The Happiest Team in the NBA

How could you not be with Haliburton and Siakam?

The Indiana Pacers are fun.

Tyrese Haliburton: superstar old school point guard with a Sacramento-sized chip on his shoulder and a love of jump passing.

Pascal Siakam: NBA CHAMPION star whose style isn’t flashy, but he may provide the most dependable output of any player of his caliber not in the MVP conversation.

Andrew Nembhard: Gonzaga Bulldog whose skills took a leap in the playoffs, bulldogging on defense while providing secondary ball-handling on offense whenever Haliburton got swarmed (by defenders or by injury).

Aaron Nesmith: Drafted as an elite shooter with decent attributes as a wing, and now is an aggressive defensive player whose shooting is mostly just decent.

Myles Turner: Future New Orleans Pelican who has embraced playing next to Haliburton on offense while declining a little bit from his elite rim protection a few years ago.

TJ McConnell: The guy many older white former players pointed at during the playoffs and said, “Now he plays the right way.” And he does play really well with his quirky style.

Bennedict Mathurin: The Jaylen Brown of this team, whose instincts just need to catch up to his natural talent to become their star SG.

Obi Toppin: Knicks legend who makes this team sing in transition and on corner 3’s whenever he comes into the game.

Jarace Walker: If anyone is thinking of selling their Jarace Walker stock, I will take it and continue to go all-in on this 1st team All-Summer League future superstar.

And so on…

I don’t know if this team is the deepest team in the league, but I think they may have the best 8th through 10th men in the league. Their playoff run to the conference finals was enabled by injuries to their opponents, but they also ran teams out of the gym on offense, including the Boston Celtics.

This offseason, they did the following:

• Re-sign Pascal Siakam to a deal that is the exact same $ (to the dollar) as Haliburton over the next 4 years.

• Re-sign Obi Toppin to a 4 year deal.

• Extend Andrew Nembhard to 3 more years.

• Extend TJ McConnell to 4 more years.

So, they doubled down on last year’s team, for now. These moves make the latter three more movable over time, but I assume that this team they’re going to do their best with what they have (except for with one specific center on their roster whose contract is expiring this offseason and may be wanted by a certain team on the bayou).

The main question I wanted to consider with the 2024-25 Pacers is what would need (somewhat realistically) to happen for them to approximate their success of last season.

The eastern conference has the defending champion Boston Celtics (who the Pacers played surprisingly well in the conference finals), and then a trio of Celtics-chasers in New York, Philadelphia, and Milwaukee. Then, the Pacers, Magic, Cavs and Heat are rounding out the final eight in the east, with the Hawks and Bulls thinking they should be included but they definitely should not be. How can the Pacers enter into that second tier of Eastern Conference contenders, and outpace those in their own tier?

Development: Mathurin and/or Walker Progression

Mathurin

Eggs Benny (my favorite nickname for Mathurin) is a hooper, but not in the best ways sometimes. He increased his assists per 36 minutes from 1.9 to 2.8 from year one to year two, but that isn’t impressive for someone with his love of shooting. On his drives, he passed last year less than 25% of the time, which is 2nd to lowest among non-bigs behind Kelly Oubre Jr.

One bad pass does not a bad passer make, and he clearly isn’t completely unwilling to pass. However, in order to provide that next-level punch of shot creation that this team needs, he needs to improve his reads and feel in passing situations. A lot of his passes go wide or too high, but it feels like something that can be improved.

Like I said, the Pacers really could use another high-level shot creator next to Haliburton and Siakam, but Mathurin’s current shortcomings make it more logical for him to come off the bench. That’s not an awful thing at this point, since he can be a gunning 6th-man who doesn’t need to be relied on too heavily in the most important minutes. But the better he gets, the more it helps this team, because of their lack of isolation scoring.

Walker

As for Jarace Walker, he came into the league with plenty of defensive promise and offensive feel, but there were questions about his aggressiveness and shooting. But, look at this pass (in his limited minutes last year, basically all of his assists were these crafty ones because he wasn’t running the offense)…

And here’s an example of his great defensive hands:

I imagine a world in which Walker and Siakam can play together at the 3 and 4, as really, really good defenders and smart playmakers for this fast-paced offense. Walker gets steals and loves passing ahead, which would be perfect for this team. His shot isn’t beautiful (but he did shoot 40% from 3 on 55 attempts this year!), and would have to come along a considerable amount to feel good about having him replace a Nesmith in the starting lineup, but I think that his fit with Haliburton and Siakam needs to be explored. Also, he averaged 18/7/5 in Summer League this year (with 5.5 turnovers per game, but that’s okay, Jarace. I still believe)!

Trade: Myles Turner trade rumors are BACK

Over the past 4 season, Turner’s % difference impact on shots closer¹ than 6 feet went from -12.4 (awesome) to -9.0 (very good) to -6.6 (okay) to -4.7 (hmm). This stat was very good in the latest playoff run, and there may be schematic reasoning for this (for example, they were very focused on preventing 3’s instead of protecting the paint last year), but there may come a moment in January where the Pacers need to decide if they’re keeping Myles around for the long haul.

Myles’s skillset is valuable. The Pacers benefit greatly from his spacing (the % of his points from 3’s is similar to that of Porzingis, Holmgren, and Wemby), and his PnR chemistry with Haliburton is off the charts (the highest points per possession as a PnR roller among 21 players who were involved in at least 2.5 per game). But with the money they’ve committed to the rest of the team, you wonder if there’s a cost-controlled move to be had via trade.

My best attempt at getting Myles Turner to the Pelicans

Pacers get another shooting center with some defensive instincts, even if it’s not the same shot blocking. Herb Jones, however, would be an upgrade over Aaron Nesmith, and make their defense much, much better.

Pelicans get their center, and realize something: they need to put the most talented team possible out there. While Herb Jones is great for their fit, a starting lineup with Dejounte Murray, Brandon Ingram, Trey Murphy III, Zion, and Myles Turner may be one of the best in the league. Mathurin adds that same off-the-bench juice that was discussed, and they clear up some cap by getting off of CJ.

Pistons get a pick and the NBPA president!

Yeah, I’m biased, but…

I am biased about the Pacers, especially because of Siakam. But it seems like they can withstand injuries, win any game, and will have a good time doing it! :) I am legitimately hopeful for them to be able to take that next step. I say they’re the safest bet to be great of the four teams we discussed earlier, but only time will tell.

1. This stat is the difference between the opponents’ usual FG% within 6 feet and the opponents’ FG% when the player (Myles in this case) is defending them.