The Indiana Pacers have waived Taelon Peter. This move opens up one of their two-way spots alongside Ethan Thompson and Kobe Brown. Taelon was signed to a two-year deal after being the 54th pick in the 2025 NBA Draft.
The situation Peter was drafted into allowed him many opportunities as a rookie, totaling over 500 minutes and averaging 4.5 points in his 38 appearances. Unfortunately for the 24-year-old, he failed to impress even with the proverbial long leash.
Drafted as a three-point sniper after Liberty, general manager Kevin Pritchard once called Peter "one of the best shooters in the league." Despite the movement shooting Peter had displayed in Lynchburg, he shot only 32.8% from deep last year.
While Peter's career is far from dead in the water, this is a move that made quite a bit of sense, especially after he was clearly the least impressive of the two-way options in summer league action in Vegas.
This is the unfortunate churn of NBA rosters. Maybe Peter would have been kept around years ago. Maybe he still will, as a member of the Noblesville Boom, for whom he already averaged over 14 points per game last year.
However, roster spots of any kind today are too valuable to allow for subpar players to eat them up. It's bad luck for Taelon that his contemporary outperformed him to such an extreme degree. If this is it for him, it will be a sad end for a player who got more of a shot than most, and less than he deserved.
Now, with both a regular roster spot and a two-way option available, the Pacers can prioritize their two best performers in summer league without sacrificing any flexibility.
Rewarding the top performers
Jalen Slawson and, to a lesser extent, Rienk Mast are both deserving of respect after what they have shown over the past few weeks. While the Pacers' summer league team was an abject disappointment with little to no silver linings, those two did everything they could to will Indiana to a 2-3 record.
Slawson, in particular, has been one of the breakout players of this summer and could be an option for the Pacers to find a difference-maker down their bench.
With the non-waiving of Quenton Jackson, the Pacers were locked into only one standard slot. The assumption was that they would use it to retain Slawson while hoping to keep Mast on a G-League deal.
However, the math changes with Peter's departure. Slawson's current qualifying offer is a two-way. He would definitely not appreciate the slight of not getting the raise he may deserve, but the Pacers could keep that all-important 15th spot open while keeping Jalen around.
For Mast, that would mean a standard G-League deal or a two-way deal of his own elsewhere. The best "vibes" answer is satisfying both by giving Slawson the final spot and Mast the two-way, but alas, that may not be possible.
Still, while expected, this move answers the biggest question mark remaining of the Pacers' internal free agents.
Jalen Slawson will be back, whether it is on a standard or two-way deal.
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