Indiana Pacers hope roster changes can break 48-win ceiling

Best-case scenario

In a perfect world, everyone stays healthy.

Myles Turner attempts five 3-pointers a game and improves on his 38.8 percent mark from last season, Domantas Sabonis keeps hitting nearly three-quarters of his shots in the restricted area, Jeremy Lamb evolves into a plus defender, Malcolm Brogdon leads the league in assists, T.J. Warren wins Most Improved Player, Goga Bitadze wins Rookie of the Year and the Pacers storm into the playoffs with a revived Victor Oladipo.

They take in a 57-25 record, a No. 2 seed and a chip on their shoulder as they advance to the Eastern Conference Finals.

And they give Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks all they can handle before bowing out in the kind of Game 7 where the fans at Fiserv Forum cheer as loudly for the defeated visitors as they do for their eventual-NBA-champion home team, knowing they just saw one of the greatest playoff games ever played.

Worst-case scenario

Oladipo is never the same after his injury, losing the quick-step explosiveness that lets him create his own shot.

Brogdon and Warren play under 100 games combined, Turner gets hurt midseason and the defense is among the worst in the league in the 20 games he’s gone, while the bench players get creamed when they’re forced to start games they have no business starting.

Bitadze turns out to be all height and no game, Aaron Holiday never learns to shoot and coach Nate McMillan’s aversion to the 3-pointer means the Pacers lose a lot of winnable games just because the other team outshot them from long range by 10 or 20 attempts while Indiana settled for mid-range jump shots.

The Pacers never find their footing and slip in the standings, sitting at 10-10 in November before the injuries pile up and ultimately finishing 34-48, nowhere near playoff contention, as McMillan is fired in favor of interim head coach Dan Burke at the All-Star break while the team prepares for a massive overhaul in the offseason.