Are Pacers better off in lottery or playoffs without Tyrese Haliburton? ‘Our identity’s there’

INDIANAPOLIS — Heading into the last two seasons, the Pacers weren’t shy about trying to speak their lofty goals into existence.

After a better-than-expected 35-47 finish in 2022-23, they boldly declared to anyone who would listen that they wanted to be a playoff team in 2023-24. They met and exceeded that goal, claiming the No. 6 seed in the playoffs on the final day of the season and then pulling mild upsets of the Bucks and Knicks to reach the Eastern Conference Finals. They entered 2024-25 saying they believed they could win a championship. They fell short by one game, claiming their first Eastern Conference title since 2000 before losing to the Oklahoma City Thunder in seven games in the NBA Finals.

Because of what happened in that seventh game, however, they are less explicit about what their goals are for 2025-26 as they head into Thursday’s 7:30 p.m. opener against the Thunder at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in a game nationally televised on ESPN.

If all they had lost that night in June was a hard-fought game, they’d be entering this season as the prohibitive favorite to repeat as Eastern Conference champions and they would have spent every day since talking about finishing the job this time around. But they also lost their standard-bearer, the face of their franchise and the cornerstone around which they’ve based every decision they’ve made for the last three years. In one of the most crushing championship heartbreaks in American professional sports history, Tyrese Haliburton tore his right Achilles tendon in the first quarter of that game, ending his best hope for a title and his 2025-26 season in the same instant.

Since the injury the Pacers have been less specific about their goals. They have pushed back against the idea that they will be taking a “gap year” and been clear that they intend to be competitive and win, but they haven’t engaged in any discussion about where they’d have to finish in the Eastern standings or what playoff round they’d have to reach to consider 2025-26 a successful season.

“I think a lot of things that we are, it shouldn’t change,” All-Star forward Pascal Siakam said. “We’re gonna miss Ty, but our identity’s there and we should continue to just be who we are regardless of what’s happening.”

The nature of the Pacers’ playoff run gives them immense faith in their identity. The players bought into coach Rick Carlisle’s belief that “our physicality has to be our persistence” and that they could create a determining advantage — a “wear-down effect” — by exhausting teams with the combination of relentless pace and ball movement on offense and pressure on defense. Their persistence paid off with a string of historic postseason comebacks. Haliburton had a lot to do with those comebacks and hit game-winning or game-tying shots, but they wouldn’t have been able to get to the point where he could hit a game-winner if they weren’t getting defensive pressure across the board.

Even with Haliburton out, the Pacers will return so many other players who have witnessed first hand how the approach works and how they can make it work. Most of the players who will have key roles on this team have earned stripes over the course of 40 playoff games in the last two seasons and they’ve seen their approach work against the teams that are expected to be the best teams in the East this year.

“You learn so much from being in those clutch situations with so much pressure on you that when we start again, it’s easier,” forward Aaron Nesmith said. “When the going gets tough or things aren’t going well for a couple of stretches, it’s easy just to lock back in and we’re fine.”

So they still believe they can accomplish a lot if they can do what other teams aren’t willing to do and they believe it’s best to maintain their standards every year so they don’t have to try to re-establish them in a year when Haliburton comes back. Winning at the the level they have creates a form of muscle memory, and they’d rather maintain it than risk the possibility of atrophy.

“Ty not being able to play this year is tough and you can’t replace a guy like that,” veteran point guard T.J. McConnell said in late September at the Pacers’ Media Day. “But I think the thing we need to focus on is that we’ve established a culture, a style of play — and Rick has done a great job of that — and the standard is the standard. We obviously have to do things a little differently without an All-Star caliber point guard, but it’s just everyone stepping up in a different role. We’re not gonna change how we play.”

There is a case to be made that the Pacers would be better off if this season didn’t go so well, that if their ceiling is first-round playoff exit it would serve them better to bottom out and have a chance at a high draft pick. They actually haven’t had a first-round pick since the 2023 draft when they took Jarace Walker at No. 8 and Ben Sheppard at No. 26. They traded two first-round picks in 2024 and one in 2026 for Siakam, then traded their 2025 first-round pick to get their 2026 pick back. If this season were to bottom out, it would allow them to add a talented player without having to make a trade, which could create a better stocked roster for the 2026-27 season and the return of Haliburton.

