538.com is saying what all of the NBA is starting to believe: the Indiana Pacers are good again.
The Indiana Pacers early season success is surprising, to say the least.
When the season began it was hard to see the team as more than a fringe playoff contender, and with the roster overhaul, it wasn’t even a sure bet that they would be anything close to a respectable team.
But now the Indiana Pacers have a 11-5 record, they’ve started to convince the media and everyone else that they’re actually a good team.
Now the numbers are beginning to back that up according to Neil Paine of 538.com.
"Not much more was expected this season, even with George returning. With Lance Stephenson and David West leaving through free agency the past two years and Roy Hibbert departing through a Romanian body-snatching coven, the core of Indiana’s conference finals runs had dispersed, and this year figured to be for rebuilding and working George back into the lineup. Yet, here Indiana is, with the league’s eighth-best Elo rating — our metric for tracking a team’s strength over time — and the fourth-most-improved Elo since preseason; the sixth-best rating (third in the East) in ESPN’s Basketball Power Index; and a higher SRS rating than the Cavs, behind just the Warriors and Spurs."
Clear here for an explanation of the ELO Rating, but basically it a long running track of how a team improves and declines overtime. So far the Pacers have been checking all the right boxes by pulling off some minor upsets while blowing out several teams so far this season.
It isn’t just the number crunchers of 538 that like Indiana either.
According to NumberFire.com, the Pacers have an 85.3% of making the playoffs right now. Vegas also thinks the Pacers are a much better team than they were just over a month ago. Indiana has gone from 60-1 odds of winning the NBA title, a jump from 1.64% to a 15-1, or a 6.3% chance according to Vegas Insider.
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It is understandable that everyone but Indiana’s most ardent fans believed this team would struggle this season. Everyone from Frank Vogel down was having to learn on the fly how exactly to make all of this work. After 3 games the Pacers didn’t look like a team that would be taking a shot at the Eastern Conference finals. They lacked identity and were struggling to get everyone on the same page.
Can they keep this up? The month of December will test them and tell exactly how good this team can me. But right now the numbers don’t lie: The Indiana Pacers are one of the best teams in the NBA.