https://basketnews.com/news-228910-rick-...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?
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.
I agree with Carlisle with an additional term - guys that excel on both sides of the court. I think maximizing eFG and DFG plus having a legitimate closer.
I mean the NBA pretty much purposely decided for it to be this way by imposing the cap restrictions. They want any team in any market to be able to win it any given year.
You still need stars.
Last five years NBA Champs (hint 4 of the 5 had an MVP on the team, the other Jayson Tatum)
2025 - OKC had reigning MVP SGA + 3rd Team All-NBA Jaylen Williams
2024 - BOS had Jayson Tatum 4x All-NBA FIRST Team + Jaylen Brown All-NBA second team
2023 - DEN had Jokic THREE TIME MVP
2022 - GSW had Curry TWO TIME MVP + Thompson (5x Allstar, 2X 3rd Team NBA) + Dray (DPOY, 4x Allstar, 2nd and 3rd Team ALL-NBA)
2021 - MIL had The Freak TWO TIME MVP, 7x 1st Team ALL-NBA + DDV (the one that got away 
)
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
Panos wrote:You still need stars.Last five years NBA Champs (hint 4 of the 5 had an MVP on the team, the other Jayson Tatum)
2025 - OKC had reigning MVP SGA + 3rd Team All-NBA Jaylen Williams
2024 - BOS had Jayson Tatum 4x All-NBA FIRST Team + Jaylen Brown All-NBA second team
2023 - DEN had Jokic THREE TIME MVP
2022 - GSW had Curry TWO TIME MVP + Thompson (5x Allstar, 2X 3rd Team NBA) + Dray (DPOY, 4x Allstar, 2nd and 3rd Team ALL-NBA)
2021 - MIL had The Freak TWO TIME MVP, 7x 1st Team ALL-NBA + DDV (the one that got away )
You need both. Look at the LeBron superfriends heat in addition to the big 3 they had guys like Birdman, Chalmers etc.
Nobody wins without talent and really good coaching. They go hand in hand. Phil Jax don't win without Jordan or Kobe, but they did not win before or after him either.
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.
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.
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.
Panos wrote:You still need stars.Last five years NBA Champs (hint 4 of the 5 had an MVP on the team, the other Jayson Tatum)
2025 - OKC had reigning MVP SGA + 3rd Team All-NBA Jaylen Williams
2024 - BOS had Jayson Tatum 4x All-NBA FIRST Team + Jaylen Brown All-NBA second team
2023 - DEN had Jokic THREE TIME MVP
2022 - GSW had Curry TWO TIME MVP + Thompson (5x Allstar, 2X 3rd Team NBA) + Dray (DPOY, 4x Allstar, 2nd and 3rd Team ALL-NBA)
2021 - MIL had The Freak TWO TIME MVP, 7x 1st Team ALL-NBA + DDV (the one that got away )
Noone is saying that a team full of role players are going to win the chip. And u have to go by the new cap restrictions that just got in place last offseason.
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.
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.
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.
All good points and valid......
Nesmith did us two years in a row. He did it vs. OKC. not a miricle, the kid can shoot in big moments and defend his position.
I agree, Indy was simply better. Our talent has been there and Thibs took us to that level. Brown hopefully breaks the ceiling.
Too many leads blown but we did have some nice comebacks also.
IN retrospect Detroit was a tough series and perhaps protype of what Carlisle is talking about? Cade is the star and they fixed their coaching. Celtics had the two star thing with really talented role players in Holiday-KP-White and I dare to think if Tatum does not get hurt we still win that series? That was a really weird sereis for a lot of reasons. We jumped them 2-0 at home and even with a 3-1 lead one could feel the momentum shift? That was perhaps paranoia!
Fact is we won on talent. We thought Thibs was safe!
https://www.basketball-reference.com/pla... Given the new CBA and parity there is a sort of "March madness" kind of vibe that teams need not domoinate regular season to win a chip. Indy got healthier thru the season and really came on after new years. Orlando did the opposite. Yet OKC out west proved to be the best team throughout. Indy took them 7. not a cakewalk or OKC. Matchups do and will always matter.
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.
DLeethal 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.
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.
you're right I was thinking of OKC in the finals who was really going 8 main guys and an occasional 9th.
I think depth matters more so in reg season, the deeper you go in the playoffs as we should be going, the less coaches trust those 9th and 10th men.
It took Thibs too long to trust Shamet and Wright though, I will say that. And that epic collapse in game 1, that's gotta be on Thibs too.
This Knicks have been generally playing hard since Thibs was hired. That’s like the 1st thing he changed. The effort level. Doubt they let that go now especially with guys like OG and Brunson on the roster.
That is a very general statment which was true all the time, Even Jordan, he spent what, 7 or 8 years in the NBA without winning anything? once he had the proper team around him they were able to win.
Carlisle played 10 players fairly significant mins in the playoffs and another 2 found mins/games before injury. They definitely had better depth than us and that made a difference int he series. But the Knicks were undoubtedly top heavy after the moves they made. The Knicks were the "deep team" in years prior and they cashed in chips. This year we managed to add 2 legit rotation players without much money to spend. We have a legitimate first 9 this year. And a coach thats probably more willing to spread the minutes more.
VDesai wrote:Carlisle played 10 players fairly significant mins in the playoffs and another 2 found mins/games before injury. They definitely had better depth than us and that made a difference int he series. But the Knicks were undoubtedly top heavy after the moves they made. The Knicks were the "deep team" in years prior and they cashed in chips. This year we managed to add 2 legit rotation players without much money to spend. We have a legitimate first 9 this year. And a coach thats probably more willing to spread the minutes more.
Legit first 9 and 2 to 3 youngsters who are ready to push for minutes.
Knicks is gonna be for real next year
