The Indiana Pacers knocked their offseason out of the park.

It all started on draft day. Before the 2023 NBA Draft even started, the Pacers, who entered the draft with four of the top 32 picks, traded the Nos. 29 and 32 overall picks to the Denver Nuggets in return for a 2024 first-round pick. With two first-round picks still in their arsenal, they selected Jarace Walker 8th overall (and received two second-round picks from the Washington Wizards to move down one spot to get the player they wanted anyway) and sharpshooter Ben Sheppard 26th overall.

Then they traded Chris Duarte (who fell out of their rotation) to the Sacramento Kings for two more second-round picks, finishing a flurry of draft activity by swapping those second-rounders for Opi Toppin, criminally underutilized with the New York Knicks. Toppin will be very fun next to Tyrese Haliburton.

To top it all off, Indiana paid Bruce Brown a hefty, short-term bag (two years $45 million) to ditch the champion Denver Nuggets to join the Pacers. Oh, and they re-signed Haliburton to a max extension.

This summer couldn't have gone any better for the Pacers. It went so well, in fact, that you could argue it went too well. Indiana has a lot of young players that need minutes for development and a few vets who deserve minute,  too. It's a great problem to have, but it could be a problem nonetheless. As the 2023-24 season begins to dawn, the Pacers simply have too many good players to play.

Pacers' biggest roster concern deep into 2023 NBA free agency

Stacked depth chart

The Pacers' depth chart bares out this predicament.

It seems prudent to assume that Haliburton, Bennedict Mathurin, Brown, Walker and Myles Turner will start. Backing those guys up will likely be TJ McConnell, Andrew Nembhard, Buddy Hield, Toppin, and either Jalen Smith or Isaiah Jackson. That's 11 players already without mentioning Sheppard, Aaron Nesmith (who started 60 games last season and shot 36.6% from deep on 4.3 attempts per game and can defend multiple positions), or Jordan Nwora, who played well after getting dealt by the Milwaukee Bucks at the trade deadline.

All of those guys could be rotation players tomorrow. Some players are inevitably going to be traded.

It would probably be an easy sell for head coach Rick Carlisle to cut Nwora from the rotation. He played well for the Pacers last season, but he played a lot of games when Indiana was out of playoff contention and wasn't a draft pick made by the organization. Sheppard will likely spend the majority of his rookie season playing in the G League. As long as Turner is healthy, playing both Jackson and Smith isn't the best allocation of minutes.

Cut three out and Indy is down to an 11-man rotation—still too many players.

That leads to trade speculation regarding Hield and McConnell. Both of these guys are in their 30s, playing with a young core that is mostly below 25 years of age. Hield is entering the last season of his contract, while just over half of McConnell's salary in 2024-25 is guaranteed. That type of combination seems ripe for a potential trade.

Hield and McConnell would both garner a ton of interest on the trade market. Hield is still one of the best shooters in the NBA. There were just 14 players in the NBA last season who launched at least eight threes per game, and the only one who shot better from distance than Hield was Stephen Curry.  McConnell is one of the best backup point guards in the NBA.

The Pacers could easily get value for them, future draft equity or young prospects that would help the organization's long-term trajectory more than an aging Hield and McConnell would playing out next season on expiring contracts.

Indiana's problem is a good one to have. But the Pacers can trim their rotation down to nine and still be chalk full of very good players who fit together and will be tough to play against. There is a lot of optimism in Indianapolis, and rightfully so, the Pacers still have some things to sort out as 2023-24 approaches.