Team-By-Team: The Indiana Pacers

The season that was

The Pacers limped through the season with barely a whimper, as Spud was primarily concerned with other-league business and due to injuries and team limitations, didn't have much to be inspired about for the inaugural NSL season.

The team, at time of drafting, featured Victor Oladipo, coming off a major injury, and Marvin Baguely, an unproven, oft-injured big. The Pacers didn't draft badly, but the team wasn't doing much and missed its first two picks for a lot of the season. I can't even remember how many games they won or lost, but it was very unmemorable. They added Blake Griffin mid season, who was also injured, and saw his heavy salary impact as a fair price to pay to roll the dice with Blake’s talent and impact and also took on Aaron Gordon.




However, come the trade window re-opening, and a relaxed and generous Hawks GM, the Pacers made their biggest impact on the season, engineering a terrific trade that turned them into a team with instant, serious playoff aspirations. In the trade, spud was able to acquire arguably the best young big in the game in Joel Embiid and some other serious value and impact pieces, including Derrick Rose. They now boast a win-now team full of impactful 2k guys. What a turn around.


Best player

Joel Embiid - This wasn't even close. An argument can be made for Embiid as the most talented big in the game. Enough said.

Breakout candidate

Duncan Robinson - The sweet-shooter Robinson already had his NBA breakout last season, and was famously drafted at pick 467 by the Portland Trailblazers in the inaugural draft.




A difference maker

Victor Oladipo - The biggest improvement needs to be in the health department, as he is already proven to be an impactful, two-way borderline-All Star talent when he is rolling. Dipo was barely able to play back-to-back sets last season, and if he can play more than 55 games for the Pacers, they will push the top four in the East.

Draft recap

Indiana was given an A+ by the experts on draft night. Good for them. See the insights below:

Indiana:

Pick 15: Saddiq Bey (trade for Duncan Robinson)
Pick 33: Zeke Nnaji

This is how it's done. Of course, it helps them that the guy chosen by Minnesota, Bey, is one of the guys I see as a bit of a ready-made guy with a low ceiling, and he was drafted too high, so the get of Duncan Robinson for him feels even better from this standpoint.

Nnaji was a 1^st rounder in the NBA and wile this was more around his projected draft spot, he has a good landing spot and a great skillset to develop into a long term asset. 33 is probably a bargain now.

Salary situation

With great talent comes great financial responsibility. After the trade flurry, the Pacers bottom line looks pretty bloated, pushing well over 150M when all is said and done. For that coin, you’d hope to make it into the second round of the playoffs.

What do they need to do next?

Time to assess what they have.

And a helluva medical team.

The team is undoubtedly talented but are absolutely unproven as a unit together. Talent wise, they would sit in the top ten of NSL teams. But a scary proposition is that they would arguably sit at number one for the team most likely to fall apart due to catastrophic injury. Embiid, Griffin, Oladipo are always getting hurt and typically of a significant nature. Health will dictate success for these Pacers.

Stock up on the bandages and ice packs.

Seasons predictions:

I see a really positive season ahead for the Pacers, provided the key stakeholders can keep their limbs attached/fully functional. A core of Embiid, Griffin, Oladipo, Gordon and Rose is a seriously intimidating team. The East is looking even stronger this year, but even so, I can see the Pacers competing for a top four spot. If we play an 82 game season, I see them eclipsing 50 wins.

GM synopsis:

Spudspace tends to GM from afar, and doesn't use more words than he has to. He is steady and calm and is a tough negotiator. Like most of us, he is more active and communicative when the team is winning, but unlike most of the NSL GMs, he is still splitting his time between the old and the new leagues. If the Pacers win this season like I predict they will, I think we will see more appearances from spud around the forums.