Indiana Pacers: 3 big questions heading into 2019-20
By Fox Doucette
The Indiana Pacers have more questions than answers in the upcoming season. Can they reach their potential or will they be lottery-bound?
Of all the teams in the NBA in 2019-20, no team has a bigger gap between its ceiling and its floor than the Indiana Pacers.
More from Hoops Habit
- 7 Players the Miami Heat might replace Herro with by the trade deadline
- Meet Cooper Flagg: The best American prospect since LeBron James
- Are the Miami Heat laying the groundwork for their next super team?
- Sophomore Jump: 5 second-year NBA players bound to breakout
- NBA Trades: The Lakers bolster their frontcourt in this deal with the Pacers
Coming off consecutive 48-34 seasons whose only similarity was the regular-season record and first-round playoff exit, a team that massively overachieved in 2017-18 became a 2018-19 team that limped down the stretch and collapsed completely at the finish line, going 4-13 — including a sweep at the hands of the Boston Celtics — after March 14.
At the center of that collapse was a ruptured quadriceps tendon that knocked Victor Oladipo out for the season from late January onward and while Oladipo is expected to return midway through the 2019-20 campaign, Pacers president of basketball operations Kevin Pritchard did his best to reload the Pacers in such a way that they’ll be good no matter what happens to their superstar.
But this is still a team with a ton of question marks, a team that could as easily win 30 games as 60 when the regular season plays out.