Pacers: the offseason so far
the record
The desk keeps a day-by-day record of everything that happens to the Indiana Pacers: results with the players who decided them, injury changes, roster moves, reports, milestones and the schedule ahead. The story of the offseason is written from that record every week; the timeline below is the record itself, each line linked to the page that proves it.
The projection
all 30 teams →The season depends most on Pascal Siakam (5.6 wins without him), Jay Huff (2.1 wins without him), Johnny Furphy (1.4 wins without him), Aaron Nesmith (0.5 wins without him) and Ivica Zubac (0.6 wins without him): on/off from 2025-26, details under Injuries. Computed Thu, Sep 10; the method is on the methods page.
Day by day
the record starts with the first news of the seasonThe franchise today
Updated 2026-09-09Now
Rick Carlisle enters the season as head coach of a team coming off the worst record in its history: 19-63 last season. The core that lived through it returns: Pascal Siakam, Tyrese Haliburton, Andrew Nembhard, Ivica Zubac, Kelly Oubre Jr., Aaron Nesmith, Jarace Walker, Jalen Slawson and Ben Sheppard. The numbers explain the record: an offense that ranked 28th of 30 teams, a defense that ranked 24th, and a net rating of -7.8 that sat 26th in the league, even as Indiana played at a pace of 101.78. Haliburton missed the entire season, and Myles Turner left for the rival Milwaukee Bucks after ten seasons in Indiana. The payroll sits at $203.7 million across 13 contracts, above the $200.4 million luxury tax line and pushing toward the $209.0 million first apron against a $165.0 million salary cap; Siakam and Haliburton each earn $48.9 million, with Zubac at $20.3 million and Nembhard at $19.6 million. Indiana still owns its first-round picks in 2027, 2028 and 2030, but has forfeited its 2029 first, part of the cost of the three-team trade with Toronto and New Orleans that brought in Siakam in January 2024, and carries swap rights on four second-round picks. No trades or signings marked the summer: this is the same roster Carlisle brings into camp.
Identity and rivalries
Indiana's identity comes from the 2025 playoff run: a team picked by nobody that kept finding late shots, with game-winners against Milwaukee, Cleveland and Oklahoma City and a game-tying shot against New York, capped by Haliburton mimicking Reggie Miller's 1994 choke sign against that same Knicks team. The Knicks are still the rivalry with the most weight, from the contested finish of the 2024 second-round series to the six-game conference finals Indiana won a year later. Milwaukee has become a yearly opponent too, eliminated by Indiana in the first round in both 2024 and 2025. Oklahoma City and Cleveland, the two number-one seeds that run went through, remain the standard this current, shorthanded roster is compared against, even though it no longer looks like the one that beat them.
Home, owners and numbers
The Pacers play at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in downtown Indianapolis, which opened in 1999 as Conseco Fieldhouse, was renamed Bankers Life Fieldhouse in 2011, and took its current name in 2021; it seats 18,165 and also hosts the WNBA's Indiana Fever, both franchises owned by Herb Simon through Pacers Sports & Entertainment. Gainbridge hosted the 2024 NBA All-Star Weekend, the same season Haliburton started the All-Star Game for the East in front of his home crowd. The building's history runs through Reggie Miller, whose single-season three-point record stood until Buddy Hield broke it in 2023, and Larry Bird, who served as team president before returning years later as a franchise consultant.
What they are chasing
What Indiana is chasing right now is Haliburton back on the floor: he tore his Achilles tendon in Game 7 of the 2025 Finals, one win from the franchise's first NBA title, and hasn't played since. Behind that sits a tax bill the front office already lives above, which is why fans argue about how long Carlisle can keep this same expensive core together as the apron restrictions tighten around it. The other question follows straight from last season: is this still a team built to contend, or does it need to be rebuilt before it competes again.
The Pacers were founded in 1967 in Indianapolis as an original American Basketball Association franchise, put together by six investors: Richard Tinkham, John DeVoe, Chuck DeVoe, Lyn Treece, Chuck Barnes, and Bob Collins. The name comes from Indiana's ties to the Indianapolis 500 pace car and to harness racing. They played their first seven years at the Indiana State Fairgrounds Coliseum, then Market Square Arena from 1974 for 25 years; today they play at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. Under coach Bobby "Slick" Leonard, with Mel Daniels, George McGinnis, Bob Netolicky, Rick Mount, Freddie Lewis, and Roger Brown, Indiana became the ABA's dominant team, winning championships in 1970, 1972, and 1973 and reaching the ABA Finals five times (also 1969 and 1975), an ABA record.
The Pacers joined the NBA in 1976 through the ABA-NBA merger, alongside the Denver Nuggets, New York Nets, and San Antonio Spurs, paying a $3.2 million entry fee. The early NBA years were rough: a 36-46 debut season, only two winning seasons in 13 years, and two of the worst trades in league history — sending Alex English to Denver for an aging George McGinnis in 1980, and giving up a 1984 first-round pick (which became Sam Bowie, taken ahead of Michael Jordan) for center Tom Owens. Indiana bottomed out at 20-62 in 1982-83 before Jack Ramsay led a 41-41 turnaround in 1986-87, Indiana's first NBA-era playoff win, sparked by Rookie of the Year Chuck Person.
Reggie Miller, drafted out of UCLA in 1987, and Rik Smits, drafted in 1988, anchored the next era alongside Detlef Schrempf. Under Larry Brown the Pacers won an NBA-era-high 47 games in 1993-94 and reached back-to-back Eastern Conference finals in 1994 and 1995, both against the Knicks — defined by Miller's 25-point fourth quarter and choke sign to Spike Lee in 1994, and his eight points in 8.9 seconds in 1995. Miller was also a tri-captain on the gold medal 1994 FIBA World Championship team.
Larry Bird took over as coach in 1997-98 and produced a franchise-best 58-24 record, with Chris Mullin, Dale Davis, Derrick McKey, and Antonio Davis losing a seven-game conference finals to the Bulls, then falling to the Knicks in the 1999 conference finals. In 2000, Indiana reached its first NBA Finals, beating the Bucks, 76ers, and Knicks before losing to the Lakers in six games. Isiah Thomas then built around Jermaine O'Neal, acquired for Dale Davis, and later added Ron Artest in a trade with Chicago.
Indiana has won nine division titles and returned to the NBA Finals in 2025. Six Hall of Famers played multiple seasons in a Pacers uniform — Miller, Mullin, English, Daniels, Brown, and McGinnis — alongside Hall of Fame coaches Leonard, Ramsay, and Larry Brown; Miller and Schrempf are also in the FIBA Hall of Fame.