The Fantasy Basketball Encyclopedia

Player Dossier · Indiana Pacers

Ivica Zubac

Ivica Zubac projects as a middle-round rebounds/FG% center; five Pacers games leave fit uncertainty, while July FIBA action provides direct evidence that his late-season ankle and rib injuries are resolved monitors.

Team: Indiana Pacers · C · Age 29 · Base role: starting center at 30 minutes

Projection card

GP MPG 3PM PTS REB AST STL BLK FG% FT% TO
66 30.0 0.0 14.8 11.2 2.4 0.5 1.0 .615 .690 1.6

Nine-category: top 50-80 per game; rebounds and FG volume lead, with one block and FT drag. Points: top 55-85. Dynasty: top 60-100, matching a stable prime-age center whose non-shooting archetype is replaceable.

Why the line looks like this

Zubac averaged 14.1 points, 10.6 rebounds and 2.2 assists on 59.8% shooting over 48 games. Indiana acquired him February 5, but an ankle sprain delayed his debut and a rib fracture ended the year after only five Pacers starts. He then played productive FIBA minutes in July, so those injuries should not be labeled active at the cutoff. His 2024-25 career year (16.8/12.6 in 32.8 minutes) is the ceiling baseline, not the median. Pacers player review · official trade · NBA/FIBA July report

Hashtag's July crowd ranked him 61st but still displayed LAC; the dynasty page ranked him 60th with the correct IND affiliation. That split is useful evidence of market value and stale-data risk. Hashtag crowd · Hashtag dynasty

Redraft, dynasty, and scenarios

Confidence

Roster Minutes Rates Availability
High Medium-high High Medium

Career record

Pre-NBA: No college. Croatian youth product — Zrinjevac in Croatia's second division (2013-14), then Cibona Zagreb's senior roster from 2014-15 in the Croatian A-1 League and the ABA League, with a 2015 loan to KK Gorica. He left Cibona in February 2016 over the club's financial problems and finished the season with Mega Leks in Serbia, where he posted roughly 13.2 points and 5.2 rebounds in 24.5 minutes across six appearances. His first Cibona senior season was a small sample at about 4.0 points and 3.1 rebounds in 10.3 minutes over 12 games. The louder pre-draft evidence was junior international play: 17.6 points and 7.9 rebounds at the 2015 FIBA U19 World Championship, and 15.8 points and 12.9 rebounds with all-tournament second-team honors at the 2015 FIBA U18 European Championship. Draft: 2016, round 2, pick 32, Los Angeles Lakers.

Season Age Team GP MPG PTS REB AST STL BLK 3PM FG% FT% TO
2016-17 19 LAL 38 16.0 7.5 4.2 0.8 0.4 0.9 0.0 .529 .653 0.8
2017-18 20 LAL 43 9.5 3.7 2.9 0.6 0.2 0.3 0.0 .500 .765 0.6
2018-19 21 LAL/LAC 59 17.6 8.9 6.1 1.1 0.2 0.9 0.0 .559 .802 1.2
2019-20 22 LAC 72 18.4 8.3 7.5 1.1 0.2 0.9 0.0 .613 .747 0.8
2020-21 23 LAC 72 22.3 9.0 7.2 1.3 0.3 0.9 0.0 .652 .789 1.1
2021-22 24 LAC 76 24.4 10.3 8.5 1.6 0.5 1.0 0.0 .626 .727 1.5
2022-23 25 LAC 76 28.5 10.8 9.9 1.0 0.4 1.3 0.0 .634 .697 1.5
2023-24 26 LAC 68 26.4 11.7 9.2 1.4 0.3 1.2 0.0 .649 .723 1.2
2024-25 27 LAC 80 32.8 16.8 12.6 2.7 0.7 1.1 0.0 .628 .661 1.6
2025-26 28 LAC/IND 48 30.1 14.1 10.6 2.2 0.4 0.8 0.0 .598 .711 1.8
Career 632 23.5 10.5 8.3 1.4 0.4 1.0 0.0 .614 .725 1.3

Split seasons. 2018-19: 33 games with the Lakers (15.6 MPG, 8.5/4.9, .580 FG) before the February 2019 trade, then 26 with the Clippers (20.2 MPG, 9.4/7.7, .538 FG). 2025-26: 43 games with the Clippers (30.9 MPG, 14.4/11.0/2.2, .613 FG) before the February 2026 trade, then only 5 with Indiana (23.6 MPG, 11.6/7.2/1.8, .472 FG) — the Pacers sample that the dossier's fit question rests on is five games, and it is too small to read as a rate change.

Fantasy history: Season-end 9-category ranks from a rank provider were not verifiable for this entry, so no per-season numbers are asserted. The category shape is unambiguous from the box score: zero threes in 632 career games, sub-0.5 steals in every season but one, and free-throw percentage that has drifted down as volume rose (.661 in 2024-25 on his heaviest usage). That leaves rebounds, field-goal percentage on high-efficiency volume, and roughly a block as the only positive categories — a three-category asset with an FT drag, which is why he prices as a punt-FT or punt-threes building block rather than a balanced middle-rounder. 2024-25 was clearly the peak fantasy season and the only one where the assist total (2.7) added a fourth real category. Points leagues treat him better than categories do, because the double-double volume scores fully and neither the missing threes nor the free-throw percentage costs him anything.

Durability: GP by season — 38, 43, 59, 72, 72, 76, 76, 68, 80, 48. The first three seasons were rotation-role limits rather than injury; from 2019-20 through 2024-25 he was one of the more available centers in the league, missing 10 or fewer games in four of six seasons and playing all 80 he was available for in 2024-25. 2025-26 is the outlier and it was two distinct events: a left ankle sprain suffered on 2025-12-20 while still with the Clippers, which kept him out for more than a month after the February 5 trade and delayed his Pacers debut to March 13; then a fractured rib sustained in a March 18 loss to Portland that ended his season after five Indiana games. Neither injury is chronic or structural, and he played FIBA qualifier minutes in July 2026, which is the strongest available evidence both are closed.

Trajectory: This is a slow, linear, unusually honest career arc — minutes climbed from 16.0 to 32.8 across nine seasons and production tracked them almost exactly, with no single leap season until 2024-25. That year is the one that needs separating: scoring rose from 11.7 to 16.8 and rebounding from 9.2 to 12.6, but minutes also rose from 26.4 to 32.8, so per-36 the jump is real but roughly half as large as the raw line suggests — the genuine change was an assist rate that nearly doubled, reflecting Ty Lue running more offense through him at the elbow after Harden's arrival reshaped the halfcourt. At 29 he sits right at the top of the aging curve for a non-athletic, position-and-touch center, an archetype that typically holds rate production into the early thirties but loses minutes to spacing considerations before it loses skill. For 2026-27 the risk is not decline, it is role: Indiana's Carlisle offense wants a five who can play out of the pocket and space, and Zubac has never made a three, so the 30-plus minutes that made 2024-25 valuable are the assumption most likely to break. Treat the 2024-25 line as a ceiling that required maximum minutes on a team built to feed him, and the 2025-26 rate as the more portable estimate.

Career sources: ESPN career stats · StatMuse player page · Wikipedia, pre-NBA and draft · Forbes, season-ending rib injury 2026-03-20 · NBC Sports, fractured rib after five Pacers games

Open questions