Just ahead of this year's trade deadline, the Indiana Pacers acquired Ivica Zubac from the Los Angeles Clippers. They finally found their Myles Turner replacement, and there are a ton of reasons to be excited about what he can do with the team this season and moving forward.
However, this trade is an incredibly high-risk, high-reward move for Indiana. While it is fair to say that the team got the best player in the trade, they also gave up a lot. Not only did they move on from Bennedict Mathurin and Isaiah Jackson, but they also traded this year's first-round pick, with protections.
This draft is expected to be a loaded one, headlined by Kansas' Darryn Peterson, Duke's Cam Boozer, BYU's AJ Dybantsa, and UNC's Caleb Wilson. All four of these players have the potential to be franchise players in the NBA, and the Pacers would be thrilled to land any one of them. However, they need a lot of luck on their side to do so, and Zach Lowe of The Ringer made that crystal clear.
"If it's 1-4, the Pacers keep it. If it's 10-30, the Pacers keep it because the Clippers don't want that. ... The Pacers have the third-worst winning percentage in the NBA. If they finish at third, that would give them a 52% chance of that pick landing in the top four, and they keep that pick," Lowe said on a recent episode of "The Zach Lowe Show."
"If they get to the fourth or fifth-worst spot in the standings, that drops to a 45% chance that the Pacers keep the pick. ... If they win their way all the way to the sixth-worst record in the NBA, this is the precipitous one, 37% chance they keep the pick, 63% chance they send it to the Clippers."
As it stands, the Pacers' 13-40 record ranks as the worst in the East and second-worst in the entire NBA. However, they are just three games behind the Utah Jazz, who currently own the sixth-worst record in the league, in the standings.
The Pacers have a unique opportunity to bolster their roster
It's not often that a team goes from being one win away from winning an NBA Championship to potentially owning the first overall pick in the following year's draft. However, the Pacers have a chance to make that happen this season.
As it stands, Indiana should be able to re-enter the title picture anyway as soon as next season. The team should be getting Tyrese Haliburton back from his Achilles tear, and they have a fantastic center in Zubac to pair alongside him. Plus, the Eastern Conference still looks to be wide-open, and they will have a good chance to re-establish themselves as legitimate contenders.
But if they can add one of the top players from this year's draft to their core, they will have an opportunity to go from contenders to real juggernauts. They just need things to go their way for the rest of the season.