The Pacers are heading into another season with the kind of buzz that usually comes from the wrong direction. Around the league, plenty of early predictions have Indiana parked in the middle of the pack or worse, even after a run that put them in Game 7 of the NBA Finals just 14 months ago.
That’s the reality in a reshaped Eastern Conference. The league looks crowded with contenders on paper, and the usual hierarchy feels a lot less settled.
The Knicks, Cavs, Celtics, and Pistons are being grouped with the returners. The Sixers, Heat, and Raptors are being labeled as star additions.
The Hawks, Magic, and Hornets are among the up-and-comers. In a field that deep, every spot in the standings is going to be fought over.
Indiana, naturally, has become one of the trickier teams to place.
One national show is clearly buying in, but most of the early projections are more cautious. Yahoo Sports has the Pacers finishing 8th in the East, while noting, "This is a well-built team with depth at all positions, but I'll have to see them produce on the court before I can feel comfortable moving them up the list."
FTN Fantasy also lands on 8th, and its outlook leans heavily on health and depth: "Let’s not dwell on what could have been. Haliburton should be a full go by opening night and the pair of additions this off-season coupled with the late season acquisition of Zubac will inject some new life into this rotation. Indiana has a legit nine-man rotation that I could see making another postseason run that extends further than expectation, but a lot of that hinges on Haliburton’s health returning from the season-long injury."
ESPN.com is in the same neighborhood, listing Indiana as the 8th best team in the East in its early power rankings. Its take points to the returning pieces as the real headline: "Indiana's most notable "additions" are the return of Tyrese Haliburton, who sat out the 2025-26 season because of an Achilles tear, and the full arrival of Ivica Zubac, who suffered a season-ending injury soon after he was acquired via trade last season.
With them healthy, the Pacers should boast one of the NBA's best starting lineups. Meanwhile, Oubre will help bolster the bench of a team that likes to play a deep rotation."
NBA.com is a little more bullish, slotting the Pacers 7th in its early East rankings. DK Sports, meanwhile, gives Indiana the 8th highest odds from the East to win the championship at 40-1.
Not every forecast is sitting near the middle, though. Bleacher Report has the Pacers all the way down at 11th in the conference, saying, "Ultimately, Indiana fans have to hope that the return of Tyrese Haliburton and better health from the rest of the rotation will get the team back to the level it hit in its run to the 2025 Finals."
Then there’s the outlier from The Denver Post, which has Indiana finishing 4th in the East. Its reasoning centers on the health question around Haliburton and the pieces around him: "Maybe it’s unfair to Tyrese Haliburton to expect him to instantly relaunch this team to home-court advantage in the first round, when he’s fresh off not only a torn Achilles tendon but also a debilitating case of shingles.
But whatever. The Pacers should be legit.
Ivica Zubac and Kelly Oubre Jr. are interesting wrinkles from the 2025 Finals team."
For now, the broader picture is pretty clear: the Pacers are being viewed as a team with real talent, real depth, and real questions. They didn’t make the kind of splashy summer that grabs headlines, but that hasn’t stopped the expectation game from circling back to the same issue - whether Tyrese Haliburton is ready to be the engine again, and whether the rest of the roster can keep this group in the mix.
That’s familiar territory for Indiana. They tend to do their best work when the noise is pointing somewhere else.
In a conference full of teams that could wind up anywhere from 1-9, the Pacers may once again be the group that turns being overlooked into fuel. Pascal Siakam will matter there, too, as one of the leaders tasked with helping steer the team back where it wants to go.
The East is loaded, the projections are all over the place, and the Pacers are right in the middle of the uncertainty. That’s exactly what makes this season so interesting.