Everything felt just a little too good. It all felt a little too safe. Even with how wonderful the start to this season was for the Indiana Pacers, even with how much they were overcoming with the absence of Aaron Nesmith and TJ McConnell, even with the year they suffered last year, it simply wasn't enough for the basketball gods.
As if they would need a reason to laugh in Pacers fans' faces again. It feels pointed and mean, somehow preplanned and unfair to a team that deserves something nice.
Don't know what I'm going on about yet? Well, Tyrese Haliburton is out with a hamstring injury, one that is similar to that of the aforementioned McConnell, who is still missing time.
There will be a time to discuss the Pacers' replacements for Haliburton, ones that they haven't already used to replace McConnell, but now is not that time. Instead, this is the time to be a little sad, to know that ultimately things will be fine, but to still look around and ask questions like "why?" and "how did we get her?" and "when have I suffered enough? I'm so, so tired."
Within regret and sadness is the key to what brought Pacers fans back after the devastating 2024-25 Finals loss. It's the hope that kills you, but it's the hope that keeps you watching the NBA.
Pacers injury woes, an inescapable trap
The Pacers seem to be one of the unluckiest teams in the league when it comes to injury. They entered this season with hamstring strains suffered by both McConnell and Nesmith, before losing center Ivica Zubac to an ankle injury.
Without Haliburton, that means an expected eight-man rotation – which is very short by all modern NBA logic – is not down to four players who were expected to play big roles entering this year.
This is nothing new for this team or this era either. Everyone can think back to last year when the Pacers lost player after player to injury during what was supposed to be a fun, low-stakes retooling season that rapidly became a season-long collapse.
Injuries are a part of the game. As much as it sucks, they just happen sometimes.
But if there was anything supernatural in the world of sports, I hope it looks at this Pacers squad that plays beautiful, team-driven basketball in gorgeous jerseys, and just offers them a team that isn't defined by which players they lost, but by how they overcame those losses and grew together.
We all we got, but here's hoping it does get better.
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