Kevin Pritchard on why Pacers didn't get more protection on pick in Zubac trade

CHICAGO -- Kevin Pritchard was hoping the Pacers could get their "cake and eat it too" by being able to land center Ivica Zubac's in February's trade with the Clippers and keep their 2026 first-round pick. As it turned out, however, there was no way they could have done both.

None of the Pacers' lottery combinations came through in Sunday's NBA Draft Lottery and they fell to the No. 5 spot, which means their 2026 first-round pick goes to the Clippers. Picking at No. 5 would have meant the Pacers would have their highest draft pick since they took Rik Smits No. 2 in the 1988 draft, so that's tough for Pritchard to part with, but he said there was no way the Clippers would have made the deal if the Pacers wanted to protect their selection beyond the fourth pick.

"Everybody says, 'Why didn't you protect it a lot deeper?'" Pritchard said Sunday after the lottery. "Unfortunately, we weren't able to. That was the vig for us to get Zu. You look at a lot of these big trades that are out there. You see 4 and 5 and 6 (first-round picks) and (first-round pick) swaps around a star with potential. We think Zu is a great fit for us. At the end of the day, this is what is really important. I felt like, for a championship team, we needed a starting center. That was Priority 1. They've earned the right to try to get a championship. That was not doable protecting this to 8 or 9 or 10 or wherever."

Asked again about the February negotiations, Pritchard said there was no chance the Clippers would have made the trade if the Pacers would have pushed the protection any further.

"It was negotiated," Pritchard said. "And we fought like heck. They're very good negotiators. We would not have gotten Zu if we didn't protect it to 4. That's just it."

And Pritchard said he believed there wasn't an opportunity to get a starting caliber center another way. As deep as the draft is, the center position is one of its weak points. Of the players expected to go in the top four -- BYU's A.J. Dybantsa, Kansas' Darryn Peterson, Duke's Cameron Boozer and North Carolina's Caleb Wilson -- none project as a true center in the NBA. The 6-9 Boozer and the 6-10 Wilson could play the position in some circumstances but are more naturally built to play power forward. Most of the players expected to go between picks 5-9 are point guards, and the centers are likely to take time to develop.