Indiana Pacers Plan To Sign Guard Taelon Peter To Two-Way Contract

INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Pacers plan to sign rookie guard Taelon Peter to a two-way contract.

The Pacers selected Peter with the 54th overall selection in the 2025 NBA Draft. The first-year player comes to Indiana from Liberty University, where he played his fifth and final season of college basketball.

At Liberty, Peter was one of the most efficient play finishers in the NCAA ranks. He canned 45.3% of his 170 three-point attempts while knocking down 75.6% of his two-point looks. Few players combined his athleticism and jump shooting ability, which is why he was a draft-worthy prospect despite coming off the bench for a Conference USA program.

“He’s got this rare combination of explosive athleticism and really good skill,” Liberty head coach Ritchie McKay said of Peter.

“He was willing to trade the things that would give him shine, attention, credibility, whatever, for what was going to be something that the team could benefit from. And that’s who Taelon Peter is,” McKay added.

Those traits and skills led Peter to the NBA, and specifically to the Pacers. He had to earn his two-way deal, though. Indiana entered the offseason with guard RayJ Dennis already under contract with one of the team’s three allowed two-way agreements, and Quenton Jackson quickly signed another one. That left one open slot for Peter, and he certainly had some competition, particularly in second-year big man Enrique Freeman.

Freeman performed well in summer league, and he spent his first season with the blue and gold. But the Pacers pulled Freeman’s qualifying offer on Tuesday, making him an unrestricted free agent and simultaneously indicating that Freeman is not in their future plans.

That proved to be correct as the team turned to Peter a few days later. The 23-year old will be a part of Indiana’s roster for the coming season.

Why did the Pacers sign Taelon Peter?

Peter averaged 9.5 points, 2.3 rebounds, and 1.8 assists per game during his four appearances for the Pacers during summer league play. His maturity was obvious, and his defense was impressive. He knocked 57.1% of his shot attempts despite struggling from three-point range.

Showing off more skill than just play finishing made Peter the right choice for the Pacers final two-way deal. While Freeman put up numbers, he didn’t fit into the team’s roster as much with four centers already under contract. Given Freeman’s productivity in the summer sessions, he is a candidate to sign a two-way or standard deal with another franchise.

Peter’s two-way agreement with the Pacers is a two-year pact. It gives Indiana more time to develop the guard who has obvious skills but still needs to grow. The Pacers have helped several of their young players improve in recent years under head coach Rick Carlisle’s program.

“The other two-way spot, we’ll probably be looking at Taelon,” Pacers general manager Chad Buchanan said when musing about the final two-way slot earlier this week on the Setting The Pace podcast. “We like a lot of the things that he does as far as playing without the ball – his shooting, his movement. I thought he showed very encouraging signs of defending the ball in Las Vegas.”

A two-way deal allows players to seamlessly split time between their NBA team and said team’s G League affiliate franchise. In this case, Peter will be able to suit up for both the Pacers and the Noblesville Boom. The expectation should be that, barring injuries, much more of his playing time this season will come with the Boom.

Two-way deals come with a salary that is half of the NBA’s rookie minimum, so Peter will make just over $636k this season. Indiana now has 15 players signed to standard contracts and three signed to two-way deals – both of those numbers are the maximum allowed once the regular season starts, though teams can carry 21 players during the offseason. The Pacers roster is nearly complete, barring trades.