Prior to season start, many pundits excluded the Pacers from their playoff seeding. And, when Indiana began the season losing three consecutive games alarmists said the team was definitely lottery bound.
Never mind they retained quality youngsters who form the future core or that Victor Oladipo will return later this month. The media analysts weren’t buying Pacers stock and many re-upped their commitment to Indiana’s placement in the bottom tier of the East.
I took some heat and was ready to own my preseason predictions which cited the Pacers and Raptors as the most underrated Eastern teams.
"Still, this Indiana team is no joke and likely one of the two most underestimated clubs in the East (Raptors)."
Fairly, in the case of Indiana it wasn’t that they were losing early it was who they were losing to (an undermanned Pistons club twice and the Cavaliers) and how they were losing. In contrast, the OKC Thunder were in virtually every match fighting right to the final buzzer. That said, there is also historical evidence that teams who travel overseas for preseason games get out to slow season starts.
Yet, there is a reason why 20 games is a better sample size to gauge the potential of a team. Even as the league hit the quarter pole it’s not fully indicative of where clubs will definitively finish the season. For example, an easy 10-game schedule or conversely brutal 10-game starting schedule (see OKC Thunder) can adversely skew results. Moreover, it fails to consider what effect Victor Oladipo will have on his club once he returns.
And, let’s not forget the Pacers have won both games against the Thunder this season and were one of the few clubs who our club failed to push to the closing seconds to determine a winner.
Here is where this argument comes into play. The Pacers are not a franchise who’ll spend over and above to add talent. Their ownership simply won’t commit to doing it but yet year after year they are relevant and competitive.
Although the Thunder have gone into the tax it would behoove Sam Presti to follow the Pacers example — not just for the salary relief but when you’re building a franchise in a small market landing the right type of players who’ll be happy to stay when their contracts become due for negotiation is equally relevant.
With that let’s dive into how Pacers lead man Kevin Pritchard arguably won this past offseason and set his team up for many years to come.