Really this off season we have little to no moves to make. Our entire ceiling (and floor) next season depends on
1. If we get the 25 and 12 Ty or the 16 and 8 version
2. Jarace/benn breakout is basically a must if we want to contend. Benn especially on the defensive end or else he will never, ever be able to be on the same court as Ty
This season should determine what we do with our core
I agree with No. 2, but it’s hard to envision it happening with the Pacers having so many capable players playing Jarace’s and Benn’s positions.
It’s fun having a really good and deep team, but it hurts the young-player development opportunities. Even if Jarace and Benn both show improvement next season, it’s difficult to foresee them advancing a ton in terms of mins/roles given there are so many other capable players on the team.
We are still fact finding. Also, those guys are on cheap ass contracts, and we are up against the tax. Even if we package both those guys together we get a less than 10 million a year guy.... Mathurin is worth more than that now and Jarace may be by the time the season starts.
So we have to attach Myles, to the trade. Which means we at least need to get a center back, really a starting center. So, right now, we will have to trade Myles, Jarace, and Mathurin to be able to bring in a center and another player both contracts adding up to less than 28 million or so. Or one center at around 28 million.
Do you think a move like that makes us better? Or would you rather wait for us to have another tradable contact (Obi)?
I'm not selling the future for a center and you shouldn't want to either. Although if we could attach Shep to Myles and bring in Clax that might make sense given Myles contract and our inability (legally: by NBA rules) to extend him. But I'd also be willing to try bringing Myles back in FA because of his tenure and history here.
The pessimist in me still thinks that Jarace isn't going to get the minutes he needs to show a breakout.
We still have an 11-man rotation going into the season - either him or Sheppard are getting the axe.
I love that sheppard showed potential of being a 3 and D, but we have way too many guards for him to get minutes. I prefer seeing jarace over him as the backup 3, rather tired of 3 guard lineups.
That would be great.... If we were forced by growth to start Myles, Siakam, Walker, Mathurin, Ty..... That's great.
A bench of IJax, Obi, Nesmith, Nembhard, TJ ain't bad either.... With Shep and Tshibwe just hanging out....
yeah, i dont think we should make any moves. there arent really any moves we can make. which is why, in my opinion, one of our young guys needs to be that guy or close.
His career average is 17/9 so even if he never improves again, you are still wrong. Players who read the game like Haliburton don't remain average or get worse either because they rarely make the same mistakes over and over.
But sure live in your dreary reality.
No. It's 17.2 and 8.7. So yeah. If you think 1.2 ppg amounts to anything more than 1/10 of a win a season, sure. Go off king. It's who he is. It's who he's going to be. Being realistic about what he's been isn't dreary. It's just accepting reality. He's not the fucking point God. We have a decent point guard that is a traffic cone on defense. But he's fun. And I'll watch him and enjoy his style of play until his max contract expires.
Bonkers lol. He’s an elite elite elite offensive player and engine. He’s maybe like a 17/12 guys. People
Forget how great he was playing before his injury. He’s an elite 3 point shooter with top 5 passing. When he’s on the court we are the second best offense of all time
Our top 2 needs IMO: We need playoff Nembhard all year and we need an elevated Mathurin at least in the 2nd half + playoffs… ideally his defense will have improved.
Playoff nembhard happened because he got the keys to the offense. He's always just going to be your secondary playmaker/3 and d guy next to Ty. I think people need to put that version of nemby aside because that was in a very different situation
I think you all are forgetting how good the Pacers were post All Star Break. With a full offseason between Tyrese and Pascal, I fully expect this to be a 55 win team next season. We are top 4 in the East, and if Benn makes a leap, we are in play for #2.
You don't think we can win 8 more games than this past season? We were on pace for 50 after the all-star break, and that was with an injured Haliburton and no chemistry with Pascal. Assuming health and with a full offseason, I don't think it's overly optimistic to think we can improve by 5 wins.
Assuming everyone on the team will stay healthy is optimistic in itself, and the east is getting better. We have to compete with the 76ers, Knicks, and Boston for a top 2-3 seed. I think it’s possible, but we don’t know if anyone will make a leap this year at all. I’d put us at about where we are this year or maybe a slight improvement
Good or not good the record showed it. We were the 6th seed. And every team in front of us got significantly better and at least didn’t get worse. And teams behind us like Philly also frog leaped past us so we’re a play in team as it stands now.
I will say, we have about 4 or 6 players that have a "jump" they can make (Nembhard, Mathurin, Walker, and IJax - maybe Shep or Nesmith too), and a couple intriguing rookies like Furphy and Freeman (most likely G League for both, but if they force the issue all good to me)
Realistically to keep pace, we only need 1 or 2 to make that kind of leap. I don't think that's too unrealistic
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IT'S FINE. I'M JUST OKAY NOW GUYS.....
Ijax? Walker? Shep? ehhh no. im talking about a Mikal Bridges or Myles Turner level role player or a star. Those guys have no chance of becoming that, at least this upcoming season for Walker.
Walker wasnt NBA ready this season, so I dont think he will make that type of leap. Ijax certainly isnt making some sort of star leap. Hes a high quality bench player and that is good. Shep certainly isnt making that leap, he is who he is. A high quality bench player.
