Basketball, She Wrote

Indiana Pacers 2025-26 Lookahead

Added 2025-09-24 15:58:57 +0000 UTC

A very delicate balancing act

By: Caitlin Cooper I @C2_Cooper

With training camp right around the corner, I have once again taken part in one of my favorite pre-preseason traditions: Talking into a microphone with the always-thorough and endlessly-inquisitive Dan Favale at Bleacher Report for his annual lookahead series via his podcast Hardwood Knocks. Since we covered so much ground about the upcoming season for the Pacers, with Dan posing a full rundown of questions from his unique, outside perspective, I decided to post that conversation here for all of you to (hopefully!) enjoy. (As a quick note, this was recorded prior to the news of the addition of Monte Morris.)

Here are the relevant timestamps, as provided by Hardwood Knocks:

0:00 - INTRO

1:22 - The transformation of the Pacers

10:05 - Covering the NBA Finals

12:46 - The Tyrese Halliburton recovery

16:31 - The loss of Myles Turner

20:33 - Playing five-out vs four-out

23:21 - Isaiah Jackson’s return

25:13 - Jay Huff’s fit

28:33 - Will James Wiseman have a role?

30:35 - Pascal Siakam-Obi Toppin minutes

34:12 - Continued development of Bennedict Mathurin

42:28 - Andrew Nembhard as the lead guard

46:28 - What makes the Pacers defense special?

48:01 - The Andrew Nembhard-Pascal Siakam dynamic

50:40 - Can Aaron Nesmith get even better?

55:54 - Future of Jarace Walker

59:35 -Pascal Siakam falling down/transition defense

1:01:34 - Ben Sheppard

1:04:20 - Johnny Furphy, Taelon Peter, Kam Jones, RayJ Dennis

1:10:24 - Biggest needs

1:13:07 - Under the radar storyline

1:15:26 - Top-10 rotation

1:16:59 - Go-to closing lineup

1:18:13 - Weirdo lineups we want to see

1:19:45 - PREDICTIONS

Also, if you want more pre-preseason content from: Here is a link to a preview that I recorded with The Athletic NBA Daily earlier this month: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8OvehFMga8&t=847s