Pacers’ evaluation of talent, not bad luck, was problem with Ivica Zubac trade

Indiana Pacers executive Kevin Pritchard apologized Sunday after losing one big bet. It’s his underlying gamble that will determine whether the hefty price to acquire Ivica Zubac made sense.

No matter what comes next for Pritchard’s Pacers, they went down as the biggest losers of Sunday’s NBA Draft Lottery drawing. They entered with a 52.1 percent chance to keep their first-round pick, which was top four protected. Instead, after their pick fell to fifth, they were forced to send it to the LA Clippers as part of the Zubac trade. The blow hit Pritchard hard enough that he felt compelled to say sorry to the Pacers fans.

There was a lot to unpack in Pritchard’s apology, but the part that hurt was when he said he didn’t believe the lottery would go that way because “I thought we were due some luck.”

Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and say he didn’t base his trade on that idea. However, he was only trying to appease an extremely disappointed fan base after a heartbreaking draft lottery result.

Regardless of how cursed the Pacers have seemed since Tyrese Haliburton tore his Achilles tendon in Game 7 of the NBA Finals last season, Pritchard must have known losing the pick was a reasonable outcome. It was essentially a 50-50 proposition, after all.

That leads us to the other bet that seems to be serving as Pritchard’s rationale. Despite following Haliburton’s torn Achilles with the worst regular season in Pacers history, Pritchard believes Indiana’s core deserves his full faith. After Myles Turner walked in free agency last summer, Pritchard felt urgency to find a replacement in the Pacers’ starting lineup.

“At the end of the day, and this is what’s really important, I felt like (for) a championship team, we needed to fill that starting center,” Pritchard said. “That was priority one because they’ve earned the right to go try to get a championship.”

This was the biggest risk Pritchard made. Despite everything the Pacers’ core has shown in its last two playoff appearances, Pritchard could be wrong about the likelihood of recapturing that postseason magic anytime soon. If that foundational belief was wrong, then risking the future for the present was wrong, too.

Jayson Tatum returning this season should provide some level of confidence for Haliburton’s recovery, but players’ track record of coming back from a torn Achilles isn’t promising.

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Kobe Bryant, who suffered the injury later in his career, came back in eight months but struggled to stay healthy afterward. DeMarcus Cousins, who suffered the injury at 27, had four All-Star Game appearances beforehand and none afterward. Wes Matthews returned for the opening night of the season after his injury and went on to have a long, successful career, but saw his shooting percentages inside the arc plummet after the setback.

Given the struggles many players have encountered after the injury, it wouldn’t be shocking if Haliburton has already played the best basketball of his career. Outside of him, the Pacers have plenty of other questions, including an important one: How good are they?

They nearly won the 2025 championship, but how much of their success was a mirage? During that playoff run, they had five different comeback wins from at least 15 points down, the most in NBA history. Before rampaging through the postseason, they ranked 13th in net rating during the regular season. That is not the statistical profile of a championship-caliber team.

That certainly undersells everything the Pacers accomplished. If not for Haliburton’s injury, they might already have a banner. The Pacers cruised through the Eastern Conference, losing only four games in their first three series before nearly outlasting the dominant Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA Finals.

For the second straight season, Indiana showed what it could be in the playoffs. The Pacers had a similar playoff glow-up while advancing to the 2024 Eastern Conference finals. The East might be deeper now than it was a few years ago, but there isn’t a team that seems set to reign for years.

Based on his actions, Pritchard has optimism that the Pacers can replicate their formula with Zubac at center. Of course, Pritchard was hoping they would also add a top young player this summer.

If their pick had landed in the top four, they would have been able to bolster their core with an elite prospect. Pritchard presumably had dreams of AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson or Cameron Boozer sliding into his rotation.

The possibilities would have been tantalizing: Dybantsa powering down the right lane for a vicious dunk after a long Haliburton outlet pass; Boozer catching a pass from Haliburton in the seam before firing a perfect alley-oop to Zubac; Peterson carrying the offense for stretches as the second-leading scorer behind Pascal Siakam.

I’m really sorry to all our fans. I own taking this risk. Surprised it came up 5th after this year. I thought we were due some luck. But please remember – this team deserved a starting center to compete with the best teams next year. We have always been resilient.

— Kevin Pritchard (@PacersKev) May 10, 2026

Those hopes disappeared at the lottery drawing, when the Pacers learned they would not keep what would have been their highest pick since they selected Rik Smits at No. 2 in 1988.

When Pritchard wasn’t apologizing, he outlined why he gambled on such a good pick in the Zubac trade.

During a news conference in Chicago, Pritchard told reporters the Pacers needed to fill a big hole at center and considered Zubac a great fit, given his skills and team-friendly contract. Projecting into the future, Pritchard said the Pacers didn’t foresee another opportunity to land a center of Zubac’s caliber before the start of next season.

“We couldn’t risk not getting a player like Zu,” Pritchard said. “I didn’t want to risk that.”

At 29, Zubac should be in his prime. The Pacers likely needed to pay a premium for his deal, which will pay him just $42.1 million over the next two seasons. Additionally, the rest of the lottery is likely to be dotted with point guards. With Haliburton, the Pacers are set there, so protecting a pick further into the lottery had diminishing value for Indiana.

Despite the risk of losing this year’s pick, Pritchard said the trade framework allowed the Pacers to keep most of their future draft flexibility intact. He suggested they expect to be active and will look for moves this summer.

“Everybody says, well, why didn’t you protect it a lot deeper?” Pritchard said. “Unfortunately, we weren’t able to. That was the vig for us to get Zu.”

That price turned out to be even more expensive when the lottery balls bounced the wrong way.

Even if the Pacers return to their winning ways, it will be painful for them if the fifth pick turns into a big-time player in Los Angeles. That was always part of the risk involved in the Zubac trade, but Pritchard didn’t think he could pass up the opportunity to fix his team’s problem at center.

Pritchard believes the Pacers can win big again next season, and he has set himself up to look bad if they don’t.