What do the Pacers need to do to remain a contender?

The Pacers hopes are to join that group of three teams. Remaining a contender will take bold, yet smart, transactions and management. Former Washington Wizards general manager and President Tommy Sheppard recently discussed what is different for front offices that are running a championship contender rather than attempting to build a winning roster.

“I think for teams you shift as the game (does). You know, you go back 10 years ago and everybody said, ‘Oh, it's a small ball. We're taking the bigs out, bigs are out of vogue, bigs are not going to matter,’” Sheppard began. “And then now it's all, ‘Hey, you’ve got to go big.’ So the game shifts and most of the time it's a copycat league.”

The copying, in this case, is a bit different. This isn’t like the mid-2010s where the Warriors small-ball style with a focus on shooting was changing the league. Rather, right now the uniting principle of the last several champions has been their ability to execute their own system at a high level. NBA teams have realized the value of playing to the strengths of their roster, and the Pacers have been good at that in recent postseasons.

Sheppard never reached the Conference Finals as the Wizards’ lead decision maker, but he spent two decades in Washington’s front office in some capacity. In the mid-2010s, the Wizards made the Conference Semifinals twice, and they were one victory short of the Eastern Conference Finals in 2017.

During his first few years with the franchise, they were eliminated by the likes of Dwyane Wade (2005) and LeBron James (2006-2008) in the playoffs. That’s another lesson that Sheppard has for contenders: They have to know their most-likely challenging opponents.

“I think certainly you always have to have a pretty good idea of who has a legit chance every year to win a title,” Sheppard said of a team’s planning. “It kind of ends up, who do you run into?”

The Pacers will have eyes on the Celtics and Knicks, certainly. They’ve run into the Cleveland Cavaliers in the playoffs before, and Ceveland just made the Eastern Conference Finals. The Detroit Pistons are ascending, too. Most of those teams have dynamic creators, with the Celtics instead having two elite wings and a tough-to-crack system.

It’s also important for the Pacers to know when the pivot if things aren’t working. The Knicks, for example, traded away an All-Star in Julius Randle after playoff shortcomings a few years ago. They made a coaching change last year. New York was patient with its core but made the necessary moves along the way.

Those moves, Sheppard said, all come back to front office trust. “I think you really need to lean in as a staff,” Sheppard said of possible changes for a contender. “Get alignment that, ‘Hey, these are the options that we have in front of us. We could stay the same. We could go for it and go make some trades….’ There's going to be a lot of conversation behind closed doors. And it might sound a lot like arguing, but when that door opens, you have to align.”

The Pacers made their first big change of their current era in the last 12 months. Their old starting center in Myles Turner left for the Milwaukee Bucks. They needed a new five man. The Pacers, in response, sent multiple draft picks and players to the Los Angeles Clippers to acquire Zubac. They believe he can be their starting center during their contending window, so they pulled the trigger on a bold trade. But, like Sheppard said, they needed alignment to make it happen.

Sheppard, as President of the Wizards, made a trade with the current version of the Pacers front office back in 2021. He knows the dynamics of that group well. “I think [President] (Kevin Pritchard) and Chad (Buchanan), they work so well together with [Head coach] Rick (Carlisle),” he said. “They're going to be very aware of what's out there, what's available.”

They’ll have to be aware as the Pacers chase another deep postseason run. With the NBA Finals in the rearview mirror, teams can begin to re-sign their own players. That means the Pacers quest to get back where they were in 2025 is officially underway.