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It is tempting to hand-waive everything that has happened to the Indiana Pacers in the last year and a half as simply the work of some vengeful spirit, unfairly punishing an innocent fanbase who never did anything to deserve this kind of sustained injury catastrophe and lottery luck that would sink any franchise, in Indiana or on the Moon. And hand-waive we shall. But waive enough hands, and the cumulative effect of this bad luck will start slipping through our fingers unnoticed, like grains of sand piling up into a castle the size of the Gainbridge Fieldhouse, threatening to crush us all if we don’t make infrastructure improvements.
I was out on the Pacers coming into the year, though I never found the time to publish that take anywhere preseason with the NFL kicking off and the MLB headed for the World Series and then World War III. — you’ll just have to trust my editors that I’ve been talking about it. My concern lay on the fact that a 50-32 Pacers team in 2024-25 had ridden one of the most absurd stretches of clutch shot-making ever to Game 7 of the NBA Finals, lost Tyrese Haliburton to a torn Achilles in one of the most heart-wrenching injuries in NBA history, lost said Game 7, lost Myles Turner to some Bucks stupidity and then went 19-63 (yes, that is nineteen and sixty-three) the following year with a roster I thought … was not that bad.
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Every Pacers take I heard last year from people in NBA media more connected than I started and ended with the same two words: “gap year.” This 19-63 record was, of course, intentional, as the team tanked for a top draft pick to play when Haliburton was back the following season. But then they made a splashy move, wagering that draft pick on a bold 50-50 with the Clippers for Ivica Zubac, protecting that pick in a specific way that meant if it fell out of the top four, they would lose it. Well … it did, and their 19-63 record netted them nothing in one of the most stacked top fours we’ve ever seen. Once again: heartbreaking.
Then the actual 2026 season rolled around, and their roster looked solid; at the very least, it would be competitive, if not…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/pacers-getting-sobering-reminder-fragile-144524600.html
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Publish date : 2026-11-06 14:45:00
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