Pacers front office on this year’s NBA Draft

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The NBA Draft starts on Wednesday night, but the Pacers do not have a first round pick.

The draft is operating under a different format this year, with the two rounds on separate days.

The Pacers have three picks, all of which are in the second round (numbers 36, 49, and 50). So, their draft really kicks into gear on Thursday.

“It’ll be a little different this year with the two night draft,” Pacers general manager Chad Buchanan said. “The first round is on a Wednesday night. It’s like it never happened. We look at is as we have the sixth pick of the draft on Thursday night. So we kind of have a lottery pick, I guess you could say.”

“I think we all have ideas of what’s going to go on after night one and into night two, but we’ll see,” Pacers Vice President of Player Personnel Ryan Carr said. “It allows us a night to reset and look at the board and just formulate a plan.”

But despite not having a pick on Wednesday, Buchanan is leaving the door open for the Pacers to trade up and pick in the first round.

“We’re limited a little bit because we don’t have a first round pick,” Buchanan said. “But that’s not to say we won’t try to be aggressive if there’s something out there to try to help address some needs that we have.”

While the draft is two days long this year, Buchanan said they are not approaching it differently from a preparation standpoint.

“We have needs at maybe a couple different positions potentially as you look at free agency and who’s coming back, who’s not coming back,” Buchanan said. “But with pick 36, we’ll probably try to get the best player we can get and ideally it’s at a position where we have a roster depth need.”

The first round on Wednesday will start at 8 p.m. The second round on Thursday will start at 4 p.m.