The Ivica Zubac deal already had a rough look for the Indiana Pacers. Now it’s taken another hit.
Indiana sent out a first-rounder to land Zubac, and that 2029 selection is now part of a Clippers penalty tied to the Kawhi Leonard investigation. The NBA stripped LA of five first-round picks, including the Pacers’ unprotected 2029 first from the Zubac trade. That means the pick is gone for good - there’s no path for Indiana to buy it back later.
That matters because the Pacers already paid a steep price to get here. They were tanking last season when they agreed to move their 2026 first-round pick, protected top four, in order to bring Zubac in.
The lottery dropped them to fifth, which sent the pick to LA and allowed the Clippers to draft Keaton Wagler. On top of that, Indiana still owes a 2028 second-round pick that originally came from the Dallas Mavericks.
Here’s how the deal stands now:
Pacers received: Ivica Zubac and Kobe Brown
Clippers acquired: Bennedict Mathurin, Isaiah Jackson, Keaton Wagler, 2028 2nd-round pick, 2029 1st-round pick
Zubac is a quality center, but the resume is still missing the big honors. He has never made an All-Star team or an All-NBA squad, though he was second-team All-Defense in 2025 and is still getting better. Indiana needed help in the middle after Myles Turner left in free agency, and the front office made a bold swing for a replacement while still in tank mode.
The timing made the move even more expensive. The Pacers want to contend again with Tyrese Haliburton back in the lineup, and the market for centers has exploded as Victor Wembanyama has broken out. Even so, giving up a top-five pick plus two more draft assets for Zubac was a heavy price.
The Clippers’ punishment doesn’t erase Indiana’s cost. The 2029 first is still part of the transaction, but LA won’t actually receive it.
The NBA now holds the selection, and it simply will not be made. That leaves the Pacers stuck with the loss and no way to reverse it if things go sideways.
There’s already another layer of regret on the Clippers side, too. Bennedict Mathurin was dumped this summer and ended up with the Pelicans after appearing in just 26 games for LA. The former Pacers lottery pick remains a scorer looking for the right fit.
The broader Clippers punishment was massive. They were hit with a $30 million fine, three executives were suspended, and the league said the team circumvented the salary cap to pay Kawhi Leonard. LA has to surrender a first-round pick every year from 2029 through 2033, and the rebuild is starting with almost no draft capital.
For Indiana, the pressure now shifts to Zubac himself. The Pacers need him to be a real difference-maker and a clear upgrade over Turner if they’re going to make a deep playoff run this season.
They were in the NBA Finals and, as the source notes, may have been champions in 2025 if Haliburton hadn’t torn his Achilles in Game 7. With the East loaded, the margin for error is slim.
If Zubac delivers, the trade can still be defended. If he doesn’t, this is the kind of deal that only gets louder with time.
In Other News...
Pacers Rebuild Now Hinges On One Uncomfortable Draft Debate
The Pacers rebuild has reached a familiar and uncomfortable checkpoint, one where the promise of a young core is being judged less by possibility than by what has actually shown up on the floor. Recent drafts were supposed to help sharpen the roster around Tyrese Haliburton, with Jarace Walker going eighth overall and Ben Sheppard landing at 26th overall in 2023, while Chris Mathurin arrived as a sixth-overall pick in an earlier draft. Instead, the bigger conversation has become whether those chances were maximized, or whether Indiana simply passed on the kind of impact talent a contender needs.
For a team trying to move from hopeful to real, the timing matters almost as much as the players themselves. The Pacers needed those picks to produce meaningful rotation pieces and, ideally, more than that, because building a championship-caliber group around Haliburton does not leave much room for wasted swings. The frustration now is not just about individual development, but about how thin the margin has become if those draft bets do not turn into the kind of difference-makers Indiana thought it was adding. [Read more 🡒]