How Kyrie Irving being traded to the Dallas Mavericks impacts the Indiana Pacers

The Mavericks and Nets big trade impacts every team in some way

Kyrie Irving has been officially traded to the Dallas Mavericks. The Brooklyn Nets sent Irving, along with Markieff Morris, to the Mavs in exchange for Dorian Finney-Smith, Spencer Dinwiddie, a 2029 unprotected first round draft pick, and second round draft compensation.

This is far and away the most significant trade of the 2022-23 NBA season so far. Two playoff teams swapped important pieces, and Irving may end up being the best player traded this year. It's a seismic move.

The Indiana Pacers aren't directly involved. But when a trade this substantial happens, most teams around the league are impacted in some way. This deal is no different.

The most obvious impact that this has on the Pacers comes in the 2023 NBA Draft. Indiana owns Cleveland's 2023 first-round draft pick with lottery protection, meaning that if the Cavaliers make the playoffs, the Pacers get their first-round pick.

The Nets had a better record than the Cavs at the time this trade went down. Now though, without Irving, Brooklyn will likely be a worse team, and they have already fallen behind the Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference standings since the trade. The Mavericks, meanwhile, are an improved squad, but they are still a few games behind Cleveland in terms of record.

Add all of that up, and this Dallas-Brooklyn trade means that it's more likely that the Cavaliers make the playoffs this season and send their pick to the Pacers. However, it also means that the pick could end up being slightly worse. If the season ended today, that pick would be 26th overall.

The other possibly major ripple effect that the Irving trade has on the Pacers requires a trip to Los Angeles. The Lakers did not end up acquiring Irving despite reportedly making an offer that included two first-round draft picks. The purple and gold will need to look for upgrades elsewhere.

LA and Indiana have been linked since last summer in various deals, including ones involving the Lakers future draft picks. Had Los Angeles dealt those picks to the Nets, they wouldn't have been able to use them in a deal with the Pacers. Now, though, they still can.

That isn't just limited to this season. The Lakers have had reported interest in both Buddy Hield and Myles Turner, and both of those players are under contract with Indiana next season. If LA wants to make a strong offer for the pair again in the future, they still have that option since they didn't end up dealing any picks for Irving.

Dallas also has fewer assets to trade in the future if they are ever to be interested in Hield or Turner. The inverse is true of Brooklyn. Big trades like this end up impacting every team in the league in some way, shape, or form, and this one is no different.

The trade deadline for the ongoing season is February 9, which is in two days. The Pacers could go a number of directions leading up to that date.

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