The Indiana Pacers have a lot of contract business hanging in the air, but Chad Buchanan isn’t giving anyone a peek behind the curtain.
The Pacers general manager was asked twice Thursday about extension talks at the Pacers Foundation golf outing and shut it down both times, even with eight Indiana players eligible for new deals this offseason. His message was simple: that part of the business is staying private.
"I'd like to keep the business part of it out of respect to the player and the agent," Buchanan said. "But we do have a lot of guys that are in that boat. But we'll kind of keep that to ourselves on that one."
Spotrac lists Jarace Walker and Ben Sheppard as rookie scale extension candidates, while Tyrese Haliburton, Pascal Siakam, Ivica Zubac, Andrew Nembhard, Obi Toppin, and Johnny Furphy are eligible for veteran extensions.
For Walker and Sheppard, the clock is the most immediate issue. Both 2023 first-round picks have until Oct. 19 to agree to rookie scale extensions. If they don’t, they’d become restricted free agents in July 2027.
Walker is on an $8,478,542 team option the Pacers picked up last October. The No. 8 pick in 2023, originally selected by Washington and traded to Indiana, posted a career-best 11.6 points per game last season.
Sheppard, taken 26th overall in 2023 out of Belmont, is playing out the final year of his rookie deal at $5,031,669. He shot 36.8% from 3-point range last season.
The veteran group brings even more weight to the conversation. Haliburton and Siakam became eligible July 6, and Siakam could sign an extension worth up to $207 million. He led Indiana with 24.0 points per game last season, while Nembhard topped the team with 7.7 assists per game.
Buchanan said the Pacers see value across the board.
"I just prefer not to talk about the business part out of respect to the guys and their agents, but we value all of our guys," Buchanan explained. "They're here for a reason, we like them, but I'd like to keep those kind of confidential for now."
Zubac is under contract through 2027-28 after arriving from the LA Clippers in February and appearing in five games for Indiana before a fractured rib ended his season.
The rest of the roster picture matters too. Kelly Oubre Jr.’s two-year deal in July came from the non-taxpayer mid-level exception, which left Indiana hard-capped at the first apron for all of 2026-27, roughly $2.2 million below the line with 14 guaranteed standard contracts already on the books.
On Aug. 31, Tony East of Forbes reported that the current payroll would make the Pacers a taxpaying team.
That cap situation is also why James Johnson is in camp on an Exhibit 9 deal. Buchanan said the Pacers cannot keep him to start the season.
Haliburton already has his five-year max extension from July 2023. Nembhard and Toppin are both under contract for 2026-27, and Furphy has a guaranteed $2.3 million salary this season plus a $2.5 million team option for 2027-28.
Media day is Monday, and Indiana opens Oct. 21 at New Orleans, two days after the rookie scale deadline.
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