[Katz] All signs point to the Indiana Pacers holding on to both Myles Turner and Andrew Nembhard past the trade deadline. The Pacers are not trying to get worse.
Other teams have noticed, dialing up Indiana and making significant offers for the third-year guard who has become an essential contributor. But talks haven’t gone anywhere, according to league sources in contact with Indiana. The Pacers love Nembhard, are confident about the current roster and could break financial tradition next season, paying the luxury tax for the first time in two decades.
Nembhard, a second-round pick in 2022, makes only $2 million this season. Once his extension kicks in for 2025-26, his salary jumps to $18.1 million. Trading Nembhard today for a productive player who also makes a small number could slice eight figures off Indiana’s 2025-26 payroll. Because he wasn’t a first-rounder, Nembhard does not fall victim to a niche provision in the collective bargaining agreement called “base-year compensation,” an eccentricity that often kills the ability to trade a young player whose salary spikes from one year to the next because of a significant extension.
The Pacers, sitting at 26-20, fifth in the East, believe in their team. This deadline, along with however they handle the upcoming summer, will tell the world how much. Indiana is sneakily in one of the league’s most interesting situations heading into next season, when it becomes expensive (possibly too expensive, given the franchise’s history).
The Pacers have not paid the luxury tax since 2005, when salaries were a fraction of what they are today and rules for tax teams were more manageable. Yet, keeping this roster together into 2025-26 would make tax payments inevitable.
As of now, they have 10 players under contract for next season. Those 10 salaries add up to $165 million, only $23 million short of the projected tax line — and that does not include starting center Myles Turner, whose contract expires this summer. Even if Turner, who is having another strong season and makes $20 million now, doesn’t receive a raise, keeping him would mean the Pacers venturing into the tax.
Less than a week from the deadline, all signs point to them not trading Turner, according to league sources. Indiana is not trying to get worse.