Pacers season preview: A rare tanking year for Indiana
Throughout most of Indiana’s recent history, they have ranged from a solid to a strong playoff team. Before getting the sixth overall selection in this year’s draft, the highest draft pick they’ve had in the last 30 years was the 10th overall in the 2010 draft. They are now projected to have one of their worst teams in franchise history after pivoting to a full rebuild, and that’s before potentially trading some of their top remaining rotation players.
Below is a preview of the upcoming 2022-23 Pacers season.
Roster changes
Gregory Fisher-USA TODAY Sports
Returning: Buddy Hield, Myles Turner, TJ McConnell, Goga Bitadze, Jalen Smith, Tyrese Haliburton, Chris Duarte, Isaiah Jackson, Oshae Brissett, Terry Taylor
Additions: Daniel Theis (Boston), Bennedict Mathurin (Arizona), Aaron Nesmith (Boston), Andrew Nembhard (Gonzaga), James Johnson (Brooklyn) Kendall Brown (Baylor), Trevelin Queen (Philadelphia)
Subtractions: Malcolm Brogdon (Boston), TJ Warren (Brooklyn), Ricky Rubio (Cleveland), Duane Washington (Phoenix), Lance Stephenson, Nate Hinton, Gabe York
Strengths
Trevor Ruszkowski-USA TODAY Sports
* Shooting and spacing… While the Pacers aren’t expected to win many games this season, they could have a fun offense to watch. Tyrese Haliburton is surrounded by several good shooters including Buddy Hield, Chris Duarte, Bennedict Mathurin, and Myles Turner. Nesmith is another player who was projected to be a good shooter coming out of college, perhaps he can finally get it going with the Pacers.
* Young and athletic… Indiana looks like they have a cornerstone in Haliburton and they’ll spend this season looking to see if anyone else on the roster can be on the next great Pacers team alongside him. The team should be fast and capable of running the floor, which is good because Haliburton is nice in transition. They aren’t expected to be good on the defensive end by any means but the energy the young player brings should help with intangibles like getting back on defense, crashing the boards, and helping on defense.
Weaknesses
Wendell Cruz-USA TODAY Sports
* Defense… Indiana had the third-worst defense last season but had the worst defensive rating after the trade deadline. Not having Turner for most of the season likely factored into that and they could remain at the bottom if they do end up moving him. Opposing defenses can attack their guards and the Pacers lack any type of versatile wing defender. Maybe one of their other centers can improve to being adequate at helping or protecting the rim, but other than that they lack the personnel to make enough stops.
* Turnovers… The Pacers averaged the fourth-most turnovers per game after the trade deadline. Haliburton played a big part in that with his 3.2 turnovers per contest and that may not change with the Pacers getting even younger. While they didn’t give up too many transition opportunities last season, they ranked second in points per possession in transition. If they don’t clean up their turnovers they could potentially allow even more opposing transition points than last year.
Depth chart
Possible moves
Indiana will be rolling over close to $30 million in cap space into the regular season. Their utilization of it was limited to signing Nembhard to a four-year deal, as well as the matched maximum offer sheet they signed Deandre Ayton to. They’ve since reserved their cap space for potential trades where they take back bad salaries with draft picks attached.
They’ve also made Turner and Hield available and have had lengthy discussions with the Lakers on a trade that would bring them back Westbrook and one or two first-round picks. Such a deal would preserve a majority of Indiana’s cap space for this season and allow them to bottom out further while maximizing their cap flexibility for 2023. They are currently projected to generate close to $50 million in cap space next offseason and getting off Hield’s salary for next season would push that projection close to $70 million.
Salaries
Prediction
5th in the Central Division, 15th in the Eastern Conference (as voted by the HoopsHype staff)
