What can 76ers take from runner-up Pacers in terms of roster building?

The Pacers suffered a heartbreaking injury to star guard Tyrese Haliburton in Game 7 as it looks like he will miss a majority, if not all, of the 2025-26 season. When considering the injuries to Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum and Milwaukee Bucks star Damian Lillard, that means the East is wide-open in 2026.

With that being said, one has to wonder what the Sixers could learn from the Pacers in terms of roster building. There are some aspects of the Pacers that the Sixers can take in order to properly build their team.

Depth

This aspect is huge. When looking at the playoffs, Indiana had eight players score 200-plus points. The Sixers need reliable pieces off their bench heading into the 2025-26 season. The expectation is that Quentin Grimes will return while veterans Kelly Oubre Jr., Eric Gordon, and Andre Drummond are expected to exercise their player options. When Philadelphia is healthy, it has a strong roster on paper much like the Pacers. Of course, stars win in the playoffs–Indiana saw that with Haliburton–and Philadelphia has three of them, but depth is so important in today’s NBA. Even the Thunder on the other side rely on so many pieces along with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander so Philadelphia needs to have quality depth pieces going forward.

Youth

The Sixers have committed to getting younger in the offseason, but when looking at both the Pacers and the Thunder, those teams are laced with youth up and down the roster. Pascal Siakam and TJ McConnell were the only players on Indiana’s rotation at 30 years old or older. Haliburton is 25, Andrew Nembhard and Aaron Nesmith are 25, and Bennedict Mathurin is 23 for Indiana. For the Thunder, only Alex Caruso and Kenrich Williams were 30 or older. The Sixers need to add and then develop some younger pieces in order to keep up as the NBA focuses more on depth and youth to go deep into the playoffs.

The CBA constraints

A big reason why youth and depth are so important is because of how hard it is to keep cores together for too long now. The 2024 champion Celtics, for example, have to break up their core in the 2025 offseason due to CBA constraints as the roster is getting too expensive to keep around. For the Sixers to contend in this era, they have to focus on depth and youth development for the future. That is why this 2025 offseason is going to be so important for the future as President of Basketball Operations Daryl Morey and his staff continue to navigate the new CBA with roster constraints and the way the salary cap is set up now. The Pacers and the Thunder were able to figure it out. Philadelphia must now follow their lead and take advantage of the stars on the roster.