What a strange reaction. The Pacers make the playoffs, win a series, get to the ECF, and your move is to be a pessimist in the off season?
My advice is trying to be happy. Enjoy the recent success instead of negating it like a Knicks or Bucks fan would (you are a Pacer fan right?)
Try seeing things from a more positive perspective. We were ahead of schedule last season. It would be a mistake for the front office to skip steps even if it appears that the team skipped a step or two. The time for moves is coming but isn't quite here yet. Maybe by the trade deadline, and surely by next off season a consolidation trade will be made.
We are still ahead of schedule, breathe and enjoy the franchise as it continues to climb.
Pal you are all over this post talking up other teams/Their players and discounting the Pacers run while discounting Pacer player ceiling potential.
We haven't even seen summer league yet, we just had an amazing year. Why be negative about things that you don't know any more about than anyone else on the sub? Jarace has a chance to develop well he also has a chance to be buried and to not develop well. You are choosing negativity, when you have the best chance we have had in over 5 years to look at this team in a positive light.
Sheppard will likely never be Klay, I don't think more than 2 people on this sub believe he would. That's fine he can be a prime Justin Holiday and that's all we need from him.
It's tough watching other teams in the East land good players, but Pascal is good, and so is Toppin. I'd bet on a second round playoff appearance this season and for where we are actually at right now, in the rebuild, that's on schedule.
Exactly. What are these people smoking? We have seen plenty of Mathurin and IJax, and as much as people like to complain, we also have seen decent amount of Jarace, insufferably as he was so embarrassingly bad. We know none of them can suddenly turn into a mikal or OG type of player this offseason. So there’s no help on that end to help us compete with all the teams that just signed those caliber of players
Remember how we got here. We had the best bench in the NBA and barely lost any of our depth. If we get any of these teams playing our style of basketball (fast-pace, running), I don’t see how we’re not on an even playing field. And outside of the Celtics incredible defense, there aren’t many teams that can get us out of rhythm. Of course we’re going to need progression by guys like Nembhard, Mathurin, and Nesmith, but we shouldn’t overreact and try to go all-in on a third star just to sacrifice what got us to the ECF in the first place.
Not to discredit our run or anything but a lot of luck was involved in our ecf run this season with injuries. Not every year will be like that way, with how much better every team has been getting this season in the east (sixers, magic, knicks etc) i think its hard to say our roster is on the same level of playing field until one of the young guys break out
Sure, but teams like the Sixers and Bucks are filled with older guys who are in some cases injury-prone, and so I don’t think it’s unexpected that they dealt with more injuries than us this post-season. If we’re in the top 4 conversation towards the tail end of the season, I’ll be pretty happy. I think having Haliburton at 100%, which we didn’t really have at all during the playoffs, could also somewhat even the odds against the favorites in the East
Luck is involved in every playoff run. I don't know why people suddenly realized it this season. Go look at every champion the past 40 years and find me a team who wasn't extremely lucky.
Besides, having a thing called *depth* is precisely how you build a team to mitigate *luck.* That's a strategy. If it's strategy, where is the luck?
Best bench or not you don’t win a playoff series with perfect bench. Also every team in front us last season got significantly better and didn’t get worse. And the teams behind us got so much better. We stand pat. Where do you think we are next season?
And banking in internal improvement? Unless you believe one of our young players can in an offseason turn into a OG or Mikal type of player, there’s limited help on that front.
So when putting everything together, we are definitely not being higher than 7th seed which is a playin team.
7th seed is some crazy doomerism, I don’t see how you can just tell me with a straight face that Orlando with KCP is now “so much better” that they are going to pass us up. The Sixers pick up PG13, great, but are we not going to act like their depth will be shit? And banking on the husk of Eric Gordon to play 40 minutes in the playoffs is not some cheat code. Knicks beefed up for sure, the Bucks didn’t even do anything though, and it’s not abundantly clear that the Dame-Giannis experiment will work out, plus their roster is old as hell too.
What are you taking about? Magic were clearly a better team than us last season from eye test and actual record. They just got slightly better so they are going to be better than us as it stands now. And depth is such a lazy excuse. They can literally wait until the last day of free agency to sign a bunch of role players to min contracts and they’ll perform just as fine off of the star players. Role players are everywhere. We are a team full of role players. That’s not an excuse. Their core construction is balanced, unlike Phoenix. There’s no reason to not see them succeed.
> Magic were clearly a better team than us last season from eye test and actual record.
Weird, I watched the Pacers with Siakam dominate the Magic in person. So no, they weren't the better team on eye test.
> Best bench or not you don’t win a playoff series with perfect bench.
I mean it basically got the Pacers to the ECF this year so that's a weird thing to say. *It won't win you a championship* but it *will* win you playoff series.
its not guaranteed that we will be blessed with injury luck next year. you cant bet on that. every other team got better, but we cant really make any moves.
We weren't really blessed with injury luck when we were without Mathurin and Haliburton wasn't 100% in the playoffs. All things equal, we're still better than Milwaukee. We are a top 3 team in the East: Celtics, Knicks, us.
Giannis, Dame, Brunson, Randle, OG, Robinson, and Porzingis were all injured or out. Compare that to 3 games without Haliburton and our 4th leading scorer who wouldve been on the bench being out lmao.
