The Indiana Pacers are in the middle of not a rebuild, but a rebirth. What’s a rebirth?
The offseason has begun to slow, rosters have begun to fill and the rebirth for the Pacers is taking shape.
It’s not a “salt the earth” Philadelphia 76ers teardown, nor is it a Cleveland Cavaliers “let’s just sign a bunch of older fellas” approach. It’s also not a New York Knicks “we have no idea what we’re doing” menagerie. No, no this is different.
Team building processes all have the same goal: to be like a phoenix, that mythical majestic bird who would end its life being consumed by fire, only to reemerge like Daenerys Targaryen from the flames better than ever, and not like the actual Phoenix basketball team that died in the flames around 2010 and has yet to emerge unsinged, charred or otherwise.
The Pacers want to stride out of the Paul George-inspired inferno quickly, while also losing the fewest games possible. This isn’t a new concept in NBA history. The last four dynasties (90’s Bulls, early ’00s Lakers, mid ’00s Spurs and, as everyone expects, these Warriors) all developed without intentionally tanking for five years in order to gain high draft picks.
Let’s examine each in turn.