It's easy to say you need to hit the ground running. It is easy to claim that the passage of time and the difficulties you once faced are no more than something to shrug off and move past.
Maybe we get this in basketball discourse because of 2K, where players do not have meaningful step backs from injury and instead just return as they once were. Injuries are a number of days to wait, not a meaningful mental and physical struggle to overcome.
That's not how the real world works, however, and the Indiana Pacers have a whole lot of things to overcome.
Their best player, Tyrese Haliburton, will be returning after nearly 400 days away from the game since he tore his Achilles tendon in Game 7 of the NBA Finals. Aaron Nesmith, the Pacers' starting small forward, played only 45 games last year. Ivica Zubac was the Pacers' trade deadline acquisition, and will now have to settle into Indiana after spending his whole career in L.A. as part of the Los Angeles Lakers and the Los Angeles Clippers.
All of this is to say that things may not settle in immediately.
Stay positive, it takes time
For those coming back from injury, there may be rust, and for those coming in without having experienced the 2024-25 Pacers, there may not even be a connection to begin with.
However, despite the difficulties, or more realistically, because of those difficulties, it is important that this team and this fan base stay optimistic.
It's hard to judge how a locker room feels. While players are no doubt completely content with their jobs and probably have no issues with each other, the way they interact tells so much about how a season can go.
Teams that like each other can usually bring up the problems that the team has without any worry of being yelled at or of getting into a larger fight. Good team chemistry means accountability for everyone.
Now, that also means an acceptance that things will take time. The Pacers' roster will need to gel, but it will not happen overnight.
The same approach should be held by fans.
It's not going to happen immediately. There are too many factors working against the Pacers to just settle in without issue. However, just as the team will have to take time to figure those things out, fans will need to be patient as well.
It will be a long season, even longer than the summer without basketball has felt. No matter how the Pacers show up in the first game of preseason, that will still be true, and Indiana will need to continue putting in work.
The only thing one can count on at this point in the season is that it's good to have basketball back. Any complaints beyond that is ungrateful and needlessly self-destructive.
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