Pacers Don’t View 2025-26 As A Gap Year, But Might Need To Tweak Style

INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Pacers won’t have Tyrese Haliburton for the coming season. They lost Myles Turner in free agency. That’s two starters from their NBA Finals run last season that aren’t going to be a part of the coming campaign, and there’s a sentiment that the upcoming year in Indianapolis could be a gap year.

But the Pacers don’t feel that way. If anything, they believe the opposite reality will be true. With many young, talented players and several holdovers from their Finals team still around, the blue and gold are hoping to win with what they have.

“We hear people talk about this being a gap year. I don’t think that’s ever been what we’ve been about. With (Herb) Simon as our owner, it’s always been about trying to compete and trying to win,” Pacers general manager Chad Buchanan said on Thursday. “Now, some years are going to be more challenging than others. Obviously, we’re down Tyrese [Haliburton], so that will make some challenges. But we’re not looking at this as a year to just try and get through. We’d never wish away a season. We’ve got so many opportunities for some players on our team that weren’t there before that we’re excited to see what they can do. And I think this team has shown that they come together when people kind of doubt them, and I think they feel and they sense and they hear the doubt about this season for us.”

Why might this season be different for the Pacers?

With Haliburton out for the year, the Pacers plan to start Andrew Nembhard at point guard. He has experience running the show and has been a part of deep playoff runs, but most of his time in the NBA has been spent next to Haliburton as a shooting guard. Nembhard’s spot will be filled by Bennedict Mathurin in the opening five, and he was critical to multiple Pacers wins in the postseason.

On top of that, Turner is gone. Indiana will have a new starting center. Their backup five from last season, Thomas Bryant, is elsewhere as well – he signed with the Cleveland Cavaliers. The blue and gold will have a drastically different rotation on the interior. Currently, Isaiah Jackson and Jay Huff are projected to fill those roles, and it isn’t clear who the starter will be. Jackson was a contributor during the Pacers Eastern Conference Finals run in 2024 but tore his achilles last season. Huff is a strong stylistic fit.

So at two different positions, the Pacers will look much different this season. And Haliburton is a two-time All-NBA player. It’s natural to think the Pacers will be worse this coming year after going 50-32 last season.

Yet even if they will likely win fewer games, the internal hope is for another campaign with victories and development overlapping. “[Last year], I remember everybody asked me what would define success this year coming off an Eastern Conference finals run. I think [this year] I would answer the same way as I did last year. I think we approach everything with our organization, with coach [Rick] Carlisle, with (President of Basketball Operations) Kevin [Pritchard], at maximizing every day, approaching every day — how can we be a little bit better today — and not thinking about the end result as much as we are thinking about improving ourselves and developing ourselves, our players, our staff, our team, every single day,” Buchanan said. Those focuses have led to combined success in both the win column and the player improvement department in recent years – many young Pacers players have developed under Carlisle’s guidance, which is partially why he received a contract extension this summer.

“And wherever that takes us is where it takes us. We saw where it took us last year,” Buchanan continued. “I think your ceiling is defined by how consistent you are with what you do every day. We want to be consistent with our approach, with our players, with their work, with our team, with their preparation, and with our staff.”

Nembhard, Mathurin, Jackson, Aaron Nesmith, Obi Toppin, Ben Sheppard, and Jarace Walker have all improved across the last few seasons under the current Pacers leadership. They’re all young enough that development can be expected again this season. But for the Pacers to be as good as they believe they can be, those players will have to be reliable contributors every night.

Many of them already are. Last year, the Pacers went 4-5 without Haliburton – good for 36 or 37 wins over the course of an 82 game season. They went 6-4 in 10 games without Turner. In the two games without both players, they went 1-1. Those win rates suggest that, at worst, Indiana will be a good-enough but lagging team.

But those win-loss records were in the middle of a season in which the Pacers played a particular style – a faster one that thrives with Haliburton heavily involved. Without the star guard, some slight tweaks in approach could come to the Circle City this season.

“We’re still going to have a lot of the same identity. We still have a lot of the same core pieces on this team. The traits that those guys bring, what our coaches bring, is still there,” Buchanan said early in his press conference.

Later, though, the GM had more clarifying thoughts on how his team might look on the hardwood in 2025-26. “Things that may be a little different are, we don’t have Tyrese leading the charge, creating pace. It may be a little different with how we play offensively. We’ll probably be a little more physical, maybe we might be a little better defensively. But we’re going to have to play a little differently to win,” Buchanan said. “That doesn’t mean we’re going to completely change how we play, but there’s going to be a different path and maybe a little different style of what we’re doing on the offensive end, at least.”

In theory, those tactical changes – especially when practiced over the course of a full season – will make the Pacers better than their past sans-Haliburton level. But the team has to be careful. Straying too far from their methods won’t help much when Haliburton returns. There is an important balance to find.

The Pacers are aware of that. But figuring that equilibrium out doesn’t come with an obvious answer. If the team wants to be as good as possible, they probably need to slow things down. But that doesn’t maximize their long-term future. That’s why development is so crucial this year, and why day-to-day growth will be success for the Pacers. Young talent ending the season with more talent and more versatility to be able to play multiple styles is key.

“I wouldn’t put a limit on anything for this year,” Buchanan said. “But as far as what defines success, I think we want to be playing our best at the end of the year, whatever that takes us to.” That’s what this year will be all about for the Pacers.