Pacers 2022 pre-draft workout attendees
Pacers 2022 pre-draft workout attendees
My annual rundown of Indiana Pacers workouts and which prospects were brought in ahead of the draft — on Thursday, June 23.
The Indiana Pacers have three picks entering draft week, headlined by their first single-digit selection since 1989.
It’s also their highest selection since 1988, when they selected Rik Smits at No. 2.
They have picks 6, 31 and 58. At least for now.
At the draft lottery last month, team president Kevin Pritchard spoke about their situation — with multiple picks, upcoming cap space and players in demand — could help them achieve ambitious goals.
“We have all kinds of optionality and opportunity to do all kinds of things,” he said. “There’s ways to use cap space, there’s players and for us, there’s a way where we really try to improve the team quickly and grab some vets with our cap space. All the way to the end of the spectrum of keeping our cap space, adding some young players, adding one-year deals and having $90 million next year in cap space depending on what happens.
“The gamut of what we do is wide and wider than I’ve ever seen ever in my time in this league. And I like that because now we get to get on the board and look at every scenario. And there won’t be one, there won’t be two, there might be 50 different things we’ll look up on the board.”
This NBA Draft only has 58 picks, so what happened to 59 and 60? Two teams had their second-round pick taken from them as a penalty.
The Milwaukee Bucks were found to have had conversations with former Kings guard Bogdan Bogdanovic and/or his agent prior to the start of free agency in Nov. 2020.
The Miami Heat forfeited their pick after a sign-and-trade agreement for guard Kyle Lowry came out just as free agency began last August. Those deals are complicated and take time. So if done by the rules, there's no way it could have been both done and leaked one minute into the legit communication period.
The 2022 NBA Draft will be held at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Thursday, June 23. It will begin around 7:30 p.m. ET.
“It’s a lot of fun right now,” said Ryan Carr, who runs the draft for the Pacers. “I would say the season to get here wasn't a whole lot of fun. But hopefully this is a reward for all the players, our guys going through a tough season and our whole staff and being able to hopefully help us get back to where we want to be.”
The majority of teams do not publicize who they work out and when. The Pacers have maintained that approach, which is smart. It’s another way to engage the fan base — especially after a difficult 25-win season where they lost 10 in a row to end the season.