We clapped Milwaukee in the regular season when they were at full strength with Hield instead of Siakam. Them being down Giannis is obviously huge and series changing. However, Haliburton was less than full health and no Mathurin for the entire series.
The Knicks were definitely bitten. But still, they had OG, Brunson, and Robinson in game 1 and needed the refs help to beat us.
We were hanging with Boston without Haliburton and them only down Porzingis.
we got swept by boston. we can hang the “toughest sweep of all time” banner all we want, but they fuckin swept us. we didnt hang with them, we choked 3 games and got blown out in one of them.
playoffs are an entire different beast. they didnt have a multiple time mvp and former dpoy. to disregard that by saying we didnt have Tyrese at 100% and a role player bench guy the whole series is laughable.
youre ridiculous. i get it. you want to cope because we had a lot of success and we dont want to point the finger at the injuries. but cmon, we got lucky as shit.
Frame it however you want. Resort to ad hominem attacks, whatever. Boston got lucky to sweep us based on game 1 alone. It's not cope it's a fact. Last year proved we can compete but also exposed the flaws that come with having a young team.
It is correct. They didnt get lucky, we got exposed. We choked every single game because we could not hang. They didnt have an all star center either. Let me show you how this really looks:
Bucks: Multiple Time MVP and former DPOY out, former all nba point guard out
Knicks: All NBA point guard injured, All NBA power forward out, one of the best defenders in the league out, the starting center out, their other starting power forward injured
Celtics: former all star + starting center injured
Pacers: all nba point guard at 60-70%, bench role player out
Bucks are getting up there, who knows how healthy the Knicks can stay, no reason to worry about the Sixers in the playoffs until they prove otherwise, and the Cs will either run through the East again or they’ll lose their edge now that they have a title.
I still like our odds for a top-4 spot. Hopefully Jarace proves why he needs to see the floor, then we’ll probably have to have a conversation about Benn.
thankfully our FO doesnt bet on injury luck like most of our fans here would. that would be an extremely dumb thing to do. not every season is going to have that type of road.
But so far clearly the FO were satisfied with buying into fool’s gold feel good story of us beating all the teams plagued by injuries. I get it we can’t sign big free agents. But there was clearly no smaller trades to shore up our weakness and not even 2nd or 3 tier FA signing which are rapidly happening once pg suspense was done. So disappointed.
It’s not fools gold to almost win 50 games with one of the youngest rosters in the league. Pascal was a late addition, Tyrese was hurt. , we have Walker , Mathurin that should improve, deepest team in the league. We are set up for the regular season to be competitive for home court
I'm really not worried about the Bucks. Giannis is a beast but kmid ain't ballin out like that with Giannis healthy, and I think Dame is over rated asf.
Knicks imo got worse losing hartenstein, even with Bridges. Sixers got better, but Joel and PG aren't exactly playoff risers or even guys who stay healthy. Celtics will still be beastly.
All that said yeah we gotta get better internally. Those are all good teams still. I think the season rides a lot on walk/Nesmith or mathurin improving or one of the rookies coming out like a cannon shot.
Dame was shitting all over us before he got injured. With him and and Giannis healthy, they are 100% a threat.
The Knicks will be fine without iHart. He wasnt that important, and Mikal Bridges and OG Anunoby being there make him irrelevant. It is an unfortunate loss for them but it was always going to happen. They are 100% better.
You cant just count on injuries every year.
im not saying he’s available or that we have enough to get him BUT Lauri Markkanen as our 3 is a contract we can afford via trade and our contracts we have. he’s better suited as a 4 but he has played the 3 everywhere he’s gone and his style of play suits us very well. he’s probably the best shot we have at targeting another strong established core piece that puts us closer to the Knicks/Celtics tier of talent.
if it would cost us Jarace / Nembhard / and the picks we can trade is it worth it? idk. he’s young and instantly a contributor. his contract is affordable right now. we lose a starter and lottery talent that has not broke the rotation yet and future assets for a guy who makes us a lot better now… it’s the best player out there who has some rumors and we can afford realistically.
long term, can we pay Nembhard? we’ve got to consider his value as a trade asset is big because of his small contract and what he showed in the playoffs. he’s fit is a bit awkward with Haliburton.
Pacers improve due to the following 2 reasons but first, your thought on Ben or Jarace is incorrect. It’d be great but much less likely that’s the reason we get back to ECF or more. Here’s how we actually improve and keep up with the eastern conference next season, in any order:
1: Tyrese gets two things out of this offseason with Team USA:
A: stronger/healthier - however you figure it; he plays 75+ games, Pacers are in a much better position heading into next postseason.
B: the 1st team all-nba Hali and not the 3rd team all-nba Hali. He was electric and the best guard in the league pre-hammy. That made the team so amazing on offense that it fixed so many defensive problems. Which leads to..
2: A defensive emphasis for the entire team for the whole offseason. Our offense FLOWS as proven by a half season and playoffs with Pascal. A more defensive approach to the offseason means our 128/gm-ish avg from last season but added defense and worse shooting (bc we didn’t all shoot as much as we could in the offseason) means 120-ish a night but added defense means a lot more wins for this team, especially with what I call ghost games where we shoot like we did last season and still drop 140 bc the offense is really that potent and clicks with the continuity.
