Indiana Pacers: This is the ultimate takeaway from the 2021-22 season

The NBA Playoffs have just started, and for the second straight year, the Indiana Pacers are nowhere to be seen. Finishing the 2021-22 season with a bottom-dwelling 25-57 record, this campaign, even if relative to expectations, was an outright cluster of disappointments.

While the Pacers had a redeeming factor when they traded for Tyrese Haliburton and subsequently elevated the ceiling of their future, you can safely give Indiana a putrid mark in your end-of-season report cards. However, pegging this as a blessing in disguise is apt in so many ways, which brings us to the ultimate takeaway from this Pacers season, one that is perhaps a culmination of a long denial phase.

This is the biggest takeaway for the Indiana Pacers from the 2021-22 season

In recent seasons, the Indiana Pacers have been one of the league’s biggest overachievers. Save for this season and the last one, the team has been a consistent tier-two force in the East. That ceaseless hope of elevation, however, has never been realized, primarily owing to injuries, but also to the franchise’s tendency to play it safe.

As Indiana teetered on the edges of mediocrity before a full-circle collapse this season, the front office tried to reverse the fortunes by making changes on the sidelines. Nate McMillan’s teams were excellent defensively, but lacked the requisite offensive oomph to be contenders. Nate Bjorkgren, in his lone season with the Blue and Gold, made the Pacers run a frenzied offense, but effectively shunned the team’s identity on defense. Rick Carlisle, the current head coach, tried to piece the puzzle together, but eventually ended with a half-baked product.

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You could already surmise the point from the previous paragraph, but if you have not, then let this harsh takeaway cut its way. The ultimate takeaway from this season is that the Indiana Pacers’ previous core never had the makings to actually work. Injuries did not help, but availability is a factor in itself. The core already reached its peak in 2019-20, and as the Pacers hoped for greener pastures, they were simply caught sleeping by the other up-and-comers in the East.

Trading Domantas Sabonis was a massive, defining step towards the realization of such fact, but to avoid making the same mistakes, the Indiana Pacers have to move with more conviction and fully embrace the direction that they are taking in the present. If they have to move away from the remnants of their recent past to bolster their tomorrows, this is the perfect and the most harmless time to do it.

There is no looking back.