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The Indiana Pacers have been steadily righting the ship after a bit of a topsy-turvy start to the 2024-25 season. On Friday night, the Pacers won their fourth game in a row, taking advantage of the shorthanded Golden State Warriors en route to a 108-96 victory — their fifth win in a row. They are now all the way up to sixth in the Eastern Conference standings with a 21-18 record, and it looks as though Tyrese Haliburton has put a rough start to the campaign completely in the rearview mirror.
Considering that Aaron Nesmith, their best perimeter defender, has been missing for most of the season, the Pacers have done quite well, with Bennedict Mathurin flourishing in a starting role. The addition of Thomas Bryant appears to have brought some semblance of stability to their frontcourt as well, especially after the season-ending injuries to Isaiah Jackson and James Wiseman.
The reigning Eastern Conference finalist, however, may still have some room to bolster the roster, particularly on the wings. Their defense still ranks in the bottom 10 in the league, as this part of the game has remained their most glaring weakness even after stabilizing their season over the past few weeks or so.
Nesmith's return should help a lot in that regard. Nonetheless, the Pacers could do well in striking while the iron is hot, capitalizing on the trade value of a youngster on their roster who can't seem to fashion for himself a bigger role in the rotation.
Here is the player the Pacers may have to trade soon.
Can the Pacers capitalize on Jarace Walker's trade value?
Coming out of college, Jarace Walker stood out as a prospect who can do it all; as a 6'8″ forward, Walker was active on the glass, a livewire on defense, and his offense was also growing. His range stood out, and his potential utility as a swiss-army knife who can space the floor made him very much deserving of being the eighth overall pick of the 2023 NBA Draft.
However, even amid the Pacers' injury problems on the wings and on the frontcourt, Walker hasn't been more than a 15 to 20 minute player in head coach Rick Carlisle's rotation. And it's not as though Walker has a clear path to a bigger role for the Pacers moving forward, with Aaron Nesmith set to complicate the wing rotation picture for Indiana and both Pascal Siakam and Myles Turner being safe in their starting roles for the foreseeable future.
This is not to say that Walker is someone that the Pacers should just give up on. But if he won't have a chance to develop into something more than a bench piece, then Indiana might be better off utilizing him as a trade chip to bring in someone who could improve the team's defense.
The complicating factor, of course, is that Walker is still under his rookie-scale contract, which would make it difficult for the Pacers to bring in someone who could help them make a deep playoff run via trade. They may have to attach Walker to Obi Toppin's contract, and it doesn't seem like Indiana is willing to do this, as it guts them of some precious frontcourt depth.
But Walker's trade value is just going to decline if he stays in this role for the Pacers. So it might be better off for them to trade him away while they can still sell other teams on his potential rather than to wait too late and pay the price.
