The Pacers are going through it. A rough year in Indiana isn’t necessarily a surprise after the franchise’s star guard Tyrese Haliburton suffered a torn Achilles tendon in the Pacers’ Game 7 loss to the Thunder in last season’s NBA Finals.
It was a brutal blow that made for a disappointing end to a magical season for the Pacers, running through the Eastern Conference as the No. 4 seed and forcing a dominant Oklahoma City squad to a decisive Game 7 for an NBA title. Without Haliburton, a gap year was expected this season as the franchise’s superstar gets healthy, but the brutal start the Pacers have experienced is more drastic than anticipated.
Indiana is 6–24 through its first 30 games of the season and after a 17-point defeat to the Bucks that grew the Pacers’ losing streak to six games, Pascal Siakam got brutally honest on what needs to change for Indiana to get back to its winning ways.
“When we’re going to decide that losing is not O.K., I think we’re going to go somewhere,” Siakam said to reporters. “But if you go out there every single day and it just feels like, ‘O.K., we lost another game, it doesn’t matter,’ we’re just going to keep sinking. I don’t think we’re going to get out of it until when you lose and you go home and it really hurts you.”
An honest and transparent Pascal Siakam after the Pacers fall to 6-24:
— Alex Golden (@AlexGoldenNBA) December 24, 2025
“When we decide that losing is not ok, we’re gonna go somewhere. But if we go out there every single day and it just feels like, okay, we lost another game, it does not matter, we’re just gonna keep sinking.… pic.twitter.com/q3STW7ePF0
The three-time All-Star and Haliburton’s No. 2 harped on the team’s complacency with the current losses, a feeling he certainly doesn’t appreciate. Siakam is leading the Pacers this year with 23.5 points per game, but the team’s offense has struggled with a league-worst 107.4 offensive rating. Indiana’s -8.3 net rating is better than only the Kings and Wizards.
The Pacers dropped their first five games of the season and then went on an eight-game losing skid following their first win of the season, which came against the Warriors on Nov. 1. Losing streaks have become a regular occurrence this season, quite the shocking change from one of last season’s NBA Finals participants, although the myriad of losses are somewhat understandable without Haliburton.
Looking at the bright side, the Pacers could receive a high draft pick thanks to the brutal year with the potential to add a young star alongside Siakam and Haliburton. Siakam is under contract with Indiana for two more years after this season, while Haliburton is currently locked down through 2028-29. That doesn’t make the losses easy, though, and the compounding defeats appear to be weighing on the locker room.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Pascal Siakam Was Brutally Honest About Pacers’ Dismal Season Without Tyrese Haliburton.
