5 Things Thunder vs. Pacers NBA Finals Could Reveal About the Future of the League
The NBA is a copycat league, so plenty of teams are likely looking at the 2025 NBA Finals between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers for ideas of how to reshape their own rosters.
For years, tons of organizations were chasing the next Michael Jordan. Dirk Nowitzki made floor-spacing bigs feel like a near necessity. The Golden State Warriors made small-ball all the rage.
Now, the Thunder and Pacers could reveal a lot about the future of the league over the next two weeks.
We break down how here.
Depth Is In
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Throughout most of NBA history, having the best players in a series, boasting a star duo or Big Three or having a superteam—regardless of what it meant for the back half (or two-thirds) of the roster—gave you a good shot to win. There have been exceptions to that rule, but front-loading your team with superstars was often the key to winning championships.
But in today's NBA, where the current collective bargaining is crippling for teams with multiple max salaries, it may make more sense for teams to focus on getting one superstar and spreading the talent more evenly over the other 14 roster spots.
OKC and Indiana both have that kind of team. Jalen Williams and Pascal Siakam are great. In fact, they're All-Star-level talents. But Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Tyrese Haliburton are clearly the superstars of their respective squads. And the amount of depth behind them is a big part of why these teams are in the Finals.
The Pacers have six players averaging double figures and two others averaging eight-plus points in the playoffs. OKC had 10 rotation players in the 80th percentile or higher in regular-season defensive estimated plus-minus (one of the most trusted catch-all metrics in NBA front offices).
Both can deploy several combinations of teammates around their top two or three players without skipping a beat. Both can field multiple lineups without weak links.
That's made mismatch-hunting and "I dare you to shoot it" defense far more difficult against the Pacers and Thunder than it is against teams short on helpful role players.
Versatility Trumps Small (or Traditional) Ball
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A related (though still different) strength that both Indiana and OKC share is the ability to shapeshift.
In the mid-to-late-2010s, most teams wanted to be able to play small in an effort to copy the Warriors. More recently, several Western Conference competitors wanted to bulk up inside to slow down Nikola Jokić.
The Thunder and Pacers are proving the ideal is to be able to switch on a dime.
OKC starts two big men in Isaiah Hartenstein and Chet Holmgren, but either can play the 5 in lineups surrounding them with perimeter defense and outside shooting. Indiana can deploy similar groups with Pascal Siakam or even Obi Toppin at center.
Finding and acquiring the personnel to unlock that kind of versatility is far easier said than done, but it figures to be an upcoming leaguewide search trend.
Defense Wins Championships
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Don't take this as a late endorsement of Nico Harrison's inexplicable decision to trade Luka Dončić, but there's clearly still some truth to his favorite old adage: "defense wins championships."
In the regular season, OKC led the league in points allowed per 100 possessions and was a whopping 7.0 points better than the league average in that category.
It had two All-Defense selections this season (Luguentz Dort and Jalen Williams) and two more who received votes (SGA and Cason Wallace). Alex Caruso, who might be the Thunder's best individual defender, didn't play enough games to qualify for an All-Defense team, but he likely would have been in that mix if he had. The same goes for Chet Holmgren.
In other words, the Thunder are a defensive juggernaut. They can completely stifle an opponent on the perimeter without sacrificing any rim protection. OKC can play big or small. It forces turnovers at a rate no one else does.
In this matchup with Indiana's high-octane offense, the effectiveness and malleability of the Thunder's defense should get plenty of attention.
This is an "immovable object" vs. "unstoppable force" series. The former figures to hold, thus giving Harrison and other old-school fans plenty of fodder in debates about the virtue of defense.
Tyrese Haliburton Has Joined the Superstar Chat
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Chatter about Tyrese Haliburton hit a fever pitch after The Athletic released its anonymous player survey in late April that declared him the league's most overrated player.
Now, the question only had 90 responses. And Haliburton "won" with 14.4 percent (or 13 total votes).
It may not be the most representative sample, but the results were jarring enough to make this a topic of conversation throughout the playoffs. And Haliburton has more than risen to the challenge of disproving it.
This postseason, he's averaging 18.8 points and a league-best 9.8 assists per game. This is coming on the heels of various catch-all metrics suggesting he had one of the five best individual campaigns of the 2024-25 regular season.
Not only was Haliburton not the league's most overrated player at the time that poll was released; its results actually suggest he may be among its most underrated.
Offensive engines like Haliburton are extraordinarily valuable. He's proving that now. His vision, playmaking and passing make life significantly easier for every other Pacer.
Regardless of what happens during the Finals, Haliburton is a huge part of the future of the league. He's undoubtedly a superstar and one of the NBA's best creators and distributors.
We May Finally Have Our Next Dynasty
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We're also about to learn a lot more about the league's next dynasty.
The NBA hasn't had one for a while. No team has repeated as champs since the Warriors in 2018.
Though OKC is far from the first dynasty predicted since those Warriors, it's clearly in a different organizational position than the Boston Celtics, Denver Nuggets, Milwaukee Bucks, Los Angeles Lakers or Toronto Raptors.
Yes, big extensions are on the horizon for Williams and Chet Holmgren. The Thunder are going to get more expensive beginning in 2026-27. And the dreaded first and second aprons will make team-building harder than it used to be.
But the Thunder have the second-youngest roster in the league. Their most important player, SGA, doesn't even turn 27 till July. Their stash of future draft assets looks like that of a team at the start of a reboot.
OKC has the flexibility and trade ammunition to remain a monster for the foreseeable future. It has the developmental chops to keep adding young, helpful players to the mix.
Even under a collective bargaining agreement clearly designed to crush potential dynasties and encourage parity, this Thunder team stopping at one title would almost feel like a failure.
Before they cross that bridge, the Thunder have to beat the Pacers first. But this exercise is focused on what will be revealed. And the crystal ball is showing the first of multiple OKC championships.
