When you spend the overwhelming majority of your professional basketball career with one team, it may be hard to change old habits and showed in part in Pascal Siakam's press conference on Monday.
Siakam had just inked a four-year max deal to re-sign with the Indiana Pacers long-term after a midseason trade brought him to Indy from his longtime home with the Toronto Raptors. Prior to the trade, Siakam played with the Raptors from his draft year in 2016 to the trade in early 2024.
With Toronto, he blossomed from a G League regular to a Most Improved Player in 2019 to an All-Star and All-NBA caliber player in the 2020s following Kawhi Leonard's departure. Not only that, but he became the franchise player following 2019 and became well-loved in the country as a whole as their best hope in basketball.
As a result, Siakam has not forgotten the Raptors, and for good reason. In the press conference on Monday, Siakam accidentally made a slip-up when he thanked the Raptors organization for trusting him before quickly correcting himself and thanking the Pacers organization.
“I wanna thank the Raptors… The Pacers organization for trusting me.”
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) July 8, 2024
Pascal Siakam accidentally thanked his former team after signing a multi-year contract extension with Indiana 😅
(via @Pacers) pic.twitter.com/YHaJ6LFsN5
A slip-up like this is very understandable, as all Siakam knew as an NBA player was the Toronto Raptors until about six months ago, and it is pretty hard to divert from old habits. This can also be looked at more sentimentally, as Siakam could also have done this on purpose to thank the Raptors organization as well as the Pacers for trusting him.
After all, Toronto was the team that drafted him, made him a focal point of the offense, gave him his first big contract, and helped him rise to stardom while becoming a pillar in the community. Additionally, the Raptors were the ones who traded him to Indiana in the first place, giving him the best chance to succeed in his new home.
Either way, it is clear that Pascal Siakam was feeling quite sentimental on Monday, and for good reason. Fresh off signing his second big contract in the NBA, the 30-year-old has plenty of great basketball ahead of him and seems ready to help take Indiana basketball as far as the eye can see.