The 2024-25 Indiana Pacers are good enough to win the first NBA title in franchise history.
Having taken the first two games of their Eastern Conference Finals series against the New York Knicks – on the road, no less – they are within touching distance of their first NBA Finals series in 25 years. And having crescendoed at the perfect time following a year of consistent improvements, they are well on the way to winning the franchise’s championship since moving from the ABA to the NBA in 1976.
At the heart of that success has been their continuity. Aside from changing out backup centres – swapping out Jalen Smith, who moved to the Chicago Bulls as a free agent, for Thomas Bryant, acquired via trade from the Miami Heat during the season – the Pacers have returned exactly the same rotation as they sported during their 2024 Eastern Conference Finals run.
Back-to-back Conference Finals both precipitate and merit continuity. And it appears as though the Pacers will do what it takes to provide exactly that.
Pacers Historically Among Lowest Spenders
In a round-up of the Eastern finals, Brian Windhorst of ESPN reported that Pacers ownership intended to spent what it takes to keep the team together.
Historically one of the most tax-reticent teams in the league, as well as one of the smaller markets, Windhorst indicates that Pacers ownership nevertheless realise the excellent situation in which they find themselves, and will be willing to open the historically-closed tabs to keep the good thing going.
[…] But Indiana might be on the verge of entering a new era, team sources say — one not seen in two decades — one that aims to keep up with the Celtics, Cavs, Knicks and everyone else.
The small-market Pacers have not paid the luxury tax since 2005 — don’t ask Pacers fans of a certain age about the seven-year, $51 million Austin Croshere contract after the 2000 Finals — and owner Herb Simon (and older brother Mel Simon, before his death in 2009) authorized less than $10 million in luxury tax spending in franchise history. For reference, eight teams are paying more than $15 million in tax just this season.
But Simon will turn 91 later this year and has taken on new investors in recent years. And with the Pacers making another deep playoff run, ownership has indicated a willingness to increase spending next season and potentially reenter the luxury tax to keep this core together, sources said.
Previous Tax Payments Were Not Even Deliberate
In the history of the Pacers’ franchise, they have paid the luxury tax in just three out of its 22 applicable years [2024-25 presumptuously included, as they will not be payers this year]. Those three years were the first three in the luxury tax’s existence, two of which came at a time when the threshold was – entirely unhelpfully – calculated retrospectively.
With the tax threshold at the time based on a precise calculation of a seasonâs Basketball Related Income that could only be done after the season ended, teams had to operate on where they estimated the tax threshold would be, only to be subsequently charged based on where it actually was. Not until the 2005 NBA Collective Bargaining Agreement was the system changed to the much more sensible set-up, that remains today, in which a season’s tax threshold is set in stone before any games take place.
The Pacers therefore paid it only three times, two of which were inadvertent. And even then, they did not stray over it by much, paying only the following amounts in penalties:
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- 2002-03: $892,000 (* rounded to the nearest $1,000)
- 2003-04: $3,323,059
- 2005-06: $4,674,028
- Total: $8,889,087
Two NBA franchises – the Charlotte Hornets and New Orleans Pelicans – have never paid the luxury tax in their existence. But neither of them have back-to-back Conference Finals appearances to their name, or anything much close to it. On a budget, the Pacers have built something very good. And although increased performance meets increased cost, it seems that they will rise to the challenge.
Key Pacers Starter Headed To Free Agency
Of particular note is the impact this will have on the Pacers’ starting centre, Myles Turner. Having previously signed two extensions, he is headed to free agency for the first time in his career, unless he signs another extension in the next 37 days.
Turner has never known an NBA team other than the Pacers, and has been starting at centre for a decade. His combination of rim protection on one end and floor-stretching ability on the other chimes entirely with the new modern orthodoxy for NBA centres, and his season averages of 15.6 points, 6.5 rebounds and 2.0 blocks per game came with a career-best 39.6 shooting from three-point range on more than five attempts per contest.
Turner will have suitors. And the Pacers would rather there was nothing for the sharks to circle.
With the new 2024’s CBAâs ability to start the first season of extended contracts at 140% of the salary of the final season of the contract being extended, up from 125%, the Pacers can extend Turner to a contract starting in 2025-26 at $27,899,900, a 140% increase on his $19,928,500 salary this season. This would mirror almost exactly the extension that the Boston Celtics had with Derrick White, who received such a deal back in July.
Previously, the assumed sticking point to them doing that was the franchise’s history of tightened purse strings. Yet with today’s report, it seems that is about to change. With the Pacers’ ownership group also owning the WNBA’s Indiana Fever – and the revenue increases they will have experienced in the Caitlin Clark era – it is perhaps the beginning of a new era in Pacers basketball, both on and off the court.
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