Three years ago, he sat on stage at the Draft Lottery with his heart pounding, his lip trembling slightly, willing the ping-pong balls to move in Indiana’s favor. They didn’t, the Pacers stayed at seven, and Haliburton walked away with a stoic shrug and a joke about Victor Wembanyama going West. Sunday in Chicago, the stakes were exponentially higher, and the result was exponentially worse.

Tyrese Haliburton watched the Pacers’ lottery gamble collapse in the most painful way possible, then said everything that needed to be said with a cryptic meme posted on X: “I lost.” Indiana finished 19-63, the worst record in franchise history, and entered Sunday with a 14% chance at the number one pick, tied with the Nets and Wizards for the best odds in the lottery. Instead, the ping-pong balls delivered the cruelest possible outcome: the fifth pick. That number is not just a draft slot. It is the specific number Indiana had spent weeks dreading.

When the Pacers traded Bennedict Mathurin, Isaiah Jackson, and a protected 2026 first-rounder to the LA Clippers in February for Ivica Zubac and Kobe Brown, that protection window covered picks 5 through 9. A top-four result, and Indiana kept the pick. Anything in that band, and the Clippers took it. The ball landed at five. The pick is gone. Los Angeles will now select fifth in one of the deepest drafts in years, while Indiana walks away with Ivica Zubac, Kobe Brown, and no first-round pick.

The context behind Sunday’s disaster is impossible to separate from the twelve months that preceded it. The Pacers were one win from an NBA championship in 2025, and then, in Game 7 of the NBA Finals, Tyrese Haliburton tore his Achilles tendon and Indiana’s window collapsed overnight. Haliburton missed the entire 2025-26 season rehabilitating that injury, the Pacers collapsed to the league’s second-worst record, and the plan was to survive the gap year and emerge with both their franchise point guard and a transformational draft pick to accelerate the rebuild.

That plan is now half of what it was. Tyrese Haliburton is returning. The pick belongs to Los Angeles. The Clippers even trolled the Pacers on social media in the days leading up to the lottery, posting a countdown to pick day as if they were already measuring the curtains, and they were right to.

Indiana has never had the first pick in franchise history. Their last top-five selection came in 1988, when they took Rik Smits second overall. They are a team that, by the evidence of their lottery record, never rises. They only seem to fall. Had they landed in the top four, the targets were generational: AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson, Cameron Boozer, and Caleb Wilson were all in play, any one of whom could have accelerated a return to championship contention alongside a healthy Haliburton. Instead, those names will go to other franchises. And Haliburton, who was recovering from a torn Achilles in an arena somewhere, watching the numbers flip, expressed the entirety of Indiana’s Sunday. 

The Pacers Must Now Rebuild With Haliburton Without a First-Round Pick

The practical consequences of Sunday’s result are immediate and significant. Indiana has just $7.7 million in cap space before hitting the first apron of the luxury tax, a number that severely limits their ability to sign meaningful free agents. The return of a healthy Haliburton is the headline, and it is a genuine one. The Pacers came within one game of a championship with the core of Haliburton, Pascal Siakam, Aaron Nesmith, and Andrew Nembhard. That group is largely intact heading into next season.

The argument Indiana’s front office will make is that a healthy Haliburton is worth more than any lottery pick, and historically, that argument has merit. But Sunday exposed how paper-thin the margin for error is when you trade away a first-rounder with protections and trust the lottery to bail you out.

ESPN’s pre-lottery analysis noted that Darryn Peterson, the most dynamic shooter in the draft, would have been a particularly strong fit in Indiana, capable of thriving alongside Haliburton’s playmaking in ways that could have created one of the league’s most dangerous backcourts. Instead, the Pacers now face the offseason without a first-round pick and with a trade that cost them Mathurin, Jackson, and a protected selection that became a top-five gift to a division rival.

Making another trade is not out of the question; Indiana has enough young talent and salary flexibility to be creative, but the leverage they would have had entering those conversations with a top-four pick has evaporated entirely. Haliburton’s meme was funny. The franchise’s situation on Sunday night was anything but.