We make sure the guys are competitors” – Rick Carlisle breaks down how the Indiana Pacers built their roster
The Indiana Pacers zigged when the rest of the NBA zagged, just the way Rick Carlislewanted it. Instead of leaning on a single star, they spread the load and won by committee, outworking opponents with pace and depth. While that approach worked, given how they outperformed expectations in the 2025 postseason, the ever-present challenge for the franchise is finding players who fit their system.
That said, Carlisle says the franchise has a way to find the ones who fit the bill and are most likely to buy in.
It starts with competitors and who are great people,” stated the Pacers head coach on “Green Light with Chris Long.”“Luckily, we had a lot of those kind of guys on our team. We identified, really, a couple of years ago that if we’re gonna play at the pace that we want to and is the best for us in the playoffs, it’s gonna require that we do something to generate that. What that became was full-court pressure.”
As Carlisle pointed out, the Pacers likely gave considerable thought to how they could turn the franchise around from mediocrity. The realization came “a couple of years ago,” probably in the middle of the 2021-22 season, when Indiana let go of Domantas Sabonis to acquire Tyrese Haliburton.
At that point, Indiana had failed to make the playoffs over the past two seasons and had never advanced past the first round in its previous five appearances. It built good teams but was never great.
However, when the Pacers fully bought into what they were doing with Hali as the head of the snake, their fortunes started to turn around. They reached the Eastern Conference finals in 2024, falling to the eventual champions, the Boston Celtics, in a sweep.
That said, it took more than luck for Indiana to reach contender status; it also required shrewd moves from the front office. As a small-market team, the Pacers operated with a narrow margin of error and limited wiggle room, so they had to get everything right, down to the last detail.
“You got guys like (Andrew) Nembhard, who’s a natural as–kicker of a competitor. (Aaron) Nesmith, (TJ) McConnell, guys like that. Tyrese has become one of those guys. (Myles) Turner, (Pascal) Siakam, these guys were willing to do that and they saw that this was our means for success,” Carlisle explained.
