Eras used to last for five years at a time. Cores would stick together, and trades were few and far between. It was common to get attached to a team and to watch them keep the group together, come rain or shine or playoff failures.
That no longer exists today.
While many fans would like to hope that the Indiana Pacers' star-studded, well-balanced team featuring Tyrese Haliburton, Pascal Siakam, Ivica Zubac, and the rest of the rotation will be a long-term cornerstone of Eastern Conference playoff battles, the unfortunate truth is they may not have that long.
Present eras don't last the way they once did
Modern contenders have two or three years to make their big runs with current iterations of their teams. The Milwaukee Bucks won the title in 2021. They only got two more playoff runs in before they blew up the team by trading Jrue Holiday as part of a package for Damian Lillard. Just two more years after that, and both Dame and Khris Middleton were gone. Today, so is Giannis Antetokounmpo.
There are other teams to apply this to as well. The Minnesota Timberwolves made their first Western Conference Finals since Kevin Garnett was in MVP form and then immediately traded Karl-Anthony Towns to the New York Knicks. Today, the primary return for KAT, Julius Randle, is with the Brooklyn Nets.
Contenders don't get long to make things happen. With the Pacers' cap crunch looming, they truly only have one or two years in the best-case scenario.
Indiana's core of Reggie Miller, Rik Smits, and Mark Jackson spent six years together alongside Antonio and Dale Davis. The Pacers today have only one member of their 2020-21 team still on the roster (TJ McConnell).
Despite an incredible team that has been built almost entirely through thoughtful trades for undervalued options, the Pacers won't have five years to figure this out.
They'll be lucky if they get three.
Are moves on the horizon?
No one wants to break up a team that we haven't been able to see together yet, but that may be what happens. The Big Three Brooklyn Nets team that assembled two MVPs and another All-NBA-level guard only saw the three of them play together for 16 games across multiple years.
If Tyrese Haliburton is either not ready to go from the start of the season onwards or struggles to regain his form after a career-altering injury, there could be moves made this offseason, or even sooner.
Jarace Walker and Ben Sheppard, both notable X-Factors in their own rights, are free agents in the offseason. Resigning either would put a real dent in the flexibility that the Pacers are keeping for the 2028-29 offseason when 80% of their team is no longer under contract.
There are players who could be moved for better loss prevention. Obi Toppin, Andrew Nembhard, and even the older TJ McConnell could fetch some value in trades, but they would come at the expense of a window that seems cracked open right now.
This is the definition of a rock and a hard place, and Indiana may not have as long as they'd like to solve it.
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