The 2025-26 season was bound to be an abject failure for the Indiana Pacers before the season even started. The entire year was dead in the water when Tyrese Haliburton tore his Achilles tendon in a do-or-die Game 7 of the NBA Finals against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
That's not to say that the season was completely hopeless or that Pacers fans would have happily simulated through it in an attempt to protect their sanity or evening plans.
Instead, it was just a season that became more lost by the day. Pascal Siakam dealt with injury issues, as did Aaron Nesmith. Andrew Nembhard failed to take the meaningful step forward that so many hoped he could when the idea of a "gap year" was initially raised.
The Pacers were simply unwatchable. There was no reason to engage with the 2025-26 Pacers unless you wanted to see fringe NBA players claw for their chance to prove themselves. It was pretty bad. The only good thing to come from that dreadful season is the trade for Ivica Zubac, who only played five games in Indiana.
It's okay to have seasons disappear about once an era. Think about what the Pacers did in the time following when Paul George snapped his leg during Olympic qualifiers. They were trying to be decent, but simply couldn't. There was never real hope, but that was okay.
Over a decade later, the same is true now. Last year was fine. It's easy to call it a one-off thing because Haliburton, Siakam, and Nesmith will be returning and the expectation is that Indiana will once again be one of the best teams in the now overcrowded Eastern Conference of doom.
However, what happens if they can't return to form? What happens if Haliburton is not the player he once was? What happens if that singular disappointment becomes a string of months where the only question remaining is "Is this the end of the era"?
What happens then?
Fool me once, fool me twice
A second failed season would likely be Defcon 1 for the Pacers. If Indiana is back in the lottery in 2027, the only possible reasons would be that the team got injured again, Tyrese Haliburton failed to bounce back, or the Pacers were simply never that good to begin with and only got hot at the right time in 2024-25.
The first option would start a timer on how long the Pacers can be a serious team. TJ McConnell is 34. Pascal Siakam is 32. Ivica Zubac is 29. Each will need a new contract soon, one they surely will not be able to outplay as they age out of their primes and into their twilights.
If the reason is the second choice, Indiana no longer has an engine they can build around. They are a car that can no longer run, stripped of their horsepower and failing to start in a garage. They would become a rotting carcass for trade vultures to pick up.
Without Haliburton at his best, this team is average, underusing its best pieces. It would be time to tear it down and extract value from whoever you can in the trade market.
Perhaps it is the third ending that would be the saddest though.
Indiana basketball two seasons ago was fun. It was fast. It was fluid. It was played with no single player highlighted beyond promotional materials.
If that were never real, it would be a sad return to Earth. Basketball doesn't deserve that.
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