Indiana Pacers must manage the availability of two-way contract players

WASHINGTON – The Indiana Pacers have a player availability puzzle they need to draft through the 2025-26 season, with all three of their players on two-way contracts.

Currently, the Pacers have signed Jalen Slawson, Ethan Thompson and Taelon Peter to two-way deals. Thompson and Peter have been helpful at various points this season and all three players are currently healthy. They all plan to play a bigger role in the Pacers’ final outings of the season.

But not all of them can play in every game thanks to two-way contract rules, and the Pacers will have to juggle the availability of each player. Indiana has already played several games since the All-Star break with only one or two of their two-way signees available to play.

That’s because two-way contracts have a cap: players under such a contract can only appear in 50 games per season (or a pro-rata ratio of 50/82 games at the time of signing, based on the number of days remaining in the season). The Pacers were unable to make ends meet without their contract players at various points this season due to injuries, with Peter active for 23 of the team’s first 25 games and Thompson for every game from December 1 through January 17.

During those stretches, Indiana needed their two-way players to field a team or a rotation that actually made sense. It wasn’t a bad way to spend their active days. But that mutual use early in the season now requires the Pacers to be strategic in the 2025-2026 stretch. They have 22 games left this season, but won’t be able to use their two-way talents in all of them.

Peter, a rookie selected in the second round of last June’s NBA Draft, had a string of games to open the campaign, and he has 14 more appearances this league year. “He’s figuring out what it means to be a professional basketball player,” Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle said earlier this month about Peter and his growth during the season. “It’s about being who you are all the time, no matter what you make or what you miss. Just keep playing, just stay aggressive.”

Thompson was signed on November 30, allowing him to play in 39 games this season. He only has ten left. Thompson was immediately effective with the Pacers and played often after signing. He was named to the NBA G League Next Up game, essentially the G League All-Star game, for his performance during this campaign.

Slawson signed his contract earlier today and is eligible to make 13 appearances for the Pacers. So with 22 games remaining, none of the team’s two-way contract players can be active for every remaining game. The team will have to figure out the best strategy when it comes to managing the availability of two-way players during the final months of the season.

Another consideration for the franchise is that two-way players, by virtue of their contracts, can be moved to the G League at any time. Peter, Slawson and Thomspon have played a combined 64 games this season with Indiana’s G League team, the Noblesville Boom. Once Boom’s season ends — their last scheduled game is March 26, but the team currently has a playoff spot — the G League won’t be an option for two-way players.

So the Pacers need to figure out the best way to use and evaluate their two-way signees in March and April. It’s a lot to manage.

“We’re trying to save games for him,” Carlisle said of the Pacers’ decision to hold Quenton Jackson, who was previously on a two-way contract, inactive for a game earlier this month. “We want to preserve those games as much as possible.”

Jackson had his contract converted from a two-way deal to a standard deal earlier today, and Slawson filled his two-way slot. It was a sharp case for the Pacers, but they lost a number of available two-way days as a result – Jackson had more than thirteen games remaining, but Slawson will get fewer due to the day he signed his contract.

“Two-way guys, your lives are full of unpredictability of where you’re going to be day to day,” Pacers general manager Chad Buchanan said in February.

If the Pacers want to keep their two-way talents around the NBA club as much as possible, their best course of action might be to keep two of the three active in every game and occasionally have only one of the three available. If the team can get to a spot where they have 15 games left on the schedule and all of their two-way talent still has 10+ games left in which they could be active, two of the three could play every night during the final 15 games. It could be difficult to use all three at once, although Indiana could opt to use Thompson, Peter and Slawson on the second night of the back-to-backs as they need to manage injuries along the way. Placing one of the three players in the G League for a few days is also an option, but comes with injury risks.

Slawson has not played for the Pacers yet this season. Peter is averaging 3.3 points per game while shooting 35.8% from the field, while Thompson is posting 4.9 points per game and knocking down 36.7% of his shots. The Pacers are 15-45 with three back-to-backs and three games remaining against teams close to them in the reverse standings.