When the Indiana Pacers drafted Jarace Walker, they were all in on his connective abilities on defense, his tertiary playmaking on offense, and his generally wonderful attitude. When they traded for Pascal Siakam, they found a player who did those things that they wanted Walker to do, but far, far better.
That's no fault of Walker, who has failed to break out in any real notable way in his three years in the league. His role simply evaporated overnight.
There's a curious what-if here for Jarace. What if he had been part of the Pascal Siakam trade package? Would he have meshed with Scottie Barnes as part of a tandem of playmaking power forwards who struggle to shoot from distance at a league-average rate? Or would he already be out of the league or dumped somewhere else without the insurance of a front office that drafted him?
We'll never know that, but what we do know is that it has not gone well for Walker during his time as a Pacer.
With his minutes dwindling, his role placing him firmly outside of the rotation, and a final season ahead of his restricted free agency coming up, there's little reason to see him sticking around for much longer.
The Pacers failed Walker as much as he failed to grow into the player he could've been. They buried him – justifiably, I will admit – and then did not make subsequent moves to get him somewhere he could excel.
It's not Indiana's responsibility to help out the draft bust they caused, but it certainly wouldn't hurt.
That's why the Pacers should trade Jarace Walker, not from an asset perspective but from a human one.
The failure of the 2023 draft
Looking back on it, the Indiana Pacers completely wasted both of their draft picks in the 2023 draft. They started the night at seventh overall before moving back for a future second and Jarace Walker. While Bilal Coulibaly is no world beater, he is at least a playable rotation guy, maybe even a fringe starter.
Later on, they spent the 26th overall pick on Belmont's Ben Sheppard, who joins Walker as a draft pick the Pacers immediately decided to abandon and ignore, despite them making the choice to bring him to the team.
It's pretty sad to look back on, honestly. The night that these players should've been starting their careers is now a nightmare situation of watching their careers go down the drain as they begin to doubt their own talent.
There's a chance that both of these guys are just straight-up bad, but they certainly haven't gotten the opportunity that many young players get on rebuilding teams.
There was no warning, no leash to be extended. There was just the immediate expectation of being what was needed and the discarding of anyone who could not be that.
This paid dividends for Andrew Nembhard, who managed to rise up the Pacers' depth chart, now vying for a starting job, but it also left so many different players out in the rain. Indiana has a depth problem and they have only themselves to blame for how they treated the young players that could've solved it.
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