The Indiana Pacers are no strangers to being the underdog. Last season, despite entering the playoffs as the No. 6 seed and being predicted to lose each series, the Pacers made it all the way to the conference finals. Furthermore, despite there being little confidence in them, the Pacers rose to the occasion and gave the eventual champion Boston Celtics their toughest challenge of the postseason, even though they got swept in the series.
This underdog label has not changed much this year. Most people in the media wrote the Pacers' conference finals appearance off as a fluke, and nobody expected them to be successful this season. However, they ended the season with 50 wins and secured homecourt advantage. Even so, in their upcoming first-round playoff matchup against the Milwaukee Bucks, the Pacers are once again looked at as the underdogs, not the favorites.
With the lack of respect the team has gotten, it has left Pacers fans wondering if the experts are even watching them play. In a bit of a bittersweet development, this question has been answered, and it is exactly what Pacers fans expected.
The Indiana Pacers are continuing to get disrespected
Recently, former NBA players Chandler Parsons and Lou Williams each picked the Bucks to defeat the Pacers in the first round of the playoffs. While many Pacers fans may not like this take, their other recent comment about the team may be even worse.
On an episode of Run It Back on FanDuel TV, Parsons and Williams both admitted that they did not watch the Pacers much this season. While it is a bit of a sigh of relief to hear people in the media admit this, it is not a good look for them at all, and it is unfair to the Pacers and their fans.
y'all mfs don't watch us play (but literally) pic.twitter.com/R67yam84t3
— AKRiley (@AKRileyy5) April 15, 2025
"I won't even sit here and lie on these people's TVs and lie. I haven't watched a lot of Indiana Pacers basketball this year," Williams said. "They got off to a slow start, and I became disinterested."
"Like I was off the Nuggets, now I'm on them. I was off the Pacers, I'm still off them," Parsons said.
While Williams is right about the Pacers beginning the season on a bad note, they turned things around in a major way and became one of the most fun teams in basketball to watch. However, there are two likely reasons Williams, Parsons, and seemingly the rest of the media do not give the Pacers their time of day--they do not have a top star, and they play in Indiana.
Tyrese Haliburton, Pascal Siakam, and Myles Turner are great players that most teams in the NBA would be happy with. However, none of them are MVP candidates (or even a tier or two below), which hurts their national appeal. Additionally, while Indiana is a dedicated sports market, it is not as flashy as places like Los Angeles, New York, Boston, etc. Even so, this is a major problem that the Pacers only have one fix to--keep winning until they cannot be denied anymore.