INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA – NOVEMBER 06: Jarace Walker #5 and Tyrese Haliburton #0 of the Indiana Pacers celebrate in the fourth quarter against the Orlando Magic at Gainbridge Fieldhouse on November 06, 2024 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images)
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INDIANAPOLIS – Tyrese Haliburton hasn’t played for the Indiana Pacers in over 15 months. Soon, that will change. The Pacers kick off training camp early next week, then preseason play soon after. In under one month, the regular season begins. Their home opener against the Dallas Mavericks is barely over four weeks away.
The anticipation for the 2026-27 Pacers has been building for a while – specifically since Haliburton went down with a torn Achilles in Game 7 of the 2025 NBA Finals. A whole season has passed since then, but without Haliburton and with many other injuries, the Pacers went 19-63. Fans looked forward to the season ending. That meant the return of competitive basketball.
After an offseason of waiting, the Pacers are almost back. And Haliburton, according to general manager Chad Buchanan, is ready.
“He’s going to be 100% full go,” Buchanan said Thursday at the Pacers Foundation Invitational golf outing. “There’s going to be no restrictions right away for him.”
That matches what Haliburton, ever the optimist, said about his own health last month. He shared on August 12 that he’d be ready for the season even if it started that day. His rehab has gone well, Pacers executive Ted Wu shared Thursday, and the team has trusted the work Haliburton has put in to make sure he returns as close to peak form as possible.
A shingles diagnosis in February delayed that recovery, but Haliburton was going to miss all of last season anyway. Now he’s back, officially ready to go as the Pacers look to recapture their competitive form.
“The excitement and anticipation across the community here has been building up for over a year at this point,” Wu said of Haliburton’s soon-coming return in Gainbridge Fieldhouse. “So I’m expecting an extremely loud and crazy crowd as we hear Gainbridge rocking again.”
Pacers fans are eager to see the roster whole. 2024-25 was the best season in franchise history, but it ended in hellish fashion. The team didn’t get a chance to follow up their magic or avenge postseason heartbreak. Instead, they battled through countless injuries and lost more games than they ever have in franchise history.
It was understandable with Haliburton out, every other starter getting injured, and Myles Turner leaving for the Milwaukee Bucks. But it did make the time between the 2025 Finals and the start of the coming season feel even longer. Just as the fanbase can’t wait, Pacers players can’t either.
“Excitement. Just ready to play. Ready to win,” Pacers forward Aaron Nesmith said of his team last month. “Ready to go back into the playoffs and do what we’re supposed to do.”
Last season was difficult for everyone. To the credit of Pacers players, they largely kept their heads up and didn’t fracture mentally. Most knew that it was a temporary setback, though that didn’t make losing any easier. Star forward Pascal Siakam was a crucial vocal leader as the team soldiered on.
They were tested. Buchanan said the team was optimistic, even without Haliburton, entering the season. Siakam was still an All-Star level player. Andrew Nembhard and Nesmith were solid starters. The Pacers had talent.
Then, injuries. Haliburton missed all 82 games. Siakam missed 20. Nembhard was out 25 times, Nesmith 37. Even bench players were unavailable for much of the season – the only three players that reached the required 65 games played to be eligible for some league awards were Ben Sheppard (65 games played), Jarace Walker (76), and Jay Huff (all 82).
TORONTO, CANADA – NOVEMBER 26: Brandon Ingram #3 of the Toronto Raptors goes to the basket against Ben Sheppard #26, Jay Huff #32, and Andrew Nembhard #2 of the Indiana Pacers during the second half of their basketball game at the Scotiabank Arena on November 26, 2025 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Mark Blinch/Getty Images)
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What does last season’s struggles mean for the 2026-27 Pacers?
There were moments where things looked fine. In the final 18 games before the All-Star break, the Pacers went 9-9 – proof of concept that the healthy version of the team may have been somewhat competitive. In their last 10 games before the NBA Cup stoppage, the Pacers went 5-5. When Siakam returned from injury in late March, the team deployed its normal rotation a few more times before opting to give young players opportunities down the stretch. During Siakam’s final six outings, Indiana went 3-3.
In the other 48 games, the Pacers were 2-46. That included a 1-13 start, a 13-game losing streak that set a new franchise-worst mark, then later a 16-game losing streak to top their previous worst run of action. Their incentives changed when the playoffs became out of sight and they traded a protected draft pick, but it was still a miserable season for the Pacers.
That’s why they are so excited to get back to playing and, if they have it their way, winning. “It was a long offseason. It was a long 82 games. And I think everybody is ready to go from coaches to players [to] staff,” Buchanan said. “We’re just anxious to get back on the court and see this group together again.”
It may not feel normal right away. Haliburton has to get his wind back and show he can be the same player physically. That won’t happen instantly. His impact level to open the campaign is difficult to predict – especially with the team playing a challenging early-season schedule.
Ivica Zubac is fairly new to the Pacers, too. He played in five games after Indiana acquired him via trade in February before missing the rest of the season due to injury, so he will have to get up to speed with new teammates. Last week, he and other Pacers players linked up in Nashville, Tennessee for a player-led minicamp. It marked the first time Zubac got to play with some of his Pacer teammates.
Zubac told Pacers executives that this summer is the earliest he has ever returned from Europe to prepare for an NBA season. He’s ready to go and has to be – he’ll have to adjust his play style to fit how the Pacers operate. But he’s in great shape and dropped a few pounds during the offseason while playing for the Croatian national team.
The Pacers depth room added Kelly Oubre, and Obi Toppin has been a constant presence off the bench for the blue and gold in recent years. The rest of the second unit comes with consistency or age-related questions, adding another layer of wonder to the Pacers upcoming season.
Haliburton is immensely talented. Zubac is too. Yet with a few changes since the team’s last competitive season, things might not be smooth right away for either player, or for the team generally. “I think we’ve seen this group in the past get off to slow starts and rebound and find their groove,” Buchanan said. “You hope by 25, 30 games in, you start to see some signs of whether it’s clicking or it’s not. But we’re also going to be patient with this group. We’re not going to make a quick determination on whether this group is fitting together or not if we get off to a slow start after 10 games. That’s just not a prudent way to approach this group.”
Since Rick Carlisle became the team’s head coach in June of 2021, one pattern has emerged: The Pacers get better as a season progresses. That’s a feature of this era, and it will be important as Haliburton returns and the team finds its way once again.
It will be difficult in a more challenging Eastern Conference. But it has never been easy for these Pacers, even as they battled to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2024 and the NBA Finals in 2025.
The losses in those series are motivating. A slow start may be coming, and the excited fans know it. But the Pacers are ready to battle through it and attempt to re-capture their magic. “It’s never going to be exactly the same again. Maybe it’s a different path to try and get back there (the Finals),” Buchanan said. “But that is the ultimate goal, to get back there and put ourselves in that position again. Having a taste of it I think really drives our players each and every day.”
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