Tyrese Haliburton isn’t afraid to say what a lot of NBA players think but rarely admit out loud: winning a championship takes more than talent, strategy, or even grit - it takes luck.
Speaking on a recent episode of the Mind the Game podcast, Haliburton pulled back the curtain on the Pacers’ playoff run last season. “That’s the biggest thing.
You gotta get lucky, man,” he said. “We came back all these times, and they’re like, ‘Ok, you do that multiple times.
It’s not luck.’ But, man, we just had so many things go right in a lot of these series. ...
That’s the biggest thing people don’t talk about. To win, that’s the ingredient I feel is so hard to replicate.”
And he’s not wrong. The Pacers had at least one game in every series last postseason where everything broke their way - the kind of moments that don’t always show up in the box score but swing a series.
A key missed free throw here, a bounce of the ball there. Those are the razor-thin margins that separate heartbreak from hardware.
Fast forward to today, and Indiana finds itself in a very different spot. At 13-40, the Pacers own the worst record in the Eastern Conference.
Offensively, they’ve struggled mightily, ranking last in the league, and their defense hasn’t been much better, sitting 21st overall. It’s a far cry from the team that made a deep playoff push just a year ago.
But here’s the thing: this isn’t a franchise in free fall - it’s a team in transition.
Despite the current record, the Pacers’ future is still one of the brightest in the league. With Haliburton expected to return next season, Indiana will get back its engine - the floor general who makes everything go. Even if he’s not firing on all cylinders right away, his presence alone elevates the offense and unlocks the potential of the players around him.
Add to that the recent acquisition of Ivica Zubac, a true starting-caliber center who gives the Pacers a much-needed interior presence. He’s the kind of big who can thrive in pick-and-roll sets with Haliburton and anchor the paint defensively. That’s a combination Indiana lacked last season, even during their playoff run.
Let’s not forget the infrastructure that’s already in place. The front office has earned respect around the league for its smart, forward-thinking moves, and the coaching staff has shown it can get the most out of a young, evolving roster.
The pieces are there. The East remains wide open.
The window isn’t closed - it’s just temporarily fogged up.
Still, as Haliburton emphasized, luck matters. And replicating the kind of fortunate breaks they got last postseason? That’s no guarantee.
The Pacers need to stay healthy. That’s priority number one.
When Haliburton is on the court and surrounded by the right cast, Indiana plays a fast, unselfish brand of basketball that’s tough to stop. But if they’re missing even one key piece when the games start to matter, the entire system starts to wobble.
That margin for error is thin - thinner than fans might like to admit.
Then there’s the draft lottery, which could end up being a pivotal moment for the franchise. Indiana traded its first-round pick to the Clippers in the Zubac deal, but the pick is protected - and the protections matter a lot.
If it lands in the 5-9 range, it heads to L.A. Anywhere else, and it stays in Indiana’s hands.
Right now, the Pacers are the second-worst team in the league, but they’re just three games behind the Utah Jazz for the sixth-worst record. That puts them in a near 50-50 spot in terms of keeping the pick. And given the talent expected at the top of this year’s draft, landing a high-upside prospect could be the difference between a good team and a great one.
The bottom line? The Pacers are built to bounce back.
They’ve got a franchise cornerstone in Haliburton, a new big man who fits their system, and a front office that knows how to build. But if they want to make it back to the Finals and finish what they started, they’ll need more than just talent.
They’ll need a little bit of that magic Haliburton talked about - the kind of luck that turns a good season into a special one.