What is the ceiling for the Indiana Pacers this season?

The Indiana Pacers looked like a team headed for the playoffs once again. The big question now is what is their ceiling moving forward?

I’m going to be honest with you, Pacers fans, I’ve been anxiously trying to write this article. I didn’t want to seem too optimistic or too pessimistic, too high or too low on this Indiana Pacers squad. At this point in the season, I believe we have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly from this team.

What is the ceiling for the Indiana Pacers?

We have seen quality wins such as defeating the Memphis Grizzlies, ending their seven-game winning streak at the time, and defeating playoff teams from last year like Boston and Portland. The bad continues to be the injury bug as two starters for Indiana remain out with injury.

We have only seen T.J. Warren in four games before being out indefinitely with a foot fracture and Caris LeVert has yet to make his debut in the blue and gold due to a cancerous mass on his kidney that was successfully removed. The ugly, well, we just saw a stretch of what the ugly looks like during that four-game losing streak we finally broke with a win over the Detroit Pistons.

One of the major questions that are looming over this team is what is the ceiling for the Pacers. To figure this out let’s start with what we do know. I think everyone is in agreement that this team is headed towards the playoffs again for the 6th straight year. Even without Warren and LeVert, this team is too talented in my opinion to miss the postseason. Now that we have established this the next question is how far can this team go?

Advancing past the first round has eluded the Pacers for quite some time now. Injuries have played a pivotal role in the Pacers’ shortcomings in the past few seasons. This year has the potential to finally put the first-round exits behind us. Caris LeVert and T.J. Warren should hopefully be healthy by the time the playoffs roll around while  Malcolm Brogdon, Domantas Sabonis, and Myles Turner continue to have career years.

With all that being said I believe the Pacers fully healthy have too much firepower to be a first-round exit this season. Every starter on the team has the ability to score 20 or more on any given night. Granted we haven’t seen the full product yet, but soon we will and I envision this team being very good especially in the Eastern Conference.

The bench is also the deepest I can remember a Pacers team having in quite some time. Jeremy Lamb, Doug McDermott, the Holiday brothers, and  T.J. McConnell will make for a great bench in the postseason as we have seen their effectiveness in this system already.

The expectations are that the Pacers make it past the first round this season. Health, I believe, is the biggest roadblock for the Pacers. If the Pacers can stay healthy I think they could go on a postseason run. Bill Simmons mentioned in one of his podcasts that he thinks Indiana could be a sleeper finals team and do something similar to what the Miami Heat did a season ago with their run to the NBA Finals. If everything falls into place and the Pacers are hot going into the playoffs watch out for this team to make some noise in the postseason.