Pacers coach Rick Carlisle sounds off on NBA's 'ridiculous' process investigating team's alleged tanking efforts

When he was first asked for his thoughts about the Indiana Pacers receiving a $100,000 fine for violating the NBA’s Player Participation Policy by sitting several players during a game against the Utah Jazz — a penalty levied for what NBA commissioner Adam Silver called “overt behavior [...] that prioritizes draft position over winning” — Rick Carlisle kept his response brief.

"I have no idea," Carlisle told reporters at the Pacers’ first post-All-Star break practice last Tuesday, according to Dustin Dopirak of the Indianapolis Star. "And really no comment on it.”

On Tuesday, though, during an interview with Indianapolis radio station 107.5 The Fan, Carlisle offered more expansive comments, calling the process of the investigation that preceded the fine “shocking” and “ridiculous.”

“Yeah, you know, I didn't agree with it,” Carlisle told hosts Kevin Bowen and James Boyd. “There was a league lawyer that was doing the interview that kind of unilaterally decided that Aaron Nesmith, who had been injured the night before and couldn't hold the ball, should have played in the game, which just seems ridiculous.

“And during the interview process — I was not on it, but I heard details — we asked them if they wanted to talk to the doctors, our doctors, about it, because it's something that was documented by our doctors and trainers. They said no, they didn't need to, they talked to their doctors, who did not examine Aaron Nesmith. And we asked them if they wanted to talk to the kid, and they said no, they didn't need to. So this was shocking. This was shocking to me.

“And during the interview, they also asked if we considered medicating him to play in a game when we were 30 games under .500. So I was very surprised. You know, obviously didn't agree with it.”

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“Coach Carlisle’s description of the process that went into the decision to fine the Indiana Pacers is inaccurate,” a league spokesperson told Yahoo Sports on Tuesday. “An independent physician led the medical review. In addition, the Pacers’ General Manager and the team’s Senior Vice President, Sports Medicine and Performance were interviewed as part of the process. The Pacers confirmed that it had provided all of the information requested by the league and the team reported that an interview with Coach Carlisle or a team physician wasn’t necessary.”

The $100,000 fine stemmed from the Pacers’ Feb. 3 game against the Jazz. Indiana entered at 13-37, the worst record in the Eastern Conference, mired in a lost season after losing Tyrese Haliburton to a ruptured Achilles tendon in Game 7 of the 2025 NBA Finals, seeing starting center Myles Turner leave for Milwaukee in free agency, and sustaining a string of significant injuries to other contributors early in the season. Utah came in at 15-35, in 13th place in the West, struggling through a fourth straight losing season as it continues to try to rebuild after trading away former franchise cornerstones Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert.

Such a matchup could have significant ramifications at the bottom of the league’s standings, where the teams with the worst records wind up with the highest odds of landing a top pick in the annual NBA Draft Lottery.

In the second game of a five-game Eastern road trip, Utah ruled Jusuf Nurkić out for rest; sat Keyonte George with a left ankle sprain; and kept Lauri Markkanen on the bench for the final six minutes and 19 seconds. On the second night of a back-to-back, the Pacers held Pascal Siakam and Bennedict Mathurin out to rest; sat Andrew Nembhard and T.J. McConnell to manage injuries to their lower back and left knee, respectively; and sidelined Nesmith with the left hand strain that Carlisle said on the radio on Tuesday he’d suffered in the previous night’s loss against Houston.

The Jazz went on to win, 131-122, with second-year guard Isaiah Collier playing the full 48 minutes, scoring 17 points and delivering a career-high 22 assists.

In a Feb. 12 statement announcing the $100,000 fine, the NBA took issue with Indiana’s roster management on that particular night.

“Following an investigation, including review by an independent physician, the NBA determined that Pascal Siakam, a star player under the Policy, and two other Pacers starters, neither of whom participated in the game, could have played under the medical standard in the Policy, including by playing reduced minutes. Alternatively, the team could have held the players out of other games in a way that would have better promoted compliance with the Policy.”

Under the NBA’s Player Participation Policy, a “star” player is one who has made an All-Star or All-NBA team within the previous three seasons, and/or the All-Star Game in the current season. Siakam has earned consecutive All-Star selections.