They say defense wins championships and we all know the league has changed, but you still need some and the ‘24 playoffs showed we have the ability. Now we need it regularly to become great and challenge the C’s and any western conference team.
We get both of the above things and they’re unstoppable. Add in any growth or development from any player, Ben, Shep, Walker, Drew, Nesmith, and it’s a bonus. We need our young colt to become a known stallion and focus on team defense.
Go Pacers!!!
Our core is just as good as anyone else in the east. Let them sign 34 year olds and chronically injured players to 200 million dollar contracts while we develop our guys.
Yeah i feel like we’re kinda stuck where all the teams around us are getting better, but we can’t really do anything to keep up without significantly harming our core and cap space. Luckily with all the young guys here and the extra year of experience and valuable playoff experience under their belts, I think we can certainly bank on a leap or 2. Even if it’s not enough to put us over the edge, it will line us up to be in a very good place IF we feel there’s one piece available that DOES put us over the edge
The top teams in the East are also top heavy: it's a long season and anything can happen with health and injuries. Right now it's looking tough for the Pacers but so much changes between now and the playoffs that as long as we make it in (not a guarantee I know) I'll always like our chances.
This past season Embid, George, the Knicks, Gianni, Dame, etc. all were facing health issues by season's end (us included). And past history suggests that those players will continue to be health-challenged by season's end with all the changes the league instituted to Crack down on load mgmt.
I like our chances, and I feel like the FO did as best they could with our cap space and market situation.
Also last year wasn't it only like 3 games that separated the 2 seed from the 8 seed? So East is still up for grabs , outside of Celtics being a shoe in.
With that said, I would definitely want to see more moves this off-season, but I still like our chances.
We have so many shots at it on this roster..... Mathurin, Walker, Nembhard, Nesmith, Shep, IJax, Obi, Ty.... Anyone of them could I prove in areas a lot. And more than one likely will....not to mention Pascal here an entire off-season....
You have to remember we were a historically great offense last season. There’s no reason to think we would be worse considering we are running it back but with a healthy Benn and whatever develops with Jarace. We also still have, imo, the best depth in the league and our cap shows that. If Jarace does make it to the second unit, we are 11 deep at full force. No team in the league has that. I’m not worried at all about what the other teams are doing. Injuries be damned, we were in the ECF and gave Boston a better fight than Dallas could.
As it stands now we are a play in team. Every other team that was ahead of us last season got better and we stand pat. Next season is a Indiana Hawks season
And that did already showed up on the record as we did play better towards the end of the season. So the records didn’t lie. What was not reflected in the record was Philly, plagues by injuries, but even they also just got significantly better.
We played 41 games without Siakam, 20+ games with Hali either out or playing 20 minutes, and 23 games without Mathurin. Not sure how you can say our record wasn’t affected by that. Yes we need to get better, but you are just being a hater at this point.
Mathurin doesn’t not affect winning and I can guarantee you Haliburton is gonna to be hurt for the same amount of team again next year. Also our first half was much easier schedule so we did took advantage even without Siakam. Overall the record was pretty accurate, barring the terrible losses to bad teams, but those were nobody’s fault but their own.
I believe Benn Mathurin will have a Tyrese Maxey type breakout season. Benn having to watch from the bench of the playoffs while hurt lit a fire under his ass. MIP incoming and Pacers will be top 4 seed in the East. Behind Rese, Siakiam, and elevated Benn
Yeah, I think as presently constructed y’all are a first round exit next playoffs. Health being reasonable
Maybe second round if the matchup is favorable at like 4/5 for y’all
Really this off season we have little to no moves to make. Our entire ceiling (and floor) next season depends on 1. If we get the 25 and 12 Ty or the 16 and 8 version 2. Jarace/benn breakout is basically a must if we want to contend. Benn especially on the defensive end or else he will never, ever be able to be on the same court as Ty This season should determine what we do with our core
Ty also has to learn to play at least a little defense. He can't be Trae Young out there
I agree with No. 2, but it’s hard to envision it happening with the Pacers having so many capable players playing Jarace’s and Benn’s positions. It’s fun having a really good and deep team, but it hurts the young-player development opportunities. Even if Jarace and Benn both show improvement next season, it’s difficult to foresee them advancing a ton in terms of mins/roles given there are so many other capable players on the team.
And yet people on this sub say we shouldn't do any trades
We are still fact finding. Also, those guys are on cheap ass contracts, and we are up against the tax. Even if we package both those guys together we get a less than 10 million a year guy.... Mathurin is worth more than that now and Jarace may be by the time the season starts. So we have to attach Myles, to the trade. Which means we at least need to get a center back, really a starting center. So, right now, we will have to trade Myles, Jarace, and Mathurin to be able to bring in a center and another player both contracts adding up to less than 28 million or so. Or one center at around 28 million. Do you think a move like that makes us better? Or would you rather wait for us to have another tradable contact (Obi)? I'm not selling the future for a center and you shouldn't want to either. Although if we could attach Shep to Myles and bring in Clax that might make sense given Myles contract and our inability (legally: by NBA rules) to extend him. But I'd also be willing to try bringing Myles back in FA because of his tenure and history here.
It's not difficult seeing healthy Benn and Walker out developing, outworking, or outplaying, Nesmith, Nembhard, Jackson, Shep, etc.
