have been good at that<\/a> in recent postseasons.<\/p>\nSheppard never reached the Conference Finals as the Wizards\u2019 lead decision maker, but he spent two decades in Washington\u2019s front office in some capacity. In the mid-2010s, the Wizards made the Conference Semifinals twice, and they were one victory short of the Eastern Conference Finals in 2017.<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON, DC – JULY 08: Wizards President and General Manager Tommy Sheppard is seen during a press conference at Capitol One Arena in Washington, DC, on July 08, 2022. (Photo by Craig Hudson for The Washington Post via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
The Washington Post via Getty Images<\/p>\n
During his first few years with the franchise, they were eliminated by the likes of Dwyane Wade (2005) and LeBron James (2006-2008) in the playoffs. That\u2019s another lesson that Sheppard has for contenders: They have to know their most-likely challenging opponents.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think certainly you always have to have a pretty good idea of who has a legit chance every year to win a title,\u201d Sheppard said of a team\u2019s planning. \u201cIt kind of ends up, who do you run into?\u201d<\/p>\n
The Pacers will have eyes on the Celtics and Knicks, certainly. They\u2019ve run into the Cleveland Cavaliers in the playoffs before, and Ceveland just made the Eastern Conference Finals. The Detroit Pistons are ascending, too. Most of those teams have dynamic creators, with the Celtics instead having two elite wings and a tough-to-crack system.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also important for the Pacers to know when the pivot if things aren\u2019t working. The Knicks, for example, traded away an All-Star in Julius Randle after playoff shortcomings a few years ago. They made a coaching change last year. New York was patient with its core but made the necessary moves along the way.<\/p>\n
Those moves, Sheppard said, all come back to front office trust. \u201cI think you really need to lean in as a staff,\u201d Sheppard said of possible changes for a contender. \u201cGet alignment that, \u2018Hey, these are the options that we have in front of us. We could stay the same. We could go for it and go make some trades\u2026.\u2019 There’s going to be a lot of conversation behind closed doors. And it might sound a lot like arguing, but when that door opens, you have to align.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Pacers made their first big change of their current era in the last 12 months. Their old starting center in Myles Turner left for the Milwaukee Bucks. They needed a new five man. The Pacers, in response, sent multiple draft picks and players to the Los Angeles Clippers to acquire Zubac. They believe he can be their starting center during their contending window, so they pulled the trigger on a bold trade. But, like Sheppard said, they needed alignment to make it happen.<\/p>\n
Sheppard, as President of the Wizards, made a trade with the current version of the Pacers front office back in 2021. He knows the dynamics of that group well. \u201cI think [President] (Kevin Pritchard) and Chad (Buchanan), they work so well together with [Head coach] Rick (Carlisle),\u201d he said. \u201cThey’re going to be very aware of what’s out there, what’s available.\u201d<\/p>\n
They\u2019ll have to be aware as the Pacers chase another deep postseason run. With the NBA Finals in the rearview mirror, teams can begin to re-sign their own players. That means the Pacers quest to get back where they were in 2025 is officially underway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA – JUNE 13: Tyrese Haliburton #0 of the Indiana Pacers reacts during the first quarter against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":764800,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3774],"tags":[7,113,126,93803,3866,6,1220,114,45562,24369,278],"class_list":["post-764799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-indiana-pacers","tag-basketball","tag-indiana","tag-indiana-pacers","tag-indiana-pacers-offseason","tag-indianapacers","tag-nba","tag-nba-finals","tag-pacers","tag-pacers-offseason","tag-tommy-sheppard","tag-tyrese-haliburton"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116775113616169798","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=764799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/764800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=764799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=764799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=764799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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