Hey there, Last Night In Basketballers — I am, as I do every year, re-appropriating the Three Things I Noticed on League Pass format to preview the upcoming season. Instead of three things I noticed, it’ll be something more along the lines of three things I’m looking forward to, interested in, or want to see. Some of them might be narrative-based, some might be stats, and some might include video. But they'll all be focused on the 2026-27 campaign.
The schedule for those posts will be as follows (podcasts previewing each division with Mo Dakhil are in parentheses):
- Atlantic Division (BOS, BKN, NYK, PHI, TOR) (Podcast)
- Central Division (CHI, CLE, DET, IND, MIL) (Podcast)
- Southeast Division (ATL, CHA, MIA, ORL, WAS) (Podcast)
- Pacific Division (GSW, LAC, LAL, PHX, SAC) (Podcast)
- Northwest Division (DEN, MIN, OKC, POR, UTA) (Podcast)
- Southwest Division (DAL, HOU, MEM, NOP, SAS) (Podcast)
So without further ado, let's get to the Indiana Pacers, who should look quite a bit different this season than they did for most of last year.
Tyrese Haliburton, the return
This is what the Pacers' season is all about. Haliburton missed the entire 2025-26 campaign, and that essentially sank their season entirely. Other injuries and their later draft-pick trade also contributed in a major way, but they didn't look right to start the season anyway. I think they were going to be pretty bad regardless. Not quite as bad as they ended up being, but pretty bad.
Obviously, we don't know how healthy Haliburton is. We can't and won't know that until we actually see him on the floor. We can only hope that he returns and looks as good or better than Jayson Tatum did in his return from the same injury last year. That would be incredible. If we get that, I have really high hopes for this Pacers team, at least during the regular season.
I do think we need to be patient with him, though. Most guys don't return from this type of injury and just hit the ground running right away. Until very recently, actually, it's essentially been a career-altering injury, with guys never looking the same again after suffering it. Really, the only guys who have resumed their careers and looked largely like themselves are Tatum (who only did it for a very short while before getting injured again in the playoffs), Kevin Durant, and Rudy Gay.
Those are all among the more recent Achilles tears, though, so it's entirely possible that new techniques and technologies and players being in better condition and having access to new rehabilitation services and whatnot have made it so it's not the case anymore that you simply can't come back from an Achilles tear and be the same ever again. I certainly hope so, because Haliburton is one of my very favorite players in the league to watch.
The things to look out for, I think, are whether he can get into the paint at the same rate as before and what his lateral agility looks like defensively.
Since arriving in Indiana, 16.8% of Haliburton's frontcourt touches have hit the paint and 3.9% of them have hit the restricted area, per GeniusIQ tracking. Those numbers went down between 2023 and 2025, though, and if they go down even more it could have a dramatic impact on Indiana's offense. Paint touches are how you get the sprays for threes and the dump-offs for dunks. He can make up for not getting there as often just by using his size and vision, but it's a difficult task.
Haliburton was already not the world's best defender, and he could conceivably slip more here if his athleticism doesn't fully rebound. The Pacers have the infrastructure to insulate him, though, with guys like Andrew Nembhard and Aaron Nesmith taking the most difficult matchups, with Ivica Zubac and Pascal Siakam covering for him at the rim and in space, respectively, and with Rick Carlisle scheming things up. But there is a risk that he's even more of a liability on that end than he was before.
I'm hoping that those two issues don't crop up and he's exactly the same player as he was before, but those are definitely the two things I will be looking at most.