Getting An Outside Opinion: How Good are the Pacers? (Patreon)

Assembling a roundtable of some of the most knowledgeable voices in NBA media to determine what expectations should be for the Pacers headed into the regular season

By: Caitlin Cooper I @C2_Cooper

To preview the upcoming season, I decided to ask some of my favorite writers who cover the NBA at-large for their thoughts on the Pacers. From recapping Summer League and yammering on and on about the defense to cataloguing the location of every post entry pass to Pascal Siakam, I seemingly exhausted about as many offseason topics as can be imagined about this team, but sometimes fresh eyes are needed. After all, while I see the fact that I only cover one team as a strength when it comes to noticing finer details (i.e. like their clever hack for time management in special situations), it's also possible that my myopia has led me to miss something about how the Pacers stack up with the rest of the league.

As such, following Indiana's surprise run to the Eastern Conference Finals, the goal for this roundtable is to gauge what the outside perspective is on the team's overall trajectory headed into the season as well as what must be figured out along the way.

Allow me to introduce the panel.

Steph Noh from Sporting News: If someone at the national level is going to point out something about your team that you haven't noticed before, Steph is the most likely candidate. He has a real talent for coming up with unique story angles, and he does his homework when it comes to grinding film. Just check out his piece on the Top-100 defenders (yes, defenders -- not players). Or, for my slew of Indiana fans, his writing on the passes that make Caitlin Clark special. (Oh, and full-disclosure, he also once wrote a profile about another Caitlin from Indiana.)

Joe Wolfond from The Score: In canvasing various coaches around the league, Joe wrote one of my favorite stories I read at any outlet last year on how modern offenses blend old-school tactics with new age skills. He keeps his finger on the pulse of projecting key pivot points for individual teams and players, but can also zoom out to explain broader league trends.

Dan Favale from Bleacher Report: In my 10-plus years of covering the Pacers, there is no one in basketball media who I have recorded more podcasts with than Dan Favale, and there is also no one in basketball media who has been better at asking pinpoint precise questions about every team in the league than Dan Favale. To top it all off, he is a truly wonderful and highly underrated writer, with both a unique voice and enviable prose.

Dan Devine from Yahoo Sports: Not to be confused with Dan Favale, Dan Devine is also fire with the pen (keyboard?) and probably is the runaway leader in my highly advanced metric of "times I ask myself, 'Will I ever write a sentence that good?' per page read." Seriously, his verve and flair for description are unmatched, and he never shortchanges his readers even while cranking out volumes of quality, including his most recent series of previews.

Nekias Duncan from The Dunker Spot: Nekias is one half of the internet's favorite basketball podcast about actual basketball. He and his co-host, Steve Jones Jr., go deeper into the Xs and Os of the game, for both the NBA and WNBA, than any pairing talking into microphones at any outlet, and they do so while genuinely enjoying the sport, as well as what they do. How refreshing, right? The highest compliment I can give Nekias is that he probably didn't need this introduction, because if you're into smart analysis, you probably already know who he is.

Alright, now that everyone knows everyone, let's get on with getting their insights!

Caitlin: How good are the Pacers? 

Noh: I have the Pacers finishing sixth in the East, behind the Celtics, Knicks, Sixers, Bucks, and Cavs. That feels too low, but the top of the East is better than it’s being given credit for.

So much of the Pacers’ success hinges on what they get from Tyrese Haliburton. When you ask how good the Pacers are, the question to me is how good he is. Is he the First Team All-NBA candidate that was lighting the league on fire in the first half of the season, or the still-good player who wasn’t quite the same after nagging injuries?

Haliburton isn’t a guy that’s going to generate advantages with his athleticism or blazing first step. One of his best ways that he’s pressured defenses has been through his pull-up shooting. When he was healthy through his first 33 games, he hit 39.1 percent of his almost seven pull-up 3’s per game. After the injuries, he shot 29.1 percent on five attempts for the rest of the regular season.

Haliburton improved to 35.9 percent from deep on pull-ups in the playoffs, and he shot 39.7 percent on those shots last season. There’s plenty of reason to believe that he can get back to a near-40 percent pull-up shooter. If he does, then the Pacers are going to be better than the national pundits like me are giving them credit for.

Wolfond: To me the Pacers are a team with a high floor and a medium-height ceiling. I think in terms of raw quality they'll be better this year than they were last year, based on the fact that they'll have Pascal Siakam for the full season, that they brought back every key rotation player, and that eight of those rotation players are 26 or under and have room to keep developing.  