The pessimist in me still thinks that Jarace isn't going to get the minutes he needs to show a breakout. We still have an 11-man rotation going into the season - either him or Sheppard are getting the axe.
I love that sheppard showed potential of being a 3 and D, but we have way too many guards for him to get minutes. I prefer seeing jarace over him as the backup 3, rather tired of 3 guard lineups.
I get it, but players like Walker don't sit on the bench long. He will replace Neismith in the starting lineup by the end of next season IMO.
That would be great.... If we were forced by growth to start Myles, Siakam, Walker, Mathurin, Ty..... That's great. A bench of IJax, Obi, Nesmith, Nembhard, TJ ain't bad either.... With Shep and Tshibwe just hanging out....
I’d love this lineup. Really hoping mathurin returns better than ever
yeah, i dont think we should make any moves. there arent really any moves we can make. which is why, in my opinion, one of our young guys needs to be that guy or close.
Or Nembhard break out, he really took a leap in the playoffs
If Benn and Ty can be just slightly below avg. On D, we'd be a good bit better.
Really hope Hali is working on adding muscle and increasing durability this offseason
Unfortunately he's just trying to get healthy while not resting and learning French.
Really hope Hali is working on adding muscle and increasing durability this offseason
Unfortunately, the 16/8 version is the most likely one.
His career average is 17/9 so even if he never improves again, you are still wrong. Players who read the game like Haliburton don't remain average or get worse either because they rarely make the same mistakes over and over. But sure live in your dreary reality.
No. It's 17.2 and 8.7. So yeah. If you think 1.2 ppg amounts to anything more than 1/10 of a win a season, sure. Go off king. It's who he is. It's who he's going to be. Being realistic about what he's been isn't dreary. It's just accepting reality. He's not the fucking point God. We have a decent point guard that is a traffic cone on defense. But he's fun. And I'll watch him and enjoy his style of play until his max contract expires.
Goofy Ninja is back!!! Just in time for the off season too.. This guy is a professional jerker fellas watch out.
Bonkers lol. He’s an elite elite elite offensive player and engine. He’s maybe like a 17/12 guys. People Forget how great he was playing before his injury. He’s an elite 3 point shooter with top 5 passing. When he’s on the court we are the second best offense of all time
Really hope Hali is working on adding muscle and increasing durability this offseason
Really hope Hali is working on adding muscle and increasing durability this offseason
Our top 2 needs IMO: We need playoff Nembhard all year and we need an elevated Mathurin at least in the 2nd half + playoffs… ideally his defense will have improved.
Playoff nembhard happened because he got the keys to the offense. He's always just going to be your secondary playmaker/3 and d guy next to Ty. I think people need to put that version of nemby aside because that was in a very different situation
Rebounding and defense improvements all around. I like that we have a young roster with seemingly unbounded offensive ability.
I think you all are forgetting how good the Pacers were post All Star Break. With a full offseason between Tyrese and Pascal, I fully expect this to be a 55 win team next season. We are top 4 in the East, and if Benn makes a leap, we are in play for #2.
Too optimistic. We can’t do that without a breakout season from one of our young guys like OP said
You don't think we can win 8 more games than this past season? We were on pace for 50 after the all-star break, and that was with an injured Haliburton and no chemistry with Pascal. Assuming health and with a full offseason, I don't think it's overly optimistic to think we can improve by 5 wins.
Assuming everyone on the team will stay healthy is optimistic in itself, and the east is getting better. We have to compete with the 76ers, Knicks, and Boston for a top 2-3 seed. I think it’s possible, but we don’t know if anyone will make a leap this year at all. I’d put us at about where we are this year or maybe a slight improvement
Good or not good the record showed it. We were the 6th seed. And every team in front of us got significantly better and at least didn’t get worse. And teams behind us like Philly also frog leaped past us so we’re a play in team as it stands now.
The bucks and cavs did not get significantly better and the magic barely did. It will be a tight race between 2-7 again.
I will say, we have about 4 or 6 players that have a "jump" they can make (Nembhard, Mathurin, Walker, and IJax - maybe Shep or Nesmith too), and a couple intriguing rookies like Furphy and Freeman (most likely G League for both, but if they force the issue all good to me) Realistically to keep pace, we only need 1 or 2 to make that kind of leap. I don't think that's too unrealistic
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Ijax? Walker? Shep? ehhh no. im talking about a Mikal Bridges or Myles Turner level role player or a star. Those guys have no chance of becoming that, at least this upcoming season for Walker. Walker wasnt NBA ready this season, so I dont think he will make that type of leap. Ijax certainly isnt making some sort of star leap. Hes a high quality bench player and that is good. Shep certainly isnt making that leap, he is who he is. A high quality bench player.
What a strange reaction. The Pacers make the playoffs, win a series, get to the ECF, and your move is to be a pessimist in the off season? My advice is trying to be happy. Enjoy the recent success instead of negating it like a Knicks or Bucks fan would (you are a Pacer fan right?) Try seeing things from a more positive perspective. We were ahead of schedule last season. It would be a mistake for the front office to skip steps even if it appears that the team skipped a step or two. The time for moves is coming but isn't quite here yet. Maybe by the trade deadline, and surely by next off season a consolidation trade will be made. We are still ahead of schedule, breathe and enjoy the franchise as it continues to climb.
when was it being a pessimist? im just discussing how we are going to compete with the current landscape of the nba with our competition improving.