The argument against this, however, is that the Pacers have been so deep over the past few seasons that they’ve struggled to get their young talented players on the court. Walker played just 33 games as a rookie before playing 75 last season and he wasn’t a constant part of the rotation in the playoffs. The Pacers were thrilled with the promise they saw from second-round pick Johnny Furphy last year in his rookie season and he got minutes in November and December when they got hit with perimeter injuries, but he ended up averaging just 7.6 minutes per game in 50 appearances. He played more than 10 minutes just once between Dec. 28 and April 11 when the Pacers sat their starters after clinching home-court advantage in the first-round of the playoffs.

Almost any player the Pacers would take in the 2026 draft will likely face similar circumstances with so many of their key players locked up on multi-year contracts including Haliburton, Andrew Nembhard, Nesmith, Siakam, McConnell and Obi Toppin. They have decisions to make on Walker and guards Bennedict Mathurin and Ben Sheppard over the next two years, but could end up keeping all of them which would make it even tougher to get playing time in the backcourt or on the wings.

Of course, one thing they could use after Myles Turner’s departure is a center as that position is wide open heading into 2025-26. They’ll be spreading out minutes among Isaiah Jackson, Jay Huff, James Wiseman and Tony Bradley, none of whom have ever been a full-time starter for a season. A hypothetical NBA ready big man in the draft might make it more worthwhile for the Pacers to win 20 games and enter the draft lottery with a lot of tickets than win 40 and end up trying to make the playoffs through the play-in round.

However, the best players in this year’s draft before the college basketball season has begun are in the backcourt and on the wings including Kansas guard Darryn Peterson, BYU small forward A.J. Dybantsa, Duke power forward Cameron Boozer and Tennessee wing Nate Ament. Houston’s Chris Cenac Jr. might be able to play the 5 at 6-10, 240 pounds with a 7-3 wingspan and his perimeter-oriented game might fit the Pacers’ style of play well, but there isn’t a ton of depth in the class behind him.

And no one in the class is Victor Wembanyama.

The Pacers could find themselves in tank position if they are hit hard enough by injuries beyond Haliburton’s. The preseason didn’t bode particularly well in that regard as McConnell suffered a hamstring injury that will keep him out until at least Nov. 9 according to Carlisle, and rookie guard Kam Jones was held out of preseason practice because of a back injury that could keep him out just as long. Walker, Furphy, Ben Sheppard and two-way contract guard Quenton Jackson also missed time with less serious ailments. Walker, Furphy and Sheppard are back for the opener but if injuries pile up at some point that could and put the Pacers in position where it makes obvious sense to cast their eyes forward for 2026-27.

But that doesn’t fit the ethos of an organization that won at least 32 games in every season between 1988-89 and 2021-22 and therefore didn’t pick in the top nine in the draft at any time in that period. The Pacers made the playoffs in 25 of the 32 seasons in between. So this year’s team isn’t going to pass up on another chance to reach the postseason unless and until it becomes unavoidably clear they’re not going to make it.

“We hear people talk about this being a gap year,” Pacers general manager Chad Buchanan said before preseason camp started. “I don’t think that’s ever been what we’ve been about. With Mr. (Herb) Simon as our owner, it’s always been about trying to compete and trying to win. Some years are going to be more challenging than others. Obviously we’re down Tyrese so that will make some challenges, but we’re not looking at this as a year to just try and get through. We’d never wish away a season.”

So they’re going to use it to keep their standards and stay together, believing that their fastest way to a championship is to maintain their identity.

“Not having Ty, that’s a big question, but I’m excited about the opportunity for everybody to step up and rallying together more as a team,” Siakam said. “We’re definitely going to need it. We always need each other, but we’re going to need to lean on each other even more. Just staying together, fighting, being resilient like we’ve always been.”

They don’t know how many wins that will lead to, but expect it to surprise people.

“A lot of people don’t believe we can do much this year,” Nesmith said. “For us to live in that space is pretty nice. We’ve been living in that space the last four years. I don’t think there’s any real pressure on us. I think we’re just going to go out there and play our game and start out a lot better than people think we will.”

Get IndyStar’s Pacers coverage sent directly to your inbox with our Pacers Update newsletter.