That said, I don't expect the improved quality to translate to improved or even equivalent big-picture results. I think they're good enough to push for 50-plus wins and a top-four seed, maybe even to win a series, but getting back to the conference finals in an improved East feels like a longshot.  

I still see a hole on this roster where a big wing defender should be. I'm an Aaron Nesmith fan and think he took a major step forward last season, but he's undersized for a lot of the assignments he's tasked with. Siakam has the requisite length but is much better as a helper than he is as an on-ball stopper at this stage. Jarace Walker has all the physical tools but still needs a lot more seasoning.  

 I think the biggest variable for the Pacers is which version of Tyrese Haliburton they get. Because the Haliburton we saw for the first two-plus months of last season, before he injured his hamstring, was one of the two or three best offensive players in the league. He's the propeller that makes Indiana's whole uptempo system go. But he never looked like the same guy after he came back, especially as a jump-shooter. Given that he missed the end of the Celtics series after aggravating that injury, and was apparently still dealing with the fallout during the Olympics, it's fair to wonder if he can recapture that early-season magic. 

If he can, though, the Pacers' offense might just be good enough to override their patchy defense and push them past what I currently view as a second-round ceiling.

Favale: There will be those who take insult to the “one player away” trope, even though it’s really more of a compliment. Yet, the Pacers typify this maxim. And for them, specifically, this is a compliment when you consider the one player from which they are away. 

This is not a team that must scour the draft and trade ranks for the tentpole star who can spearhead a contender. Tyrese Haliburton is that guy. To call his offensive impact and style and even malleability transcendent is an understatement. This is someone who, before his hamstring issues, was crashing the top five of the MVP discussion last season. 

It just so happens the Pacers aren’t “The Other Guy” away, either. They bagged him in Pascal Siakam. In their case, “one player away” is an analog for a non-star. And even that may overstate its use. It’s more like a proxy for a complementary archetype—not something or someone wholesale, but a rotation additive in the form of a wing player who, preferably, could emerge as a fifth closing-lineup member.

That isn’t necessarily a small ask. It’s also not a huge one. And if the Pacers believe in the defense of their core lineup—Haliburton, Siakam, Andrew Nembhard, Aaron Nesmith, Myles Turner—they can set their sights even lower. 

In the meantime, having a top six (maaaaybe seven) of the rotation you can trust goes a long way, particularly when two of them are flat-out stars. Hit on a couple of swing factors—Bennedict Mathurin or Jarace Walker or Ben Sheppard—and the gap between Indy and the elite of the elite is bridged even further. As it stands, with everyone already in place, strengths and weaknesses and all, this isn’t a unit that consensus will ticket for a top-four playoff spot. But it’s absolutely a team capable, when all’s said and done, of having snagged one.

Devine: Pretty good, I think!

I’m not sure I’d go all the way past 50 wins, given the strength at the top of the East and the ongoing concerns about building a better-than-bad defense. But I don’t think 47 wins — with only half a season of Pascal Siakam and a fully operational Tyrese Haliburton, and with more than half the roster under age 25 — was a fluke. With better health/more availability from their two All-Stars and pricing in some growth from the young dudes, I’d expect the Pacers to post another high-40s win total and be in the mix for home-court advantage in the opening round of the playoffs.

Duncan: They're a quality basketball team in a vacuum, and one of my favorites to watch offensively. Outside of healthy Boston, I'm not sure there's a team that puts more strain on defenses than the Pacers do.

If I'm tiering things out in the East, the Pacers likely fall in the third tier for me: below the (healthy) Celtics, and juuuust below the Knicks, Sixers, and Cavs in Tier 2

Caitlin: What stood out most to you about the Pacers during preseason?

Noh: Jarace Walker. I had the pleasure of watching him in person during the Pacers’ first preseason game in Atlanta. While he made some mistakes, he did a decent job defending Jalen Johnson and bodied Zaccharie Risacher down low.

Walker is leading the Pacers in preseason minutes and making the most of them, hitting a ton of 3’s. It looks like he’s consistent enough to punish defenses when they pull in from the corners.

Walker had a weird role in an up-and-down summer league, but he did hit 46 percent of his looks from deep. For a prospect who wasn’t a lights-out shooter in college, maybe this is who he is now. I’d love to see him get some minutes off the bench.

Wolfond:  Contrary to a lot of other modern defenses, for most of last season the Pacers cared more about staying home on shooters than they did about helping in the middle of the floor - whether that meant providing digs at the nail, tagging from the weak side, flooding the strong side, doubling the post, or bumping cutters.  

