According to a source, Mojave King, the 47th pick in the second round of the NBA Draft, will be a draft-and-stash for the Indiana Pacers.
You may be asking yourself, “What does that exactly mean? Have the Pacers done this in the past?” Great questions, hypothetical reader.
King, a New Zealand native, will continue to develop and play overseas—perhaps back in the NBL in Australia—while the Pacers will retain his draft rights and be able to sign him in the future. Essentially, drafting him now is the team calling dibs for if/when becomes an NBA-level player.
With the Pacers limited in both open roster and 2-way slots, this gives them the flexibility to have a prospect in King without him being with the organization this season and using up their roster space. He entered the draft after spending one season with the G-League Ignite alongside fellow 2023 draftees Scoot Henderson, Leonard Miller, and Sidy Cissoko.
In the future, if the Pacers feel he’s ready to contribute to their NBA roster and have room for him, they’ll be able to sign King at that time. Depending on his contract with his overseas team, he could even come over in the middle of a season if his deal has an out clause. There are buyout clauses at times as well with draft-and-stash players that would involve the Pacers and/or King paying the overseas organization a set amount to end his contract with that team early so he could come to the NBA. They can also trade his draft rights at any time.
After the team reportedly had agreed with Oscar Tshiebwe, rebounding machine, on a 2-way contract, it was clear that one of the second-round picks the last two seasons (Kendall Brown, Isaiah Wong, and King) would have to be the odd man out with the team having three 2-way slots available with the new CBA. With King being stashed, Brown and Wong could slide right into the final 2-way slots.
The Pacers plan with King makes their second-round decisions make a lot more sense than it did in the moment from a roster construction standpoint when it felt like they were overly adding to their collection of guards and wings that are 6’5” and under. Wong now will likely serve in the emergency point guard role that saw Trevelin Queen get occasional looks with the Pacers last season when needed but he spent the vast majority of his time with the G-League team.
While Indiana still needs forwards even after drafting Jarace Walker and keeping the athletic Brown on a 2-way, having one available roster space left leaves them some room to address that hole in free agency or in the trade market.
Indiana historically has not made these type of moves often. While they have traded away or sold picks to other teams that then used them on players that were stashed overseas multiple times in recent history, they haven’t done so themselves since 2007 when they drafted Stanko Barác in the second round. He never came to the NBA and the Pacers included his draft rights in a trade to the Dallas Mavericks in 2016 where the Pacers acquired Jeremy Evans and the rights to another stash player in Emir Preldzic.
In 2006, the Pacers drafted Erazem Lorbek as a draft-and-stash. He never made it to the NBA and his draft rights were traded along with the draft rights of Kawhi Leonard to the Spurs in 2011 for George Hill. The Spurs did have him join their Summer League team in 2016, 11 years after he was drafted. Lorbek was a very accomplished player in Europe.
The most recent player the Pacers have stashed that eventually joined the team is Primož Brezec. Indiana drafted him 27th overall in 2000 and then he joined the team one year later in 2001. He spent three years with the Pacers but never cracked the rotation. He had a couple solid seasons as a starter for the Charlotte Bobcats who took him in the 2004 expansion draft and played in the NBA for eight seasons in total.
Going back farther, the Pacers best stash pick was Antonio Davis who was drafted in 1990 but played in Europe for three years before signing with the team. He’d become a key member of those ‘90s Pacers teams and played with the team for six years.
We can only wait and see how things will turn out this time. The Pacers should get their first look at King and their other draftees during Summer League in Las Vegas with the first game coming on July 8th. Perhaps King will out-perform expectations to the point where the Pacers decide to change their plans with him. You never know.
iPacers - Indiana Pacers News 
[…] Source […]
LikeLike
[…] King is a planned draft-and-stash—the Pacers first since 2007—but in theory if the second-round pick played unbelievably well he could end up with one of the […]
LikeLike
[…] will be the team’s first draft-and-stash they’ve taken since 2007. The Pacers and King’s first Summer League game is Saturday night against the […]
LikeLike