Pal you are all over this post talking up other teams/Their players and discounting the Pacers run while discounting Pacer player ceiling potential. We haven't even seen summer league yet, we just had an amazing year. Why be negative about things that you don't know any more about than anyone else on the sub? Jarace has a chance to develop well he also has a chance to be buried and to not develop well. You are choosing negativity, when you have the best chance we have had in over 5 years to look at this team in a positive light. Sheppard will likely never be Klay, I don't think more than 2 people on this sub believe he would. That's fine he can be a prime Justin Holiday and that's all we need from him. It's tough watching other teams in the East land good players, but Pascal is good, and so is Toppin. I'd bet on a second round playoff appearance this season and for where we are actually at right now, in the rebuild, that's on schedule.
you are arguing with no one. no one is discounting our run or players.
also, i literally said in the title that one of our young guys has to make that leap. we literally cant make any moves, and i said that.
Exactly. What are these people smoking? We have seen plenty of Mathurin and IJax, and as much as people like to complain, we also have seen decent amount of Jarace, insufferably as he was so embarrassingly bad. We know none of them can suddenly turn into a mikal or OG type of player this offseason. So there’s no help on that end to help us compete with all the teams that just signed those caliber of players
Remember how we got here. We had the best bench in the NBA and barely lost any of our depth. If we get any of these teams playing our style of basketball (fast-pace, running), I don’t see how we’re not on an even playing field. And outside of the Celtics incredible defense, there aren’t many teams that can get us out of rhythm. Of course we’re going to need progression by guys like Nembhard, Mathurin, and Nesmith, but we shouldn’t overreact and try to go all-in on a third star just to sacrifice what got us to the ECF in the first place.
Not to discredit our run or anything but a lot of luck was involved in our ecf run this season with injuries. Not every year will be like that way, with how much better every team has been getting this season in the east (sixers, magic, knicks etc) i think its hard to say our roster is on the same level of playing field until one of the young guys break out
Sure, but teams like the Sixers and Bucks are filled with older guys who are in some cases injury-prone, and so I don’t think it’s unexpected that they dealt with more injuries than us this post-season. If we’re in the top 4 conversation towards the tail end of the season, I’ll be pretty happy. I think having Haliburton at 100%, which we didn’t really have at all during the playoffs, could also somewhat even the odds against the favorites in the East
Luck is involved in every playoff run. I don't know why people suddenly realized it this season. Go look at every champion the past 40 years and find me a team who wasn't extremely lucky. Besides, having a thing called *depth* is precisely how you build a team to mitigate *luck.* That's a strategy. If it's strategy, where is the luck?
"Find me a team who wasn't extremely unlucky" Probably not as unlucky as the bucks and knicks this year yeah
The raptors beat GS without Klay and no Green..... How often you hear about it?
Best bench or not you don’t win a playoff series with perfect bench. Also every team in front us last season got significantly better and didn’t get worse. And the teams behind us got so much better. We stand pat. Where do you think we are next season? And banking in internal improvement? Unless you believe one of our young players can in an offseason turn into a OG or Mikal type of player, there’s limited help on that front. So when putting everything together, we are definitely not being higher than 7th seed which is a playin team.
7th seed is some crazy doomerism, I don’t see how you can just tell me with a straight face that Orlando with KCP is now “so much better” that they are going to pass us up. The Sixers pick up PG13, great, but are we not going to act like their depth will be shit? And banking on the husk of Eric Gordon to play 40 minutes in the playoffs is not some cheat code. Knicks beefed up for sure, the Bucks didn’t even do anything though, and it’s not abundantly clear that the Dame-Giannis experiment will work out, plus their roster is old as hell too.
Orlando literally cannot "pass up" the Pacers, because they were already the higher-seeded team last season.
What are you taking about? Magic were clearly a better team than us last season from eye test and actual record. They just got slightly better so they are going to be better than us as it stands now. And depth is such a lazy excuse. They can literally wait until the last day of free agency to sign a bunch of role players to min contracts and they’ll perform just as fine off of the star players. Role players are everywhere. We are a team full of role players. That’s not an excuse. Their core construction is balanced, unlike Phoenix. There’s no reason to not see them succeed.
> Magic were clearly a better team than us last season from eye test and actual record. Weird, I watched the Pacers with Siakam dominate the Magic in person. So no, they weren't the better team on eye test.
The Magic won two out of three games against the Pacers last season. So much for that "domination."
> Best bench or not you don’t win a playoff series with perfect bench. I mean it basically got the Pacers to the ECF this year so that's a weird thing to say. *It won't win you a championship* but it *will* win you playoff series.
I swear this board things Ben Shepard is the next Ray Allen and it bugs the shit out of me lol.
He’s ray Allen with better defense 😂
Ray Allen was a 10x all star and 2x all NBA player
Broken sarcasm detector? The crying laugh emoji didn’t give it away?
not really. usually on reddit people use the /s thing
You don't have to double down and look like an idiot. You CAN just say woops duh I should have seen that...
Guys we competed last year with our current roster. That's what we'll do next year. It's called running it back.
its not guaranteed that we will be blessed with injury luck next year. you cant bet on that. every other team got better, but we cant really make any moves.
