trades.
No, the Pacers are who they are at this point, but their draft control is just as useful for trades as it is to hold them and pray for lottery luck. Indiana has had notoriously bad lottery luck but if they can just get lucky once, it would change the entire state of this era.
It is also worth noting that Indiana has had the chance to draft difference-makers. Both of their top-10 picks during the Tyrese Haliburton-centered rebuild have failed to pan out and have left the roster weak.
With a cap crunch on the horizon, the Pacers will soon have to decide whether they are pivoting to youth or continuing to go all in. If the choice is the former, they will not need to tear things down in the way they did for this past year.
Instead, all they need to do is hold and hope.
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