Deep dive into how Braden Smith became a Pacer, plus trade details
How the Pacers made their deal for a local prospect.
INDIANAPOLIS – Trade talks between the Indiana Pacers and Chicago Bulls predated Wednesday night.
The Pacers wanted to acquire a pick early in the second round. Despite not owning a selection at all in the 2026 NBA Draft, they hoped to get involved and add to their youth pipeline. Chicago was a good trade partner – they had several draft picks and a new front office.
Together, the central division foes agreed to a deal: Kam Jones, two second-round pick swaps, and cash considerations would go to Chicago – more on the details later. The 38th overall pick would go to Indiana, and the Pacers would use that selection to add Purdue's Braden Smith.
Smith was originally scheduled to work out for the Pacers on June 5, but an injury forced him to reschedule for June 15. He hoped to show teams both how talented he is and how he overcomes his size.
Tony East
Nine days later, the Pacers made him their only selection in the 2026 NBA Draft. I asked general manager Chad Buchanan the following day if he thought the front office would have made that trade with the Bulls if Smith wasn't available.
"Going into the draft, we had a couple priorities. We wanted to create some roster flexibility, some cap flexibility if we were able to. We wanted to get a two-way potential player [at the] point guard position. After what we've gone through the last couple years with our point guard spot, you feel like [we] need another guy there if at all possible," he said. "We have several guys we feel good about the point guard position on our roster, but if you have injuries, it's always good to have depth there. We forced some guys that weren't point guards into that position last year and it was unfortunate for them. We wanted to try to avoid that this year. Our priority was to get a player [at the] point guard position for us."
Last year, the Pacers drafted Jones. The likes of Monte Morris, Mac McClung, RayJ Dennis, Delon Wright, and Cam Payne all got a turn in the point guard room. During their current era, the Pacers have often deployed two lead ball handlers on the floor at the same time – most often, it's Tyrese Haliburton and Andrew Nembhard. T.J. McConnell is heavily in the mix, and Quenton Jackson gets some run.
McConnell turns 35 during the coming season, and after trading away Bennedict Mathurin back in February the Pacers could use more ball handlers. They always try to have one in their reserve pipeline and have rostered one on a two-way deal frequently across the last decade (Dennis, Jackson, Isaiah Wong, Gabe York, Edmond Sumner, Naz Mitrou-Long, and Duane Washington to name several).
Smith likely won't be ready to step into minutes in year one, but he does fill a need for the Pacers. Jones didn't fill it. His true shooting percentage of 47% was far too low, and Caitlin Cooper of Basketball, She Wrote succinctly summed up some other struggles here. He needed to show more, especially with guaranteed money on his contract for the coming season.
And so, without entirely losing any future second-round draft picks, the Pacers accomplished several goals at once. Buchanan laid out many of them, but to summarize:
-"We wanted to create some roster flexibility, some cap flexibility if we were able to." By trading away Kam Jones, the Pacers opened up a roster spot and cleared over $2 million ($2,150,907) from their salary cap books. Given how close they are to the luxury tax line, that's important. Getting off of Jones' deal without taking back another player opens up more paths for the Pacers to add a depth piece in the offseason.
-"We wanted to get a two-way potential player [at the] point guard position." Check. Cap geekery coming momentarily.
-"Our priority was to get a player [at the] point guard position for us." Welcome, Braden Smith.
The Pacers did all of that without actually losing any future second-round picks. They had seven entering Wednesday – one in every season from now until 2033 – and still do today. The quality of two of those selections is now worse, and that was the price (along with Jones) for the Pacers to get pick 38 this year.
Per a league source, here are the full details of the second-round pick swaps exchanged between the Pacers and Bulls.
-2028: The Pacers will get the least favorable pick between (A) Chicago and (B) the most favorable of Indiana and Phoenix. The Bulls get the most favorable of that exchange while the New York Knicks currently hold the least favorable portion of (B).
-2030: The Pacers will get the least favorable pick between Chicago and Indiana.
In those two years, the Pacers could have a worse pick than they otherwise would have. Perhaps the Bulls will be great by 2028 and the Pacers pick falls. But regardless of the Suns, Bulls, or Pacers team quality in those years, Indiana still has a second-round pick in 2028 and 2030.
The Pacers sent cash to Chicago, too, enough to cover Jones' salary for 2026-27 plus some. Indiana had just under $5.5 million left in cash considerations available to deal in the 2025-26 league year and used a good chunk of it to help get this trade done. The Bulls also sold their latest pick in the second round (56th overall) to the Los Angeles Lakers.
And that just leaves the Smith part of things. Multiple league sources shared what was previously reported by Dustin Dopirak of the Indianapolis Star: The current plan is for Smith to sign a two-way contract with the Pacers.
Jones was the 38th pick last year, and he signed a four-year contract via the second-round pick exception. It gave the Pacers a small contract as they danced around the luxury tax. The 38th pick in 2024 was Ajay Mitchell, and he inked a two-way deal with Oklahoma City before getting a standard contract down the line. Smith, Mitchell, and Saben Lee (2020) are all 38th picks in the 2020s that started their NBA career on a two-way deal. The others in that timeframe all signed a standard contract.
Smith could always have his deal converted to a standard one in the future, and the Pacers would still get the salary cap benefits of having him on a cheaper rookie minimum if his contract is converted at any time during the 2026-27 season. The Boston Celtics just used this strategy, in part, to stay under the luxury tax this past season.
Regardless of his contract, the Pacers are happy to have him. "He's tough," Buchanan said. "He loves the game, high basketball IQ."
Smith will have to overcome his size. He's done so at every level so far, but the NBA has the biggest and quickest players in the world. It will take time for the Boilermaker to figure all of that out.
One thing he won't have to figure out? Local hotspots. He played at Westfield High School before Purdue, just North of Indianapolis. "It was good. Obviously, being 30 minutes from home and being here, I'm well connected with a lot of people here and it kind of feels like a family," Smith said after his pre-draft workout with the Pacers. "So for me, just to be back here and be with everybody was awesome. And it went well."
In other news...
The Pacers have signed four undrafted free agents since the 60th pick was called on Wednesday night:
-BYU's Keba Keita, per a league source.
-Georgia Tech’s Kowacie Reeves, per Jon Chepkevich of DraftExpress.
-Iowa State's Tamin Lipsey, per Darren Wolfson of KSTP-TV.
-Nebraska's Rienk Mast, also per Chepkevich.
Thank you for reading this story. Sign up to have more like this sent straight to your email inbox.
Comments ()