It's been nothing short of a nightmare season for the Indiana Pacers. This team is coming off a dream year where they came one Tyrese Haliburton Achilles away from an NBA championship. Now, less than one month into the 2025-26 campaign, it seems that the Pacers are going to have no choice but to take the dreaded "gap year."
Thursday night's loss to the Phoenix Suns dropped Indiana to a 1-11 record, including a 0-7 mark away from Gainbridge Fieldhouse. This is just about the worst result through the first three weeks of the year that you could have asked for.
The Pacers came into this season knowing that they were going to be down their best player and offensive engine in Tyrese Haliburton for the entire year. It was going to be an uphill battle no matter what, but there was still some reason for optimism. This had been a gritty, tough squad that defied the odds for the last several seasons, and there was reason to think that could translate into them winning quite a few more games than they were expected to in this season.
The Pacers are being forced into a "gap year"
Especially considering the lack of strength in the Eastern Conference as a whole, many thought that conditions were right for the Pacers to play spoiler once again. They were likely never going to have the offensive juice to make a deep playoff run until number 0 was back, but perhaps they could still win quite a few games in the regular season and maybe even sneak into the playoffs.
It was a nice thought, but that dream now seems long gone in Indiana. Especially after Aaron Nesmith's injury against the Suns on Wednesday, this Pacers team is now firmly up the river without a paddle. With this team looking so different from how it did just five months ago, there don't seem to be a lot of avenues to making some kind of grand turnaround.
The veteran leadership of Myles Turner is gone, and the Pacers are severely depleted on the injury front. It would appear Nesmith avoided a major injury, but Obi Toppin and Bennedict Mathurin have both been out since October as well. Starting out the year this injury-riddled isn't a great indicator for what's to come.
With all that in mind, it seems inevitable that Indiana is in a "gap year" now, whether they want to be or not. The good news is that they own their own first-round pick next summer, and we could be talking about a scenario where the Pacers get to add a top-five or top-three selection to this team. When the roster returns to full health, that's a scary thought for the rest of the league.