Pacers Lose No. 5 Pick to Clippers: Kevin Pritchard Apologises but Defends Zubac Trade
The Indiana Pacers walked into the 2026 NBA Draft Lottery hoping for the kind of luck that rebuilds a franchise and walked out having handed a top-five pick to the LA Clippers. After landing at No. 5 on Sunday in Chicago, Indiana’s 2026 first-round selection transferred to Los Angeles as part of the February trade that brought centre Ivica Zubac to Indianapolis.
Pacers president of basketball operations Kevin Pritchard moved quickly to address fan frustration, posting an apology on X that owned the risk while defending the reasoning behind it. The move had always carried a chance of this exact outcome — and on the day the worst-case version arrived, Pritchard didn’t dodge it.
What follows is a clear breakdown of how Indiana ended up here, what the Zubac trade actually contained, why the front office made it, and how the franchise plans to recover with Tyrese Haliburton returning to the floor next season.
How the Pacers Lost Their 2026 First-Round Pick
The mechanism is straightforward once the lottery math is laid out. Indiana finished the season with the NBA’s second-worst record at 19-63. Only the Washington Wizards, at 17-65, were worse. Under the league’s flattened lottery odds, Washington, Indiana, and the Brooklyn Nets all shared the same chances:
- 14% to win the No. 1 overall pick
- 52% to land somewhere in the top four
The Pacers needed to finish in the top four to keep their pick. They didn’t. Washington moved up the board and won the top selection, and the resulting reshuffle pushed Indiana to No. 5. Because the pick was protected only through the top four in the Zubac trade, that fifth selection automatically transferred to the LA Clippers.
Kevin Pritchard’s Apology to Pacers Fans
Shortly after the lottery, Pritchard addressed the fanbase directly on X.
“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,” he wrote.
The statement does two things at once. It accepts personal responsibility for the gamble while reframing the trade as a roster-building necessity rather than a misjudgement. The phrase “I own taking this risk” stands out — front-office executives rarely use that kind of language publicly about a deal that has just blown up.
What Was in the Ivica Zubac Trade
The February deal sent more than just the 2026 pick to Los Angeles. The full package the Clippers received included:
- A 2026 first-round pick with top-four protection — the one that just conveyed at No. 5
- A 2029 first-round pick
- A 2031 unprotected first-round pick as the alternative if the 2026 selection had landed in the top four
In other words, the Clippers were going to walk away with two future Indiana firsts no matter what happened in the lottery. The only question was whether the second pick was 2026 or 2031. Washington’s leap up the board determined that answer in Los Angeles’s favour.
Why Indiana Made the Deal
Two factors drove the front office to part with significant draft capital for Zubac: an unfilled positional need and a team-friendly contract structure.
The centre vacancy. When Myles Turner signed with the Milwaukee Bucks in free agency in July 2025, Indiana lost its starting five and never adequately replaced him during the following season. That hole shaped how the front office viewed the trade market.
Zubac’s contract. The big man is owed:
- $20.3 million in 2026-27
- $21.7 million in 2027-28
After that, he can become an unrestricted free agent. For one of the more productive centres in the league, those numbers represent strong value, particularly for a team trying to contend rather than rebuild.
The contention timeline. Pritchard’s framing — “this team deserved a starting center to compete with the best teams next year” — points to the underlying logic. Indiana wasn’t operating as a tanking franchise looking to maximise lottery odds. The front office was building around a returning star and treating the 2026-27 season as a competitive window.
The Real Cost to the Franchise
The criticism Pritchard is now absorbing is straightforward: a 19-63 season produced no high pick, no rookie reinforcement on a rookie-scale contract, and a depleted future asset base. For a small-market team, draft capital is often the most reliable path to acquiring high-end talent, and Indiana has now spent a significant share of that capital in a single trade.
There is also the lottery-luck angle Pritchard alluded to. With a 52% chance of landing in the top four, the Pacers were always more likely than not to keep their pick. Losing that coin flip is the kind of outcome that compounds over time — a season of losing typically produces a young, cost-controlled cornerstone, and Indiana came away with neither.
That said, the deal still produced an asset the Pacers wanted: a starting centre under contract for two more years at a price that fits inside a contending roster’s books.
Where the Pacers Go From Here
Indiana’s path back to relevance runs through Tyrese Haliburton. The All-Star guard missed the entire 2025-26 season after tearing his Achilles tendon in Game 7 of the 2025 NBA Finals in June 2025 — an injury that effectively erased the franchise’s competitive ceiling for the year and helped produce the 19-63 record.
A healthy Haliburton, paired with Zubac at centre, gives the Pacers a credible spine on both ends. The roster will need shooting and depth around them, but the core argument behind the trade — that Indiana was a centre away from competing — only stands up if the lead ball-handler returns to form.
The 2026 lottery was, in Pritchard’s framing, the price of pursuing that scenario rather than waiting another year. Whether the bill turns out to be worth paying will be decided on the court, not at a lottery podium in Chicago. For now, the Pacers have a centre under contract, a star guard rehabbing his Achilles, and a front office on the record about both the risk and the regret.
