In a recent interview with Caitlin Cooper, Carlisle laid out his belief that today’s league isn’t just about top-tier talent anymore. Depth, energy, and effort are becoming just as vital.

“The NBA game has now become a play hard league,” he said. “It’s not just being top heavy with stars. Roster construction is changing.”

Carlisle’s comments come after leading the Pacers to their most successful playoff run in 25 years. Indiana reached the 2025 NBA Finals for the first time since 2000, taking the Oklahoma City Thunder to seven games in a tough series.
For Carlisle, success wasn’t about stacking All-Stars, but rather building a balanced, resilient squad.

“It’s become more important to have more good players than be top heavy with two or three great players that get all the touches,” coach explained.

Indiana’s journey to the Finals reflected that mindset. Despite losing several big men throughout the year—including Jalen Smith, Oscar Tshiebwe, James Wiseman, and Isaiah Jackson—the Pacers held firm in the frontcourt thanks to new additions like Thomas Bryant and Moses Brown.

Carlisle leaned into a rotation built on shared responsibilities, ball movement, and defensive effort. That structure helped Indiana finish the regular season at 52–30—its best record since the 2013–14 season—and survive three playoff series against the Bucks, Cavaliers, and Knicks.

Knicks this year a bit deeper and hopefully some yoot also more developed to add than last year.
We are two all-NBA/Allstars in KAT and Jalen, then OG/Mikal as our core 4.
Can't argue with pacers success last year.

This might all be all well and good until Wemby returns to form and continues to develop?

so yes I agree roster construction has changed and you need depth, but it still comes down to your top 5-6 guys and a couple of good players off the bench, and of course staying healthy.

nycericanguy wrote:i mean how many players did IND really play in the playoffs? 8? sometimes a 9th or 10th man got spot/situational minutes, but they really ran an 8 man rotation.

so yes I agree roster construction has changed and you need depth, but it still comes down to your top 5-6 guys and a couple of good players off the bench, and of course staying healthy.

Even if you are running an 8 man rotation you need guys with fresh legs. Everyone presses on offense today it’s just as much a score in full court transition league as it is a 3 point league

I don't think Carlisle said anytthing revolutionary.
Seems we went from a three star forumula to a two star. Nobody wins without health or role players.
Indy this year had Haliburton and Siakim who were not tippy tops star. OKC had the very emerging SGA and Williams with an incredible deep cast. Denver lacked the depth this year but looks like they refreshed it. Minny looks solid again.

The CBA dictates this but some teams will do it better than others. Charlotte has an issue with Lamelo given what they pay him, his injuries, his lack of defense, and a bone head. Assigning a big contract to the wrong guy is treatcherous.

nycericanguy wrote:

Philc1 wrote:

nycericanguy wrote:i mean how many players did IND really play in the playoffs? 8? sometimes a 9th or 10th man got spot/situational minutes, but they really ran an 8 man rotation.

so yes I agree roster construction has changed and you need depth, but it still comes down to your top 5-6 guys and a couple of good players off the bench, and of course staying healthy.

Even if you are running an 8 man rotation you need guys with fresh legs. Everyone presses on offense today it’s just as much a score in full court transition league as it is a 3 point league

I hope we play 9-10 guys during the regular season, but playoffs every team is going to basically play 8 guys, maybe 9 if they are really deep.

Im guessing Thibs played 8 but limited minutes. Our shortfall in the playoffs was lack of depth. Josh played all season and his knee prevented his shooting and Cam Payne kinda fell off a notch in the post season.

The depth was deficient from day one. We all knew it and it played out as such.

Nalod wrote:

nycericanguy wrote:

Philc1 wrote:

nycericanguy wrote:i mean how many players did IND really play in the playoffs? 8? sometimes a 9th or 10th man got spot/situational minutes, but they really ran an 8 man rotation.

so yes I agree roster construction has changed and you need depth, but it still comes down to your top 5-6 guys and a couple of good players off the bench, and of course staying healthy.

Even if you are running an 8 man rotation you need guys with fresh legs. Everyone presses on offense today it’s just as much a score in full court transition league as it is a 3 point league

I hope we play 9-10 guys during the regular season, but playoffs every team is going to basically play 8 guys, maybe 9 if they are really deep.

Im guessing Thibs played 8 but limited minutes. Our shortfall in the playoffs was lack of depth. Josh played all season and his knee prevented his shooting and Cam Payne kinda fell off a notch in the post season.

The depth was deficient from day one. We all knew it and it played out as such.

no question our depth was iffy from the get. I think we knew we were going to need 1 more offseason to be able to add depth the way we did this summer.

if anything we probably beat BOS sooner than expected.

but I'm not so sure our shortfall was lack of depth, we stayed healthy so depth didn't become a huge issue. It was more late game execution and some bad luck.

IND had a great run and had things go their way much more often than not late in games. That game 1 was a huge meltdown on our part but also certainly some luck on IND's side, not only with the miraculous 3's from Nesmith, the Hali buzzer beater bounce, but even the missed goaltend in OT that would have given us a 6 point lead, instead it was a 2 pt lead.

So give IND credit but to win it all or even make the finals you need a bit of luck. That series would have been different if we hadn't blown game 1, we're looking at a game 7 at MSG and I would have liked our chances.

nycericanguy wrote:the truth is last years team could have easily made the finals and the year before we could have won it all had we stayed healthy. So I'm not sure roster construction is our issue, I'm not sure we have any issues at all, we just gotta get it done and get a lil lady luck on our side.

Injuries, that's been the biggest culprit.

nycericanguy wrote:i mean how many players did IND really play in the playoffs? 8? sometimes a 9th or 10th man got spot/situational minutes, but they really ran an 8 man rotation.

so yes I agree roster construction has changed and you need depth, but it still comes down to your top 5-6 guys and a couple of good players off the bench, and of course staying healthy.

They played 10 guys almost every night. Obi, TJ, Mathurin and Sheppard pretty much played every night and then they rotated around Bryant/Walker/Bradley for another big. But they pretty much put 10 guys out on the floor every night.