Yahoo Sports Daily hosts Jason Fitz and Coley Harvey explain why the Indiana Pacers are the one team that can immediately return to winning basketball by adding a top prospect in the 2026 NBA Draft. Watch the full episode of Yahoo Sports Daily on YouTube or YahooSports.TV.
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Video Transcript
Do we really think that landing the number one spot can really turn these teams from bad to good?
Oh, no.
I, I, I think the knee-jerk reaction is that, yes, in theory, they should because they’re f- the player is that good.
The player was that good in college.
He should be the savior and turn this program around, turn this team around right away.
But the actual reality is that, no, it never really happens.
It’s very, very, very seldom, where you will see one player turn a franchise immediately.
There is one team in the mix that I could say that if they get one draft pick, they actually one dr- first-round draft pick, they actually could benefit from that, and that’s the Indiana Pacers.
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You know, they did so horribly this past year, but the main reason is because their big star, Tyrese Haliburton, of course, lost all of this season because of the ACL injury, that he suffered in the playoffs last year.
Pascal Siakam, who you see on your screen, did have a, a decent enough season for this team.
But if they get one more piece to pair Siakam with Haliburton, all of a sudden, the Pacers are back in the finals potentially and, and could be making noise.
So they may be the very one team in this scenario that’s just one piece away from potentially making noise and, and really flipping the script on what they did this past year