OKLAHOMA CITY — The phones in Indiana remained quiet through the first week of February. The Pacers knew what they had, even if the rest of the basketball world hadn’t caught on yet.
The future of the team could have been up in the air. After a 10-15 start to the season, the Pacers were on fire, but a January hot streak sparked versus a mostly cushy schedule. For months, they had heard about how their Eastern Conference finals run the previous spring was fluke-ish, a product of injuries to the rest of the NBA. The organization stared at a daunting financial situation, by its standards, for the 2025-26 season.
The Pacers could have tried to save money. They could have deemed themselves good but not good enough to topple the three teams that stood far ahead of them in the East at the time of the trade deadline. They could have angled more toward the future.
But they knew what they had, even if others doubted how high they could climb.
No matter how Indiana’s season ends, whether a 1-0 NBA Finals lead turns into the first non-ABA title in franchise history or trends in the opposite direction, this will be the legacy of the 2025 Pacers. At every level of the organization — in the locker room, on the coaching staff, in the front office — they have believed they are good enough.
They lose 15 of 25 to begin the season, and they bounce back. They fall down big seemingly without enough time remaining to make a comeback, and they win a first-round playoff game. Then they do the same in Round 2. And again in Round 3. And one more time to kick off the finals.
Tyrese Haliburton’s new Pumas, which he jokingly credited for his dagger to clinch Game 1 on Thursday, need an adventurous win probability chart stamped onto them, the type with a steep upward slope at the very end, the symbol of this Pacers season.
The Pacers, no matter the situation, continue to bet on themselves. And they continue to prove themselves correct.
Teams swooned over center Myles Turner leading into the trade deadline. Turner is the rare rim-protecting 3-point marksman, an intuitive fit on any roster, someone who could help on both sides of the ball without disrupting a group’s ecosystem. The 29-year-old will be a free agent this summer. If the Pacers pay him even the low end of his market value without making any other edits to the roster, they will go into the luxury tax for the first time since 2005.
This would be new. But the Pacers refused to engage with other front offices on Turner. They believed they were good enough to make a run impressive enough to justify whatever expenses could be next.
Other front offices checked in on Andrew Nembhard, the man who glitzed Shai Gilgeous-Alexander out of his sneakers on a stepback 3-pointer late in Game 1. The Pacers were better with Nembhard on the court all season, and their turnaround coincided with his return from injury in early December. Because of his contract structure, which includes a low salary this year that jumps to $18 million in 2025-26, dealing him could have presented one way to get off long-term money.
But Indiana swatted away any mention of his name.
Nembhard was too important. And the Pacers, they believed, were not frauds. Far from it. They were not trading Nembhard. They weren’t trading Turner. They weren’t depleting their depth, one of the main catalysts of their magical spring. They opted to hold on to Obi Toppin, another player on an eight-figure salary they could have sent elsewhere for financial reasons.
All Toppin has done to justify the move — or lack thereof — is race for transition buckets and drain 3-pointers. He nailed five during the first game of the finals.
The narrative of both teams in the finals, the Pacers and the Oklahoma City Thunder, has surrounded trades. The Pacers traded for Haliburton in what will go down as an all-time heist. They were clever enough to use 2023 cap space to sign Bruce Brown to an intentionally bloated contract, then use that large salary to flip Brown for Pascal Siakam, another dandy of an exchange. They identified Aaron Nesmith in the deal that sent Malcolm Brogdon to Boston and used space to absorb Toppin without giving up any players or consequential draft picks.
The Thunder are built on trades, too.
They acquired Gilgeous-Alexander in the Paul George deal. They selected Jalen Williams with a draft pick they got in the same trade. They flipped Josh Giddey for defensive menace Alex Caruso. They have stockpiled draft picks like no franchise ever.
But sometimes, the best moves are ones of omission. Sometimes, the smartest trades are the ones organizations choose not to make.
The Thunder, for example, could have messed with their core midseason to add a veteran, such as Brooklyn Nets sharpshooter Cam Johnson. They opted not to, banking on continuity and a close-knit locker room, which they could ride to the end of the season. The Pacers have the same band together, too, a similar squad to the one that went to the conference finals last season, but one with even more familiarity. The names might be the same, but this is a better team than it was a year ago. It’s more physical defensively. Nembhard and Nesmith engulf perimeter threats. And the more time guys have spent together, the more telepathy has reigned supreme, whether on their blink-of-an-eye fast breaks, their constant cutting or their hot-potato ball movement.
The front office believed in the players. And the players had their backs.
“You come into the year with all the talk around how (going to the Eastern Conference finals) was a fluke,” Haliburton said. “You have an unsuccessful first couple months, and now it’s easy for everyone to clown you and talk about you in a negative way. And I think as a group we take everything personal as a group. It’s not just me. It’s everybody.”
This is a spite run.
The Pacers go down 14 with 2:51 to go, only for Nesmith to sink jumper after jumper and for them to win. They trail by 15 in the fourth quarter of a finals game and push the Thunder into paralysis. Nembhard shimmies into a 3. Haliburton lifts for victory.
They start 10-15 and recognize life will be different once Nembhard returns — and once Haliburton, after a slow start to the season, forms into a one-man offense.
They trek through the trade deadline insistent this year’s team is cohesive enough to play deep into the spring, even as the conversation everywhere other than Indiana is about a supposedly guaranteed conference finals between the Boston Celtics and Cleveland Cavaliers, whom the Pacers, of course, handled in only five games.
The Pacers have trailed all year. It’s deterred neither their players nor decision-makers. Now, they’re receiving the payoff.
(Photo of Myles Turner: William Purnell / Getty Images)
