2016-17 Results

Record: 42 – 40 (7th in the East)

Season Ended: Swept by the Cavs in the 1st Round

Key Additions

Draft

Ike Anigbogu (PF/C), TJ Leaf (PF)

Free Agency

Bojan Bogdanovic (SG/SF), Darren Collison (PG/SG)

Trade

Cory Joseph (PG), Victor Oladipo (SG)

Key Subtractions

Monta Ellis, Paul George, CJ Miles, Jeff Teague, Kevin Seraphin

Projected Starters (Last year averages)

PG: Darren Collison (13 pts, 2 reb, 5 ast)

SG: Victor Oladipo (16 pts, 4 reb, 3 ast)

SF: Bojan Bogdanovic (13 pts, 3 reb, 1 ast)

PF: Thaddeus Young (11 pts, 6 reb, 2 ast)

C: Myles Turner (15 pts, 7 reb, 2 blk)

Key Reserves

Cory Joseph (PG), Lance Stephenson (SG), Al Jefferson (C)

Major Story lines

End of the Paul George era – This offseason the Pacers, faced with the expectation that Paul George planned to leave at the end of his contract, decided to trade him to the Thunder. In the haul they got back Victor Oladipo and he looks to be the key backcourt player for them now. There was a time when the Pacers were Lebron’s biggest threat in the East and those days are now long gone. The Pacers will now depend on a mass unit of secondary or otherwise discarded players.

Mike Predictions (25 – 57) (12th in the East)

• Pacers fight every night – I will admit that the Pacers roster is not as bad as I initially perceived as far as talent goes. However, I worry about the cohesiveness of this unit. You brought in a lot of players from a lot of places and with the shortened preseason and earlier start in general there hasn’t been a ton of time to mesh. I love Myles Turner and would love to see him take a step this year but I think the Pacers end up in a lot of games where they make it interesting and fall short.
• Pacers end up playing the most lineup variations – Usually this distinction goes to the team with the most injuries or a young team looking to find out what they have. The Pacers shouldn’t fall into either of those categories but they are a team made up of guys who are not vastly separated in talent. I expect a lot of mixing and matching going on in Indianapolis.

Josh Predictions (36-46) (9th in the East)

• Victor Oladipo finishes top 20 in scoring – Indiana’s top 2 scorers from last season (Paul George and Jeff Teague) are both gone. That’s 39 PPG that will need to be replenished by someone on this team. It’s possible that Myles Turner is the big winner here, and turns into a 20 & 10 guy every night. But I think it’s Oladipo who posts career numbers (on a terrible team) and gets a stat boost due to a potential increase in volume scoring.
• Indiana is better than people expect – This isn’t necessarily a precise prediction. I don’t know how good Indiana will be. But I have them finishing 9th in the East, just outside of the playoffs. I think Myles Turner really develops into a star this year. I like Al Jefferson and Lance Stephenson off the bench. And I like the additions of Oladipo, Bogdanovich, and Sabonis. Not sure how good they’ll actually look, but I kind of think they won’t be as helpless without PG13 as we all think.