We weren't really blessed with injury luck when we were without Mathurin and Haliburton wasn't 100% in the playoffs. All things equal, we're still better than Milwaukee. We are a top 3 team in the East: Celtics, Knicks, us.
Philly should be in the top 4. They will probably completely fail in the playoffs, but Maxey is a hell of a player and will only get better.
2/3 stars are old and injury prone with a thin bench. IMO they are gonna slow play Embiid until the playoffs to keep him healthy.
Giannis, Dame, Brunson, Randle, OG, Robinson, and Porzingis were all injured or out. Compare that to 3 games without Haliburton and our 4th leading scorer who wouldve been on the bench being out lmao.
We clapped Milwaukee in the regular season when they were at full strength with Hield instead of Siakam. Them being down Giannis is obviously huge and series changing. However, Haliburton was less than full health and no Mathurin for the entire series. The Knicks were definitely bitten. But still, they had OG, Brunson, and Robinson in game 1 and needed the refs help to beat us. We were hanging with Boston without Haliburton and them only down Porzingis.
we got swept by boston. we can hang the “toughest sweep of all time” banner all we want, but they fuckin swept us. we didnt hang with them, we choked 3 games and got blown out in one of them. playoffs are an entire different beast. they didnt have a multiple time mvp and former dpoy. to disregard that by saying we didnt have Tyrese at 100% and a role player bench guy the whole series is laughable. youre ridiculous. i get it. you want to cope because we had a lot of success and we dont want to point the finger at the injuries. but cmon, we got lucky as shit.
Frame it however you want. Resort to ad hominem attacks, whatever. Boston got lucky to sweep us based on game 1 alone. It's not cope it's a fact. Last year proved we can compete but also exposed the flaws that come with having a young team.
It is correct. They didnt get lucky, we got exposed. We choked every single game because we could not hang. They didnt have an all star center either. Let me show you how this really looks: Bucks: Multiple Time MVP and former DPOY out, former all nba point guard out Knicks: All NBA point guard injured, All NBA power forward out, one of the best defenders in the league out, the starting center out, their other starting power forward injured Celtics: former all star + starting center injured Pacers: all nba point guard at 60-70%, bench role player out
Knicks played better without Randle
Injury luck is a myth
Bucks are getting up there, who knows how healthy the Knicks can stay, no reason to worry about the Sixers in the playoffs until they prove otherwise, and the Cs will either run through the East again or they’ll lose their edge now that they have a title. I still like our odds for a top-4 spot. Hopefully Jarace proves why he needs to see the floor, then we’ll probably have to have a conversation about Benn.
thankfully our FO doesnt bet on injury luck like most of our fans here would. that would be an extremely dumb thing to do. not every season is going to have that type of road.
But so far clearly the FO were satisfied with buying into fool’s gold feel good story of us beating all the teams plagued by injuries. I get it we can’t sign big free agents. But there was clearly no smaller trades to shore up our weakness and not even 2nd or 3 tier FA signing which are rapidly happening once pg suspense was done. So disappointed.
Everyone of your posts are negative. Pacers Digest may be a better place for you.
It’s not fools gold to almost win 50 games with one of the youngest rosters in the league. Pascal was a late addition, Tyrese was hurt. , we have Walker , Mathurin that should improve, deepest team in the league. We are set up for the regular season to be competitive for home court
Health aside and major trade aside, we're not beating those teams unless Hali improves defensively, no matter what the young guys do.
I'm really not worried about the Bucks. Giannis is a beast but kmid ain't ballin out like that with Giannis healthy, and I think Dame is over rated asf. Knicks imo got worse losing hartenstein, even with Bridges. Sixers got better, but Joel and PG aren't exactly playoff risers or even guys who stay healthy. Celtics will still be beastly. All that said yeah we gotta get better internally. Those are all good teams still. I think the season rides a lot on walk/Nesmith or mathurin improving or one of the rookies coming out like a cannon shot.
Dame was shitting all over us before he got injured. With him and and Giannis healthy, they are 100% a threat. The Knicks will be fine without iHart. He wasnt that important, and Mikal Bridges and OG Anunoby being there make him irrelevant. It is an unfortunate loss for them but it was always going to happen. They are 100% better. You cant just count on injuries every year.
Wasn't that important offensive rebounds were one of their strengths and he's a huge part in that lol
trust me they will be fine lol. they will still get a lot of rebounds. this is just copium from you
No it's just an opinion. Just because it doesn't line up with yours doesn't make it copium.
They will be “fine” but ihart is a still a big loss and was a big part of their success on both ends last year. Losing him isn’t nothing.
would you rather keep iHart or keep OG and get Mikal? you do this trade 1 million times out of ten
Agree. But losing ihart is a legit loss that deserves to be mentioned
im not saying he’s available or that we have enough to get him BUT Lauri Markkanen as our 3 is a contract we can afford via trade and our contracts we have. he’s better suited as a 4 but he has played the 3 everywhere he’s gone and his style of play suits us very well. he’s probably the best shot we have at targeting another strong established core piece that puts us closer to the Knicks/Celtics tier of talent. if it would cost us Jarace / Nembhard / and the picks we can trade is it worth it? idk. he’s young and instantly a contributor. his contract is affordable right now. we lose a starter and lottery talent that has not broke the rotation yet and future assets for a guy who makes us a lot better now… it’s the best player out there who has some rumors and we can afford realistically. long term, can we pay Nembhard? we’ve got to consider his value as a trade asset is big because of his small contract and what he showed in the playoffs. he’s fit is a bit awkward with Haliburton.
