NBA Power Rankings 3: Giannis for MVP and bold predictions for every team

Preseason Record: 2-2

Stop me if you have heard this before, but the Indiana Pacers were derailed by injuries last season. Their story mirrors that of at least a dozen other teams who all saw injuries to significant players prevent them from reaching their ceiling. Unfortunately for the Pacers, they don’t enter this year healthy.

Two presumed starters, Caris LeVert and TJ Warren are expected to miss the start of the regular season due to injuries. Add in the loss of Doug McDermott in free agency and the offensive ceiling for this team is greatly reduced. New head coach Rick Carlisle as a history of creating offensive gold, but he generally had an elite offensive player at the fulcrum: Dirk Nowitzki and Luka Doncic being the key names.

Malcolm Brogdon is healthy and led the team in scoring this preseason, while rookie first-rounder Chris Duarte will be a part of the rotation, and possibly the starting lineup, from day one. If the Pacers get a career year out of Duarte, Justin Holiday, Oshae Brissett or Jeremy Lamb they have a good chance at weathering the injury storm and getting back into the playoffs.

Bold Prediction: The Turner – Sabonis pairing is broken up this season. Myles Turner and Domantas Sabonis are both talented basketball players who have made their pairing work, but at the end of the day, both are ideally centers. Carlise hasn’t started two centers since his first stint in Indiana, and after a few months to evaluate things the team could finally follow through on the league’s worst-kept trade rumor and move either Sabonis or (more likely) Turner in exchange for a perimeter player. Warren once healthy can move down to power forward and help to open up the offense.