Indiana Pacers: Who should be part of the long-term core?

The Indiana Pacers have shown that mega-star power isn’t required to make the playoffs. But the players they do have are still learning what it takes to cohesively string together a dominant season, and those experiences will help decide who should be a part of this team’s future.

In 74 games this season, the Indiana Pacers have displayed, quite arguably, some of the most erratic performances in all of the NBA. Take, for example, last Thursday’s loss to the Golden State Warriors, a 23-point rout in which the team couldn’t score more than 90 points. Only the Philadelphia 76ers, who are nearly unstoppable at home this season, had kept them below the 90-point mark this year.

Indiana bounced back from that Golden State loss in ridiculously efficient fashion, clobbering the Denver Nuggets 124-88 at Bankers Life Fieldhouse on Sunday. The 36-point victory is their third-largest victory this year, behind a 37-point demolishing of the Detroit Pistons in December, and their notorious 42-point whiplashing of the Los Angeles Lakers.

It also marks another gargantuan win without their star guard Victor Oladipo. All this is to say that the Pacers have shown that some defensive grit and great team basketball can outperform even the most star-powered teams.

With that being said, with so many players becoming free agents this summer, the Pacers have to start considering who they’ll want to keep around for the future as they continue to re-establish a winning culture. Here’s who they should consider keeping in the organization for the long-term.