On draft night in 2023, the Washington Wizards and Indiana Pacers swapped their selections at no. 7 and no. 8. The Wizards sent Jarace Walker to Indiana minutes after drafting him, and in return the Pacers sent Bilal Coulibaly to the Wizards.
The two have had markedly different careers thus far despite being swapped one-for-one on draft night. With Walker currently three wins away from an NBA championship as a member of the Pacers, how does that trade stack up in retrospect?
The Jarace Walker angle
Walker has made back-to-back Eastern Conference Finals as a very marginal contributor to the Indiana Pacers. The Pacers are a deep, masterfully-constructed roster, but Walker does not figure into that depth at this stage of his career.
He played sparingly as a rookie and has spent quite a bit of time in the G League through two seasons. His sophomore year output clocked in at 6 points and 3 rebounds per game in just about 15 minutes of action per night.
During the Pacers’ Finals run this season, Walker has been a little-used reserve and has been seen as less critical to the Pacers’ success than Tony Bradley. He only appeared in two games in the Eastern Conference Finals versus the Knicks, and now he is out for the first two games of the NBA Finals with a sprained ankle.
The Bilal Coulibaly angle
Coulibaly is not quite lighting the NBA on fire, but at his young age he’s already demonstrated his capabilities as one of the better and more versatile defensive players in the NBA. His offensive game is still very much a work in progress, but he shows flashes of downhill ability despite not having developed a consistent jump shot quite yet.
Coulibaly is a valuable member of the Wizards’ young core, but he’s not a franchise player and projects more as a great 3-and-D role player than as an All-Star at the NBA level.
The verdict
Re-evaluating this trade is difficult since Coulibaly has had a much, much longer runway to develop his game than Walker has. Considering Walker plays for a team that might win the NBA Finals and Coulibaly plays for a team that… might not… there’s not exactly an apples-to-oranges comparison here.
I think two things are true at the same time: the Wizards are thrilled to have Bilal Coulibaly around, but the Pacers are not sitting around regretting the day they traded him. They’re a little busy to be doing that at the moment.