You could say they were successful in executing that scheme - they surrendered the league's lowest rate of opponent threes - but it didn't lead to good defensive outcomes on the whole. The tradeoff was allowing the highest rate of opponent rim shots, which is tough to survive when you don't have elite rim protection (Myles Turner took a step back in that regard last season).  

They did, however, tweak their scheme as the season went along, and were less help-averse by the end of it than they were at the beginning. To wit: in the playoffs, 8 of 16 teams conceded a higher rim frequency than the Pacers. And what stood out to me in the one preseason game of theirs that I watched was that they seem to be continuing to move away from the philosophy that defined their defense in 2023-24. They were still very reluctant to double the post (and Zach Edey made them pay for that), but otherwise their low help was more proactive and aggressive than it was last year. They also sprinkled in some 2-3 zone, which is a coverage that, if executed well, often functions as a rim deterrent.  

The numbers back this up, too. The Pacers this preseason allowed about eight fewer rim attempts and 10 more 3-point attempts than they did last preseason. They allowed more than twice as many corner threes. That philosophy shift may not beget a defensive leap (it didn't prevent Indiana from finishing 13th out of 16 in playoff defensive efficiency, after all), but I still think it's a worthwhile adjustment.

Favale: Jarace Walker’s offense looms largest for me. I’ve defaulted toward his offensive fit being murky, at best, if he’s going to play alongside two other bigs or even just multiple ball-handlers. So much of his value seems tethered to initiating or decision-making in the middle of the floor, avenues that don’t feel as if they’ll be accessible to him unless both of Indy’s stars are on the bench. Last year’s three-point efficiency is also something I’ve written off as a low-volume fluke. 

But if his preseason performance is any indication, he can be more complementary and connective that I initially thought. He seems less hesitant to uncork threes off the catch and more comfortable taking a dribble or two to set himself up. The catch-and-go drives, meanwhile, feel like an antidote to my “wants to occupy the same space as others” concern. 

Those moments are a vehicle through which he can orbit others and channel his inner playmaker (as well as scorer). And while there’s still plenty of chaotic outcomes built into his feel for contact and takeoff points, Walker is starting to profile as someone whose fit inside the larger context of the team won’t be held back, at all, by what’s happening on the offensive end of the floor.

Devine: Glass-half-empty: Sitting bottom-10 in points allowed per possession, defensive rebounding rate, points allowed in the paint, points allowed off of turnovers, opponent free-throw attempts, and field goal percentage allowed at the rim. I’m not exactly breaking any news here: For the Pacers to be better than even I think they can be, they have to build a better-than-bad defense, and — with the possible exception of those zone looks where they move Haliburton out of harm’s way and let him play as the low man — I’m not sure there was a ton to be encouraged about in their development there.

Accentuating the positive: Jarace Walker getting up 14 3-pointers in 94 minutes, making six of them, and looking (to these untrained eyes, anyway) pretty fluid and comfortable when he was taking them! I know he’s got an uphill climb to minutes on this roster as currently constructed, and I know that a lot of the more feel-and-seasoning-based/“dark arts” of screening and defense stuff is what will make the difference in terms of him getting a chance and subsequently making the most of it. But I remain convinced that a guy that big and athletic who can also drill 3s off the catch — and even, as you highlighted against Memphis, pull right in a defender’s face off the bounce — has, and will find, a place in the league.

Duncan: I was really intrigued by Tyrese Haliburton (getting) off the ball, particularly in the first two games.

By now, we know there isn't a pass that Haliburton can't -- or isn't willing -- to make, and from multiple platforms. But he felt even more willing to get off the ball -- off misses AND made baskets -- and let other teammates kick off the offense. 

The benefits are obvious in transition; advance the ball before the defense can get set, and increase your odds of generating a good look. One play burned in my brain, if you care to look for it, came with roughly 4:50 left in the second quarter of the Hawks game. After a missed hook from Clint Capela, James Wiseman came down with the board and flipped a pass to Haliburton. Hali took one (1) dribble and flipped the field with a pass to Pascal Siakam. One dribble for Siakam, two feet in the paint, and a dish back to Haliburton on the left wing for his third catch-and-shoot attempt of the half.

Of course, that example came against the "vaunted" Hawks preseason defense, but I found myself intrigued by how egalitarian the early offense may be for the Pacers. Will there be more room for Haliburton to literally work off the ball and lean further into his shooting? Will the "relinquishing" of touches make way for Andrew Nembhard to sustain -- or in a best case, improve upon -- his postseason showing from a few months ago?

