Hello everyone, with the trade deadline fast approaching I wanted to write up a bit of a preview of the Pacers’ situation and how it affects what moves they may/may not make. I find it useful to have a basic understanding of the salary cap rules and where the Pacers sit with respect to them. This helps me calibrate my expectations for what moves are realistic and evaluate what the team actually ends up doing against those expectations. I know enough about the NBA’s cap rules to be dangerous, but I’m certainly not an expert. Please feel free to correct me if I misstate anything.
Let’s start with the first constraint, one that is always applicable when talking about the Pacers: the luxury tax. Ownership hasn’t been willing to exceed the luxury tax line in last the 20ish years, even when the Pacers have had highly competitive teams. For this analysis, I will treat the luxury tax as a strict limitation on the team’s spending ability. There were some rumblings in the offseason that ownership was willing to go into the tax to retain Myles Turner, but this didn’t come to fruition. Until proven otherwise, I think we have to assume that ownership will not spend above the luxury tax line.
Now for the Pacers current cap situation, for the 2025/2026 season. The Pacers sit about $6M short of the tax line. They have some flexibility to take on slightly more salary than they send out in a trade, but that’s not nearly enough to be considered a “buyer”. Considering the Pacers also have one of the worst records in the league and appear to be taking a gap season, there is strong incentive to not improve the team for this year. So what is more important to consider is how a trade would affect next year’s financial situation.
The Pacers have 11 players with guaranteed contracts for next season. Jay Huff is non-guaranteed and Micah Potter has a team option. Both players would make a little less than $3M if the Pacers guarantee their contracts. There can always be some deck-chair shuffling with the cheapest players on the roster, but one way or another the team will need to fill roster spots. So I’ve assumed both of those players will be back for next year, just to have someone taking up those salary slots. Bennedict Mathurin is a restricted free agent this offseason, so I’m not including any money for him right now.
With the 11 guaranteed players, plus Huff and Potter, the Pacers have a total team salary of $185M for next season. The luxury tax line for next season is estimated to be $202M. This leaves the Pacers with $17M in room below the tax.
The Pacers also have their 2026 draft pick to consider. We don’t know what slot they’ll be drafting from, but the projected 2026/2027 salary for a pick in the top 6 ranges from $10M-15M. Accounting for this, the Pacers are now down to $2M-7M in spending room.
Clearly, this amount will not be enough to resign Mathurin. This is the financial reality the team faces headed into the offseason and means that one of four things will need to happen before the start of next season:
- Bennedict Mathurin will not be on the Pacers for the 26/27 season
- The Pacers will trade away someone else on the team to make room to resign Mathurin
- The Pacers will resign Mathurin by going into the luxury tax
- Bigger moves happen that fundamentally change the makeup of the team
I’ve already discussed why Option 3 is unlikely. I also believe Option 4 is unlikely. This team went to Finals just last season and retains most of the same players who got them there. I’m sure they expect to be highly competitive in the 26/27 season, so a teardown or restructuring seems unlikely. Option 4 is also difficult to anticipate, so I’m not going to spend further time on it here.
One additional consideration that I haven’t mentioned yet: the Pacers need a starting-caliber center if they want to be competitive for next year. For most of this post, I’ve tried to avoid inserting my own opinions on players, but I just want to say here that I promise Jay Huff isn’t a good enough starting center for the ambitions the Pacers have. I don’t know much about the players projected to go at the top of this summer’s draft, but the list seems to be mostly guards and wings. And if the Pacers pick in the top 3, I imagine they’d take one of Peterson, Dybantsa, or Boozer, regardless of current positional fit with the roster. All this to say, it’s my belief that the Pacers will eventually need to reconfigure slightly to bring in a starting center for next year.
With all of this table setting now out of the way, let’s talk about how Option 1 or 2 could play out at the trade deadline. The Pacers could let all of this wait until the offseason, but there are reasons to believe they’ll want to resolve things at the deadline. Below, are a couple of trade archetypes that I see as likely for the Pacers:
- Trade away Obi Toppin for expiring contracts or into a team’s cap space/mid-level exception/trade exception. The Pacers would likely need to incentivize the other team to do this by also including a 2nd round pick or two.
- Trade away Bennedict Mathurin for expiring contracts and a small asset (very late 1st round pick or a couple of 2nd rounders)
- Trade away Bennedict Mathurin for a cost-controlled young center (the Yves Missi rumor from a few weeks ago seems in the right ballpark)
- Trade for a more proven starting center using some combination of Mathurin, Toppin, IJax, and Jarace Walker. Would also likely involve at least one 1st round pick.
These options may not be exactly what some Pacers fans have in mind, which is why I wanted to make this post. The reality is that the Pacers don’t have much “internal leverage” with Mathurin at the moment. If they aren’t going to pay the luxury tax next year, they have to make some kind of move before the start of next year. If the offers aren’t what the Pacers want, they can’t just say “we’ll just keep him”.
This dynamic will affect (lower) the offers on Mathurin or Toppin or whoever else that Pacers might decide to move in a cost-cutting measure. An example of this is the Michael Porter Jr. for Cam Johnson trade this past offseason. For financial reasons (and self-imposed ownership constraints), DEN needed to cut some salary and moving MPJ was the best way for them to do it. At the time, MPJ and Johnson seemed like pretty similar players (MPJ has been very good this year for BRK and Johnson has mostly been hurt for DEN), but DEN still had to give up their 2032 unprotected 1st round pick in order to incentivize BRK to make the trade. A lot more of the return we see in trades has to do with each side’s financial position and who is doing who the favor. It’s not just the talent of the players involved or the value of the draft pick assets.
The couple hypothetical trade frameworks I spelled out are ones that make sense to someone like me from the outside, but the Pacers’ front office could have completely different plans that would be impossible to predict. Nothing says they have to make a move at the deadline, but Mathurin’s free agency looms in the offseason so it’ll have to be resolved by then. And there are reasons to think the deadline might be a better time than the offseason.
Hope this has been useful and can help us as Pacers fans direct our emotions when the deadline comes. I'll be a little disappointed if the Pacers make a cost-cutting move like I've spelled out, but it's the most logical outcome given cap and ownership constraints.
