By Christmas time last year, no one could imagine that the Pacers would end up being so close to being NBA champions. Indiana was struggling at the time with a 15-15 record and Haliburton was having a poor season for his standards. Then, the team and especially their key player flipped a switch and the Pacers were great the rest of the way. Haliburton had a mediocre first half of the season (44.9% FG, 36.9% 3pts, 8.5 apg and 1.8 TO/game) but he exploded in the second half (53.3% FG, 43.9% 3pts, 11.0 apg and 1.2 TO/game).
Indiana made some incredible comebacks in the playoffs and even though they were huge underdogs against Oklahoma City in the Finals, they took their rivals to a decisive G7 with legit chances to win the title until… Haliburton suffered a terrible achilles injury which will prevent him from playing in this upcoming season.
Unexpectedly, the Pacers also lost Myles Turner in free agency to Milwaukee and with Haliburton out for the season, the Pacers decided not to invest too much to find a replacement for their starting Center as they know they won’t be contenders this season. Hence, Indiana decided to only trade for Jay Huff from Memphis for the Center position. Huff had some solid offensive numbers last season despite playing limited minutes and he indeed showed some good perimeter range like Turner’s. I expect Indiana to keep their usual system running with Huff now at Center instead of Turner.
Naturally, Indiana’s biggest challenge this year will be replacing Haliburton. However, the Pacers decided to do nothing and just hope their other guards can pick up the slack. Andrew Nembhard will have to dramatically increase his usuge after averaging only 10.0 ppg last season. Unfortunately for them, T.J. McConnell will also miss the start of the season and so the Pacers will start the year without their two best playmaking guards.
In order for the Pacers to have any kind of a solid season this year, they will need Bennedict Mathurin to have a breakthrough and be consistent on offense, next to Pascal Siakam. Head Coach Rick Carlisle didn’t trust him enough last season as even though Mathurin had a great G3 in the NBA finals where he scored 27 points in 22 minutes while shooting 9-12 FG, he only saw 14 minutes of action in the following game. This can’t happen this season and he should have a great chance to prove himself.
It seems like Indiana has already given up on this season as Haliburton won’t be available the whole year and they didn’t make any moves to improve their roster. They are just hoping to be competitive with the same core of players from last season sans Haliburton and Turner. This is now a NBA Finals tested core and they could surprise some of their opponents during the season, but their ceiling should be considerably low.