Any day now, the NBA is expected to announce plans for expansion teams in Seattle and Las Vegas.
The increase to a 32-team league will result in ripple effects for the Indiana Pacers.
The NBA will need to realign its divisions, most likely to eight four-team divisions. An NBA division title doesn’t mean as much as it once did – a nice banner and that’s about it - but Pacer fans should nonetheless keep close tabs on the upcoming realignment. Indiana will play its division opponents four times a year, so a tougher division could make a difference in a close race for playoff seeding. Division alignment is also expected to affect the NBA Cup in-season tournament, and maybe even postseason qualification.
Friendly neighbors
As part of the realignment, a current Western Conference team will need to move to the Eastern Conference. Seattle and Las Vegas surely will be assigned to the West, meaning another West team will need to head East to give the conferences 16 teams apiece.
Most early realignment projections expect the Minnesota Timberwolves to shift to the Eastern Conference. If Minnesota moves east, and if geography is the primary consideration for division realignment, the Pacers should land in a division with the Timberwolves plus the Chicago Bulls and the Milwaukee Bucks.
What a difference a few years makes. As recently as three years ago, Indiana fans would have wondered how their team would ever get past the Giannis Antetokounmpo-led Bucks for division supremacy, but they also would have chalked up the games against Minnesota and Chicago as likely wins.
Now, the situation is completely reversed. Indiana fans will be entertained watching Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards-LaMelo Ball backcourt combination four times a year, but it will be a challenge beating out the Timberwolves for the division title. Chicago appears poised to emerge from years of mediocrity after adding Caleb Wilson in the recent NBA Draft. The likely wins will come against Milwaukee, which is headed for a few years of rebuilding after trading away Antetokounmpo.
It’s not a cakewalk division by any means, but it’s probably the realignment scenario Indiana fans should be pulling for. As you’ll read in a moment, most of the alternatives are far more daunting.
Surprise division opponents?
If the NBA taps into historic football rivalries and groups together the markets that comprise the NFL’s NFC North – Detroit, Minnesota, Chicago and Milwaukee – then the Pacers could find themselves in a division with very little shared history. Â
In this scenario, Indiana likely would wind up in a division with Cleveland, Washington and Toronto. When you list the Pacers’ historic rivalries the Wizards and Raptors aren’t very high on the list (playoff matchups in the 2010s notwithstanding)
That would have been a favorable alignment for Indiana in the first half of the decade. Not so much in the latter half of the 2020s. The Cavaliers were the No. 1 seed in the East two years ago, reached the Eastern Conference Finals this past spring, and appear committed to contention moving forward. The Wizards seem poised to emerge from the wilderness after years of accumulating assets. Watching A.J. Dybantsa four times a year will give Pacer fans bitter memories of how the ping pong balls for the 2026 NBA Draft didn’t bounce their way. The Raptors are in win-how mode after adding Kawhi Leonard to a playoff-contending core – a formula that yielded a championship once already.
Who’s in, who’s out?
Here’s who won’t be in the Pacers’ division: If the NBA moves to eight four-team divisions, it’s hard to come up with a scenario where the Pacers wind up in the same division as longtime Central Division foe Detroit. If the Pacers are grouped with teams to the immediate west, the Pistons will need to head east. If Detroit aligns with the city’s historic NFC North rivals, then Indiana gets squeezed elsewhere. Either way, that’s probably a good thing for Indiana, since the Pistons are coming off a 60-win season with one of the youngest core groups in the league.
Don’t rule out a realignment of four eight-team divisions - an eight-division format could result in awkward scenarios where division champions really shouldn’t make the playoffs. If this happens, and if Minnesota isn’t the pick to move east, the Pacers could share a division with the Memphis Grizzlies or New Orleans Pelicans.
If you’re an Indiana fan choosing between one of those potential division opponents, you hope it’s New Orleans. Memphis should return to respectability after adding Cameron Boozer. The Pelicans, meanwhile, can’t seem to get out of their own way despite decent lottery luck.
If the NBA goes to eight-team divisions, and if the league wants to keep the Northeast Megalopolis teams together (Washington, Philadelphia, Boston and both New York teams), then either Charlotte Hornets or Atlanta Hawks would have to return to the Central Division. Yet again, this would have been good for the Pacers in the recent past, but maybe not such a good thing in the second half of the 2020s.
Charlotte seems to be on the rise – the Hornets were one of the best teams in the league in the second half of the season. Atlanta also looks like a playoff contender for the immediate future.
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