INDIANAPOLIS — Chad Buchanan wanted to be clear that he’s not out on a limb on Braden Smith.
The Pacers’ general manager and their latest draft pick go way back. Buchanan’s son Trey, who is heading into his junior season at South Dakota State, played with Smith at Westfield High School and also the grassroots travel basketball team coached by Smith’s father. Buchanan told college coaches who weren’t recruiting Smith that they should be, and was the first person with legitimacy in the industry who told Smith he’d someday be an NBA player.
But the Pacers didn’t trade into the second round of the NBA draft on Wednesday night to take Smith with the 38th pick based solely on Buchanan’s intuition or the desire to draft a local player who would sell both Pacers and Noblesville Boom jerseys in Hamilton County. The Pacers wouldn’t have selected Smith if their other top executives — president of basketball operations Kevin Pritchard and executive vice president of basketball operations Ted Wu — didn’t come to the same conclusion.
“I know the story out there is my relationship with the family,” Buchanan said in a press conference Thursday at the Ascension St. Vincent Center. “But this was a group decision. Our job is to bring in players who can help our culture and help our team. It’s not where they’re from or who knows them. … The fact that he is a local player and a Purdue player, I know it’s a story but that’s not the reason why we drafted Braden Smith. We believe in him as a player. Our whole group does.”
They believe in Smith in spite of lack of size, Buchanan said, because he’s proven he can overcome that obstacle before.
At the NBA Draft Combine in May, Smith measured as the shortest and lightest player in event at 5 foot 10 1/4, 166.6 pounds. But he’s so small that he was also undersized in high school and college. He still set all-time records in points and assists at Westfield and won Mr. Basketball in 2022, then earned All-America honors twice at Purdue and finished as the all-time NCAA Division I record holder in career assists.
The gap between Smith and the biggest players will be larger, but he’s used to having to find a way.
“Braden from the very beginning up until today has a competitive will that is very hard to put a measure on and a value on,” Buchanan said. “He’s always won. He impacts winning. I was talking to (Purdue) coach (Matt) Painter about him and the biggest thing he said was he impacts winning. Which is really the best quality that you could ask for for a player to hear from their coach. He’s tough. He loves the game. High basketball IQ. He’s overcome a lot of challenges and this will be the biggest challenge he’s faced.”
The Pacers have seen undersized players overcome that challenge and be successful in the NBA, and they’ve in particular seen that in veteran point guard T.J. McConnell. He is listed — perhaps generously — at 6-1 but he’s established himself as one of the best backup point guards in the NBA because of his full-court tenacity on defense and break-neck pace on offense that allows him to get into the paint seemingly at will. Smith’s game isn’t quite the same as Purdue doesn’t play with the same kind of pace the Pacers do, but Buchanan sees enough necessary similarities in their approach.
“T.J. plays with great energy, great fight,” Buchanan said. “He doesn’t back down. He’s fearless. Braden exhibits a lot of those same qualities. Being real, it’s a challenge. You’re small, you have to separate yourself from other players, but Braden has been able to do that at every level.”
What separates Smith, Buchanan said, is his ability to efficiently run an offense in such a way that it always produces a quality shot, whether he’s the one taking it, making the pass that leads to the shot or setting someone else up to make that pass. In each of his four seasons, Purdue finished in the top 15 in Division I in adjusted offensive efficiency according to the analytics website KenPom.com, and this season the Boilermakers finished No. 1. He averaged 7.4 assists per game against 2.7 turnovers per game and averaged 13.0 points per game for his career.
“It’s just his vision of what’s going on around him,” Buchanan said. “We’re a team that wants guys to make quick decisions. That’s what coach (Rick) Carlisle values. We try to get guys who can catch and make a quick decision with the ball. That’s Braden. That’s what he does. He sees what’s going on. He knows what all nine other players are doing, where they’re at, where they’re moving to. That’s a special trait. I think that fits into the way we like to play is just his instinct. His IQ fits into coach Carlisle’s system.”
Defensively, Smith obviously has some limitations and there is an expectation that teams will try to attack him and post him up. He will most likely be required to defend ball-handlers, and when he is playing for the Pacers he’ll probably be asked to try to pick up for 94 feet and apply the pressure that made the Pacers such a tough team to deal with in the 2025 playoffs.
That will be an adjustment because Smith didn’t have that kind of assignment at Purdue. However, he also averaged 34.0 minutes per game for his career including 37.0 minutes per game as a junior and was the primary ball-handler. With the Pacers for the foreseeable future he’ll be coming off the bench and playing smaller stints, which would allow him to use more energy.
“We actually talked to him about that in the pre-draft process,” Buchanan said. “He said, ‘You know, I had to kind of conserve my energy on the defensive end because there was a lot on my plate making things happen offensively. I do think in limited minutes he has the ability to do some of the things guarding the ball, really getting under the ball-handler things like that. His anticipation off the ball is elite. That’s why he gets a lot of steals. The size part, he’s going to have to maintain the ball coming at him. Guys are going to see a smaller player. Their instinct is going to be to attack him. He’s going to have to fight.”
It helps, of course, that the Pacers were able to draft Smith in a limited risk scenario. Though the contract hasn’t been signed yet, the Pacers anticipate that Smith will sign a two-way contract, which will not count against their salary cap figure. By trading Kam Jones to the Bulls for the pick and not putting Smith on a standard contract, the Pacers save about $2 million that should help them in free agency.
“Having more flexibility going into this offseason is a benefit to us,” Buchanan said. “We really like the core of this group. We’re trying to find some pieces to add to the depth to it. Every little bit you can get to help you do that is important for us.”
Dustin Dopirak covers the Pacers all season. Get more coverage on IndyStarTV and with the Pacers Insider newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Pacers believe Braden Smith ‘can make quick decisions,’ is match for coach Rick Carlisle’s system
Reporting by Dustin Dopirak, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
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By Dustin Dopirak, Indianapolis Star | USA TODAY Network
