The New Orleans Pelicans used an extra future first-round pick to get an additional selection in this year’s draft. The Indiana Pacers created some salary flexibility for the upcoming season, while re-acquiring their own first-rounder in 2026.

Here are the particulars:

New Orleans Pelicans acquire: 2025 23rd overall pick, draft rights to Mojave King

Indiana Pacers acquire: their own 2026 first-round pick

Note: This trade was allowed to be completed now, despite the Indiana Pacers currently playing in the NBA Finals, because it did not include any active players.

Let’s dive in!

New Orleans Pelicans

Incoming salary: $0.0 million in 2024-25

  • None

Outgoing salary: $0.0 million in 2024-25

  • None

The New Orleans Pelicans have reportedly been aggressive about trying to move up in the 2025 NBA Draft. New Orleans already held the seventh overall pick and now add an additional first-round with the 23rd pick. That could give New Orleans the capital needed to move up by a few picks.

The Pelicans are reportedly fans of Ace Bailey. Recent buzz has Bailey dropping some in the draft. New Orleans could be looking to move up in the draft by a few selections to select Bailey. If that’s what drove this trade, then hats off to the Pelicans. The pick they traded is unlikely to be any better than the one they got in this deal. If that’s enough to get them the player they want in the draft, that’s solid work.

If New Orleans keeps both of their first-round picks, they’ll be able to add two cost-controlled players. The cap sheet cleans up considerably starting in 2026. Having two young players on rookie scale deals would only help things even further.

Getting Mojave King’s draft rights gives the Pelicans something to put in a future deal, should they need to be in position to send out something to make a trade legal. It’s unlikely King will ever play in the NBA, as he struggled throughout two G League seasons. Last year, King played a bit better in Australia and New Zealand, but he has a long way to go before he’d be NBA-ready.

Indiana Pacers

Incoming salary: $0.0 million in 2024-25

  • None

Outgoing salary: $0.0 million in 2024-25

  • None

This was a really smart piece of “kicking the can down the road” by the Pacers. Indiana is committed to going into the luxury tax to re-sign Myles Turner this summer. Now, they’ll have a bit more flexibility with the tax then they did before this trade.

The 23rd pick holds a rookie scale value of just over $3.2 million. That’s now $3.2 million the Pacers don’t have to put on their books next season. That won’t be the difference between re-signing Turner or not. Indiana knows they’ll have to go into the tax to get that done.

But that could be the difference between re-signing Turner and filling out the roster to 15 players. If the Pacers can create a bit more wiggle room, it could even be the difference with using the Taxpayer MLE. It’s unlikely Indiana will get to a point where they can use the full Non-Taxpayer MLE, but the Taxpayer MLE should have decent spending power this summer. That’s especially true if the team targets a better backup center than the ones they had behind Turner this year. Also, if Indiana wants to re-sign Isaiah Jackson to fill the backup five role, this may have created the savings to do so.

In addition, by re-acquiring their own pick in 2026, the Pacers freed up some draft capital for future trades. Because that pick was previously top-four protected, it tied up Indiana’s picks in 2026, 2027 and 2028. Now, the Pacers will be free and clear to trade any of their first-round picks from 2026 and forward.

This deal won’t make waves, but these are the sort of small, but smart moves that teams need to make to keep their core together for as long as possible. Being a small market team, Indiana’s willingness to pay the tax to keep their NBA Finals group together is admirable. But there are limits to just how much tax they will pay. This deal lessened that pressure by a decent amount, while not really changing their draft pick situation all that much.