Pacers Waive Cam Payne, Make Other Moves To Get Roster Regular Season Ready

INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Pacers made many transactions on Saturday to get their roster ready for the 2025-26 regular season. Entering the day, the team had 21 players under contract – they have to get that number down to 18 (15 standard contracts and three two-way agreements) before the start of the season.

Technically, rosters aren’t finalized until Monday. But players have to clear waivers to not count against the salary cap starting that day, and the waiver process takes 48 hours. So almost every team across the association made several moves on Saturday, and Indiana was included.

Who did the Pacers waive and why?

Following the Pacers cap sheet is instructive as it displays the front office was likely deciding between three players on non-guaranteed contracts: James Wiseman ($1 million guaranteed), Tony Bradley, and Cam Payne. In the end, the most noteworthy player the team parted ways with was Payne.

Payne was signed by the blue and gold just over a week ago after the team lost T.J. McConnell and Delon Wright to injury in the same preseason game. They needed point guard depth for their preseason action and training camp, and that became even more true when two-way player Quenton Jackson went down in the team’s second tune-up game.

Payne ended up playing in three preseason games for Indiana. He averaged 6.7 points and 2.3 assists per game but shot a dismal 28.6% from the field. His performances did him no favors while the team was deciding who to keep into the regular season.

This decision was also about positions. Bradley and Wiseman are both centers, but two of Indiana’s top bigs (Wiseman and Isaiah Jackson) are recovering from Achilles tears suffered in the 2024-25 season. Having more depth at that position does make sense, and Bradley provided consistent play during the team’s recent exhibitions. Wiseman has some guaranteed money in his contract.

Health at center was obviously a factor, but after multiple point guards went down with various injuries, Payne had a chance to matter for the Pacers. But in the team’s final preseason outing, they tinkered with a lineup that contained no nominal point guards and saw some success. Plus, Q. Jackson is healing, and RayJ Dennis can provide depth at the one position if needed.

“Health is obviously a big issue right now, so we’ve got to hope mother nature is kind to us,” Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle said when asked about roster decisions during the week. “We’ve got to have plans if we don’t have all of our guys in the first game or however long it is.”

Entering the season, Bradley and Wiseman will likely stick around for the Pacers, though their contracts are still not completely guaranteed. Their performance will be worth monitoring until all contracts become fully guaranteed in the NBA in early January.

The Pacers still needed to make two more waivers on top of Payne, but the final two cuts were more instructive. Indiana had two players on their training camp roster – Gabe McGlothan and Jalen Slawson – who each signed Exhibit 10 deals that were agreed to with the intention of the player ending up with the Pacers G League affiliate, the Noblesville Boom. In the press release announcing the signing of McGlothan, the Pacers noted he was signing an, “Exhibit 10 contract with the Noblesville Boom.”

Slawson and McGlothan both were waived on Saturday around noon. They each played in all four preseason games for the Pacers this year but had no real shot to make the team’s final roster. Given how banged up the team was throughout training camp, they were valuable bodies to have leading up to the regular season.

What did the Pacers do with their Exhibit 10 deals?

Throughout the summer, Indiana made several other moves involving Exhibit 10 contracts. In late September, both Steven Ashworth and R.J. Felton signed that type of contract with the franchise. They were waived one day later. Since both players are rookies, by being under an Exhibit 10 agreement with an NBA club for a training camp day, their G League rights went to the Boom.

Ditto for Samson Johnson, who played for Indiana’s summer league team alongside Ashworth and Felton. He was signed to an Exhibit 10 deal and waived four days later, and his rights are now with Noblesville. That’s a natural cycle for Exhibit 10 agreements – players on those types of contracts can receive a bonus of up to $85.3k if they report to the G League affiliate of the team they signed with for 60 days.

Technically, an Exhibit 10 deal is a one-year, non-guaranteed minimum-salary NBA contract that can be converted to a two-way contract. But they are almost always used for bonuses and G League rights. The Pacers’ many Exhibit 10 signees had little chance of actually making Indiana’s final 18-player roster.

That goes for players they added on Saturday, too. After moving on from Slawson and McGlothan, the Pacers signed Kyle Guy and Ray Spalding to Exhibit 10 deals, and they were waived later in the day. In Guy’s case, his rights now go to Noblesville. Spalding’s are already there – the Boom acquired his rights in a trade on October 2. Earlier in the offseason, they made the required deals to acquire the rights to Slawson and McGlothan.

After waiving McGlothan and Slawson, then waiving Guy and Spalding, the Pacers roster was down to 19. With Payne cut too, the roster is at 18 with 15 players on standard deals and three on two-way agreements. That means Indiana’s roster is regular season ready – though it is still possible for them to still make moves in the coming days if they see opportunity elsewhere once other franchises waive players.

As things stand, the Pacers are about six million dollars shy of the luxury tax, though they could get farther away during the season if they move on from players on contracts that aren’t fully guaranteed. They open the regular season on Thursday at home against the Oklahoma City Thunder in an NBA Finals rematch.