Indiana Pacers – Hold
The Indiana Pacers made their trade for the season and it forecasted the plan to look more towards the future than to do anything in the present. Especially when there were the red flags regarding Caris LeVert’s physical this quietly became a transition year, no matter how hot of a start the Pacers got off to.
Instead of predicting a trade, for the Pacers, we will pick a final seeding. With the trajectory of how things are going from a health perspective, the Pacers will be forced to play in the play-in games and will be lucky if they are in the upper seeds of those games.
The injuries have just become too much to overcome for the Pacers. There is still no update on the timeline for either TJ Warren or Caris LeVert. The burden of being in the top five in minutes for the first month of the season for Domantas Sabonis and Malcolm Brogdon is not sustainable.
There are not many trades for the team even to consider and when they are all on the court the Indiana Pacers are a real contender in the Eastern Conference. Unfortunately for this year’s projections, they are unlikely to be on the court together much at all.