Braden Smith’s first NBA season won’t be about easing into a familiar role. The Pacers are setting him up for something tougher - and, they believe, more useful.
Indiana general manager Chad Buchanan and assistant general manager Ted Wu met with reporters Thursday afternoon at the team’s annual preseason press conference, and Smith’s development plan came up as training camp nears. The former Purdue point guard, taken by the Pacers with the No. 38 pick in June, is expected to spend much of his rookie year with the Noblesville Boom, Indiana’s G League affiliate.
The bigger question is how the Pacers want that time to be used.
At Purdue, Smith was the engine. He played nearly 38 minutes per game as a senior, controlled the offense and handled the responsibility of setting everything in motion. That won’t be his immediate job in Indiana, where his future NBA minutes are likely to come in shorter bursts.
Buchanan has pointed to T.J. McConnell as the kind of guard Smith can learn from - a player who changes the game quickly without needing a huge workload. McConnell can check in, push the pace, pressure the ball and give the Pacers a lift in a handful of minutes before heading back to the bench.
That raises the development puzzle: should Noblesville try to mirror the Pacers’ likely usage and give Smith a smaller, more specific role, or should it load him up with as many minutes and possessions as possible?
“Yeah, I always feel like the more you play, the better it is for development,' Buchanan said. "I totally understand what you're saying.
Do you want him to play the same role with the Boom as he would likely play for us? I think the more reps he gets with the Boom, the more it prepares him for whatever minutes he would eventually get with the Pacers.
So, I'd like to see him play as much as he can when he's with the Boom.”
That answer tells you what Indiana values here: not just getting Smith comfortable in a narrow NBA job, but broadening his game while he adjusts to the pro level.
Buchanan said the Pacers want Smith to learn how to play at their speed.
"One thing I go back to with his development is learning to play fast with us," Buchanan said. "I think that's something he's trying to adapt to, is playing faster than he was accustomed to maybe at Purdue. But I think that's where you get those reps in a Boom game."
Smith did play fast in college in his own way, especially when pushing in transition and creating on the move. But Indiana’s pace is different.
The decisions have to come sooner. The openings close faster.
The offense asks for quick advancement and immediate pressure before the defense can get organized.
That’s why the G League is such a key piece of this plan. It gives Smith the chance to stack up game reps without losing the chance to actually play.
"Over the course of, if he gets 40, 45 games with the Boom, you get that many minutes, that many possessions, "Buchanan said. "That'll prepare him for the future when he has to step into a role that's different than that."
The Pacers aren’t expecting Smith’s NBA job to look anything like his Purdue one. He won’t walk into a game and spend nearly 40 minutes running the whole show. But Indiana also doesn’t see value in shrinking his workload before he’s ready.
For now, the plan is straightforward: keep him on the ball, keep him making reads and keep him learning the Pacers’ pace. If his NBA role eventually becomes a short stint off the bench, the organization is banking on all those possessions in Noblesville making that jump feel a lot less steep.
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