The NBA season tips off in a few weeks while the Indiana Pacers began training camp earlier this week. Before we know it, Indiana will be playing meaningful basketball with a much brighter outlook than they had last season.
Their roster has not changed a ton from the end of last season but it does still provoke some excitement on paper. Indiana has a strong starting five when all are healthy and a pretty solid bench unit that got stronger this summer. How should we grade their offseason following their disaster of a 2020-21 season?
The Indiana Pacers are gearing up for the new NBA season in October so let’s take a look back at their summer.
It was an eventful but quiet summer for the Indiana Pacers once again. After failing to reach the playoffs under Nate Bjorkgren, Indiana fired the first-year head coach and sought a proven leader in Rick Carlisle. The Carlisle hire may have been the most important and exciting move the team made this past summer.
While it is not a flashy signing or top-5 draft pick, the hiring of Carlisle indicated the Pacers’ desire to win right now. With the roster they have in place, winning right now is not that hard to believe but injuries are going to be the biggest factor.
The starting lineup did not see any changes aside from the potential return of T.J. Warren, though that is up in the air at this point. Warren’s injury rehab has been a bit slower than originally expected, leaving his availability for opening night in question. Caris LeVert, another deadly scorer in the starting lineup, is out indefinitely with a stress fracture in his back.
If you are looking for changes on the roster, the bench is the place to start. Indiana moved on from Doug McDermott and Aaron Holiday in sign-and-trade deals that allowed them to get younger. They wound up with Isaiah Jackson as a backup big that provides defensive upside and a ton of athleticism behind Sabonis and Turner.
Chris Duarte, their lottery selection, could be in line to start while the injured starters recover but will certainly be a key piece to their second unit. His scoring and defensive ability on the wing are greatly needed off the bench.
T.J. McConnell, Goga Bitadze, and even Oshae Brissett are constants from last season but their fit with the rookies will be interesting. Brissett and Duarte would make an exciting tandem on the defensive end but the offensive creativity would take a bit of a hit.
With all factors considered, the Pacers did not do anything crazy in the summer. They kept a similar roster as the past two years with a few minor changes here or there while adding a new head coach for the second-straight offseason. Rick Carlisle is a guy with a good pedigree and a desire to win at the highest level.
Indiana did enough to get back into the middle of the Eastern Conference but not enough to be considered true contenders right now, which is fair given the scarcity of a superstar. Unless they found a way to land Ben Simmons, it is hard to imagine any scenario in which the Pacers could say they got a superstar or game-changer this summer.
Grading this summer was tough because the Pacers did a lot of good things but nothing that was really all the drastic. Keeping an injury-plagued roster is going to get a lot of the same results as the past few years.
Summer grade: B-
I would have been a fan of a Simmons trade or finding a way to get rid of Jeremy Lamb’s contract. Indiana is not quite ready to challenge the Nets, Bucks, or 76ers in the playoffs and they didn’t do anything to really get any closer. They are hovering around the same realm as last season while banking on a better injury fortune, which is not looking great.
Rick Carlisle coming back is doing a lot for this grade, saving it from being much lower. Hopefully, he can be the guy to turn things around for the better.