Only one Indiana Pacers transaction during the 2026 offseason so far – via a player going in or out – involved a contract worth more than $3 million on the team’s books in either of the last two seasons.
Kelly Oubre signed a two-year, $16.5 million pact with the franchise in early July. He will carry a cap hit of over $8 million in each of the next two seasons. Outside of that move, one that netted Indiana a solid rotation player, every move made by the Pacers involved a piece on a lower-value contract.
By nature of the money and names, those lower-salary transactions are often viewed as minor. Yet for Indiana, who is nearing the first apron and hard capped at that spending threshold, all of those small transactions were vital to build their roster and add depth.
What were some of the Pacers key lower-salary moves?
The team only has three players who finished last season on its 15-man roster that are no longer signed to a standard contract: Kobe Brown, Kam Jones, and Micah Potter. Jones is now with the Milwaukee Bucks on a two-way deal while Potter went to the Portland Trail Blazers via a waiver claim. Brown, meanwhile, is back with the Pacers on a two-way contract.
Those three combined for a cap hit of about $5.5 million last season. Brown came with the highest cap hit at $2.7 million while Potter ($1.53 million via a prorated minimum deal) and Jones ($1.27 million via the league’s rookie minimum) were signed to even smaller contracts.
So on paper, those Pacers departures coming off of their books don’t seem to add much to the team’s spending power. Yet all three moves were critical to Indiana’s offseason moves.
That’s because the Pacers are now hard capped at the first salary cap apron, meaning they cannot cross $209.015 million in total team salary (plus incentives) for any reason in 2026-27. And right now, the Pacers roster will cost up to $206.8 million.
Indiana is within $2.24 million of the first apron. They can’t even afford to bring in a player on a veteran’s minimum salary. That’s why all of the team’s seemingly small, less consequential moves were actually very important.
Jones, for example, was traded away during the second round of the 2026 NBA Draft. He was dealt to Chicago, along with two future second-round pick swaps and cash considerations, in exchange for the 38th overall pick. The Pacers picked Braden Smith, and he is still unsigned.
If Jones was still on Indiana’s roster right now, he would come with a cap hit of $2.15 million. Technically, the Pacers could have just barely fit that in under the first salary cap apron, but the sequencing of their transactions would have made retaining Jones at that number impossible. After signing Oubre but before waiving Potter, the Pacers were technically within $1.9 million of their first apron hard cap – that means if Jones stayed with the team through his contract guarantee date of June 30, the Pacers wouldn’t have been able to offer Oubre the contract he ultimately signed.
Potter is a factor here as well. His current cap hit for 2026-27 is just over $2.8 million, but his contract is completely non-guaranteed. Indiana waived him earlier in July, then Portland stepped in to grab his deal.
The Pacers used the space created by waiving Potter to sign Larry Nance Jr, a veteran big man who provides some defensive versatility. Swapping out Potter’s cap hit for Nance’s ($2.45 million) freed up some first apron space for Indiana. Without first waiving Potter (or making a different cost-saving move), signing Nance would not have been possible.
That leaves Brown, who re-signed with the blue and gold on a two-way contract. His agreement in 2025-26 was a guaranteed standard deal, yet his two-way pact comes with no salary cap hit. While the Pacers can’t activate Brown for more than 50 games in the coming season, they were able to retain him without impacting their total team spending level at all.
Moving on from Potter and Jones without taking back any money helped the Pacers clear nearly $5 million from their cap sheet. That, plus Brown’s contract going from a $2.7 million standard deal to a two-way agreement, helped the Pacers open up about $7.7 million in total spending power – and that’s just under the amount of Oubre’s first-year salary.
So while the Pacers made many moves involving players on lower – by NBA standards – salary deals (Jones, Potter, Nance Jr, and Brown), those transactions were all a major factor in the team being able to add Oubre and improve during the offseason. And they still could, just barely, add a 15th player if they are so inclined.
Indiana is likely done with any significant moves this summer. Most of their transactions would be seen as minor by outsiders. But they were important pieces of the Pacers offseason puzzle, and the team hopes they’ll be better as a result.
