The Indiana Pacers didn’t get the lottery break they were hoping for, but the belief inside the building hasn’t budged.
After a season wrecked by injuries and ended with the worst record in franchise history, Indiana was staring at the possibility of adding a top-four pick from one of the strongest draft classes in years. Instead, the protected first-round pick conveyed, and the front office had to shift its focus to free agency as the main path to improving the roster.
Even so, the Pacers put together a solid offseason. They worked their way into Braden Smith during the draft while saving money, then brought in Kelly Oubre Jr. and Larry Nance Jr. to bolster an already deep rotation. None of it carries the buzz of landing a franchise-changing lottery pick, but it hasn’t changed the way the team talks about itself.
That was clear during NBA Summer League in Las Vegas, when Aaron Nesmith was stopped by a fan for a quick interview and asked where he saw the Pacers finishing in the Eastern Conference next season.
Nesmith didn’t blink. “I'll see you in The Finals.”
The fan, who said he was a Knicks fan, pushed back with, “I'm a Knicks fan, so I'll see you in the Conference Finals.”
Nesmith wasn’t done. “Hey, you gonna see me in The Finals.”
For a fan base still living with the memory of Tyrese Haliburton collapsing in Game 7 of the NBA Finals, that kind of answer lands with real force. It sounds like offseason chatter on the surface, but for Indiana it also reflects a team that still thinks it had a championship-caliber group before injuries tore it apart.
Haliburton missed the entire season while recovering from a torn Achilles, and his injury altered the course of Game 7 as the Oklahoma City Thunder took advantage and won the title. The Pacers also watched the rest of the Eastern Conference benefit from their absence, especially a Knicks team that had seen Indiana end its season in each of the previous two postseasons.
Now the Pacers are getting ready to come back with a healthy Haliburton, a true interior presence in Ivica Zubac, and veterans like Oubre and Nance joining a roster that already has experience on the biggest stage.
Around the league, Indiana still looks like a team easy to overlook. Inside the locker room, the message hasn’t changed. Haliburton’s words at center court and Nesmith’s answer in Las Vegas both point to the same thing: this group expects to be playing deep into April, all of May, and into June again.
In Other News...
Pacers Fans Are Suddenly Being Asked To Imagine LeBron In Indiana
The Pacers have spent the better part of a year talking like a team that wants to be back in the thick of the East by the 2026-27 season, with Tyrese Haliburton still the center of everything after steering Indiana to the 2025 NBA Finals before his injury. That makes any conversation about star power more than idle summer noise, especially when the roster already has the kind of pace-and-space identity that tends to get linked with veteran stars looking for one more run.
So when LeBron James surfaces in free-agency chatter, Pacers fans are naturally going to do the math, even if Indiana has not been publicly listed among his known options. The fit is easy to imagine on paper, and Haliburtons connection to James only adds to the intrigue, but the practical hurdles are real enough that this remains more of a thought exercise than a finished plan for now. [Read more 🡒]
The East Just Got Tougher And The Hawks Have No More Excuses
The East has spent the offseason trying to reframe the conversation, and Paolo Banchero is among the players pushing back on the idea that the West still holds the upper hand. The Magic forward pointed to recent player movement and team performance across the conference, with the Knicks playoff run serving as another reminder that the East has plenty of teams capable of making noise when the postseason arrives.
For Indiana, that matters because the path to a deep run is only getting more crowded. Banchero also said the conference is drawing more big names and that the Magic are aiming to prove they belong among the elite after last season did not go the way they wanted, a sentiment that fits the broader mood around the East as contenders keep loading up and the margin for error keeps shrinking. [Read more 🡒]
LeBron Rumor Just Put A Surprising New Team In Play
LeBron James is expected to make his next move soon, and the conversation around his landing spot has gotten wide enough to pull Indiana into the mix. For Pacers fans, it is the kind of rumor that lives more in the margins than the mainstream, but it has taken hold because the team has at least been mentioned as a speculative possibility while the league waits for his decision.
The financial path is where the idea gets interesting, even if it is still built on a stack of assumptions. Indiana would need to clear a little more room to fit LeBron on the veteran minimum, and the chatter around the Pacers has been fueled in part by the broader LeBron orbit, including Tyrese Haliburton's upcoming role as his special guest co-host at Fanatics Fest. For now, though, there is still no credible reporting tying James to Indiana, and the more established destinations remain the ones drawing the loudest attention. [Read more 🡒]