Preseason numbers must be taken with a grain of salt for obvious reasons, but I'll present this, via Second Spectrum: Haliburton averaged just 2.6 dribbles per touch, well below last season's regular season clip (3.9). I don't expect that drastic of a drop once the real games start, but some seeds have been planted for the number to be lower.

Caitlin: What's the biggest question the Pacers need to answer during the regular season? 

Noh: How do these guys take the next step? Haliburton and Siakam are a great 1-2 punch, but they don’t quite have that third guy yet.

This is a team that seems like it’s in need of a consolidation trade. They’re too deep to play guys like Walker. As a card-carrying member of the Andrew Nembhard fan club, I am obligated to say that they have some guys who could be starting and/or have bigger roles elsewhere.

As far as on-court stuff goes, I’m very interested to see how the Pacers react to Rick Carlisle’s prediction that the game will be much more physical this season than last. That change will be great for tough defenders like Aaron Nesmith, but how will that affect their killer offense? Loyal readers of Basketball, She Wrote should already be familiar with the issue.

Wolfond: At the risk of stating the obvious, they have to prove they can sustain something resembling competence at the defensive end. They ranked 24th on that side of the ball last season, and an only marginally less embarrassing 22nd after Siakam debuted.  

 There are clearly some personnel limitations that will hold them back to some extent, but there's also enough defensive talent here that approaching league average shouldn't be out of the question. And the offense should be good enough that being borderline-average on defense could put them firmly in the secondary (read: non-Celtics) tier of East contenders.  

To do that, they probably need to improve on their bottom-five defensive rebound rate, and maybe not send opponents to the free-throw line more frequently than any other team. To do that, they probably need to do a better job containing dribble penetration, and maybe find some creative ways to hide/insulate Haliburton. Turner's never been a good rebounder for his position, which means the guys around him need to do a better job dealing with physicality so they can clean up behind Turner when he does what he does best, which is contest shots. Simply taking care of the low-hanging fruit would go a long way

Favale:  Are Jarace Walker and Bennedict Mathurin big-picture keepers? 

This is without a doubt low-hanging fruit, but that doesn’t make it any less critical. There are degrees of urgency attached to the Pacers’ current window. Their primary superstar is just 24, but they’ve already (super)maxed him out. They also surrendered assets for the right to acquire—and then pay—a 30-year-old Siakam. They have even started paying those around their stars. Making these decisions, basically in tandem, inherently accelerates your timeline. 

All of which makes the handling and development of Mathurin and Walker fascinating. Jarace looks the part of this team’s missing rotation piece. Will he also play like it on defense? And how much runway does he get during games that matter if developmental warts shine through?

Mathurin’s situation is even more complicated. The Pacers have already reinvested in Haliburton, T.J. McConnell and Andrew Nembhard. He’ll be next up when his extension eligibility kicks in next summer. Indy needs to figure out what he’s worth to a team, both on and off the court, with so many talented guards on multi-year deals. Bringing him off the bench is a natural call this year, but when he’s neither this team’s best ball-handler nor scorer nor playmaker and he (probably) can’t scale up to guard too many true wings, what does the long-term fit look like? Is there even one? And how does the front office handle it if there isn’t? Do they act now? Or over the offseason? I remain intrigued. And maybe a little confused. But mostly intrigued.

Devine: Second verse, same as the first: Is there a schematic shift, rotation-juggling solve, or player-development-focused pathway to ranking even, like, 18th on defense? And if not, is there a deal to make to get there that doesn’t compromise the structural integrity of what should be a top-five offense as long as Haliburton and the rest of Indiana’s phalanx of ball-handlers and shooters are present? This team can be good with a not-great defense; it can’t be great with a not-good defense. (I’m sorry if that’s boring.)

Duncan: For me, it's "How much help will the Pacers need?"

There are some interesting consolidation moves for the Pacers to consider if they want to go that route. There's plenty of transaction talk to be had with this group if you'd like.

I'm more intrigued by the literal sense -- what will the help principles be for this defense?

They mixed in nail help and high/early tags on ball screens. They brought their low man in early on some reps. They completely went 2v2 on certain possessions. Every configuration had mixed results. 

It's important for defenses to be able to mix in different looks, but I wish I was more comfortable with where they are on a base level. Considering how fast they intend to play, and how consistently high their pick-up points were defensively (a carryover from last season), they'll need to nail the help (I'm not sorry) so their defense can trend closer to average this year.