A mock NBA expansion draft has the Indiana Pacers losing Jay Huff.
Las Vegas and Seattle are reportedly moving closer to getting NBA expansion teams, as Shams Charania of ESPN reports that the process for gathering bids for an expansion team in Las Vegas "has moved with more pace than Seattle, but those Seattle conversations are continuing as well."
Charania added that "the league has been targeting as soon as the 2028-29 season for the start of these expansion teams."
In the wake of Charania's report, Bleacher Report NBA analysts Dan Favale and Grant Hughes wrote a mock NBA expansion draft, and in the mock draft, the Indiana Pacers lose Jay Huff to the Las Vegas team.
"Jay Huff was a per-minute star with the Memphis Grizzlies in 2024-25 and performed similarly for the Indiana Pacers in an expanded role last season. He won't be asked to start, as Turner is ahead of him on the depth chart, but Huff brings similarly valuable shooting and shot-blocking to a backup role. In theory, the team can play with the same spacing regardless of which big man is on the floor. Huff joined Turner and Victor Wembanyama as the only players (minimum 500 minutes) to average at least 2.0 blocks and 2.0 made threes per 36 minutes in 2025-26. At $2.7 million, the price was right, too."
Huff played in all 82 games for the Pacers last season. He averaged 9.5 points, 4.0 rebounds and 1.5 assists per game while shooting 47.6% from the field, 31.9% from beyond the arc and 82.8% from the foul line.
Huff enters next season with career averages of 7.3 points, 2.8 rebounds and 1.0 assists per game. He's played for the Los Angeles Lakers, Washington Wizards, Denver Nuggets, Memphis Grizzlies and Pacers.
It will be intriguing to see when the NBA adds new teams. Las Vegas is the hot spot everyone is looking at.
Several active groups are looking to pay the $7 to $10 billion fee to land the top prize. Sands CEO and majority owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Patrick Dumont, led a group of interested parties looking at Las Vegas arena sites.
“There is real excitement around the potential NBA sites, including a renovated T-Mobile arena,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said at his New York office. “At the same time, there are groups who have presented plans to build what I would call a modern entertainment palace in Las Vegas.”