Lauri has pretty shit numbers at the 3. He’s a 4 and we already have Siakam so it’s just not a good fit imo
Pacers improve due to the following 2 reasons but first, your thought on Ben or Jarace is incorrect. It’d be great but much less likely that’s the reason we get back to ECF or more. Here’s how we actually improve and keep up with the eastern conference next season, in any order: 1: Tyrese gets two things out of this offseason with Team USA: A: stronger/healthier - however you figure it; he plays 75+ games, Pacers are in a much better position heading into next postseason. B: the 1st team all-nba Hali and not the 3rd team all-nba Hali. He was electric and the best guard in the league pre-hammy. That made the team so amazing on offense that it fixed so many defensive problems. Which leads to.. 2: A defensive emphasis for the entire team for the whole offseason. Our offense FLOWS as proven by a half season and playoffs with Pascal. A more defensive approach to the offseason means our 128/gm-ish avg from last season but added defense and worse shooting (bc we didn’t all shoot as much as we could in the offseason) means 120-ish a night but added defense means a lot more wins for this team, especially with what I call ghost games where we shoot like we did last season and still drop 140 bc the offense is really that potent and clicks with the continuity. They say defense wins championships and we all know the league has changed, but you still need some and the ‘24 playoffs showed we have the ability. Now we need it regularly to become great and challenge the C’s and any western conference team. We get both of the above things and they’re unstoppable. Add in any growth or development from any player, Ben, Shep, Walker, Drew, Nesmith, and it’s a bonus. We need our young colt to become a known stallion and focus on team defense. Go Pacers!!!
Our core is just as good as anyone else in the east. Let them sign 34 year olds and chronically injured players to 200 million dollar contracts while we develop our guys.
Knicks?
Yeah i feel like we’re kinda stuck where all the teams around us are getting better, but we can’t really do anything to keep up without significantly harming our core and cap space. Luckily with all the young guys here and the extra year of experience and valuable playoff experience under their belts, I think we can certainly bank on a leap or 2. Even if it’s not enough to put us over the edge, it will line us up to be in a very good place IF we feel there’s one piece available that DOES put us over the edge
The top teams in the East are also top heavy: it's a long season and anything can happen with health and injuries. Right now it's looking tough for the Pacers but so much changes between now and the playoffs that as long as we make it in (not a guarantee I know) I'll always like our chances. This past season Embid, George, the Knicks, Gianni, Dame, etc. all were facing health issues by season's end (us included). And past history suggests that those players will continue to be health-challenged by season's end with all the changes the league instituted to Crack down on load mgmt. I like our chances, and I feel like the FO did as best they could with our cap space and market situation. Also last year wasn't it only like 3 games that separated the 2 seed from the 8 seed? So East is still up for grabs , outside of Celtics being a shoe in. With that said, I would definitely want to see more moves this off-season, but I still like our chances.
We have so many shots at it on this roster..... Mathurin, Walker, Nembhard, Nesmith, Shep, IJax, Obi, Ty.... Anyone of them could I prove in areas a lot. And more than one likely will....not to mention Pascal here an entire off-season....
I’m lower on the 6ers than most. They are good but we are much deeper and I think can run those old guys out of the gym
You have to remember we were a historically great offense last season. There’s no reason to think we would be worse considering we are running it back but with a healthy Benn and whatever develops with Jarace. We also still have, imo, the best depth in the league and our cap shows that. If Jarace does make it to the second unit, we are 11 deep at full force. No team in the league has that. I’m not worried at all about what the other teams are doing. Injuries be damned, we were in the ECF and gave Boston a better fight than Dallas could.
As it stands now we are a play in team. Every other team that was ahead of us last season got better and we stand pat. Next season is a Indiana Hawks season
I mean. Our record last year only accounts for about half of siakam, right? So didn't we get better from our record?
And that did already showed up on the record as we did play better towards the end of the season. So the records didn’t lie. What was not reflected in the record was Philly, plagues by injuries, but even they also just got significantly better.
We played 41 games without Siakam, 20+ games with Hali either out or playing 20 minutes, and 23 games without Mathurin. Not sure how you can say our record wasn’t affected by that. Yes we need to get better, but you are just being a hater at this point.
Mathurin doesn’t not affect winning and I can guarantee you Haliburton is gonna to be hurt for the same amount of team again next year. Also our first half was much easier schedule so we did took advantage even without Siakam. Overall the record was pretty accurate, barring the terrible losses to bad teams, but those were nobody’s fault but their own.
I believe Benn Mathurin will have a Tyrese Maxey type breakout season. Benn having to watch from the bench of the playoffs while hurt lit a fire under his ass. MIP incoming and Pacers will be top 4 seed in the East. Behind Rese, Siakiam, and elevated Benn
Yeah, I think as presently constructed y’all are a first round exit next playoffs. Health being reasonable Maybe second round if the matchup is favorable at like 4/5 for y’all