For the hungry Pacers, the championship window has opened; yes, I'm serious

They reached the Eastern Conference Finals last season. They're running it back with mostly the same team. They'll have Pascal Siakam all season. What's not to love? Time to take the next step.

Let’s start here.

Let’s start with Pacers owner Herb Simon, who will soon be entering the Hall of Fame.

The league’s longest-tenured owner has had the reputation for watching his dough when it comes to making funds available for the Indiana Pacers. Can’t blame him, really. Indy is a small market, and they don’t share revenues in the NBA the way they do in, say, the NFL. Most years, the Pacers are near the bottom of the league in payroll, which makes the franchise’s steady level of success even more remarkable. Nobody in the NBA gets more out of less than this team. But look right now, the Pacers are 17^th in the league in payroll, just a tick under the tax, and will go into the tax threshold – by a little – if and when they re-sign Myles Turner to a new contract at season’s end. (He will become an unrestricted free agent.)

Simon loosened the purse strings this year, just the way he did in the late 1990’s/2000 era when the Pacers were competing for NBA championships, spending around $350 million to sign Pascal Siakam, Andrew Nembhard, Obi Toppin and T.J. McConnell one summer after signing Tyrese Haliburton to a five-year, $260 million deal.

“Our ownership is committed,” general manager Chad Buchanan said. “There’s nothing he (Simon) wants more than to bring a championship to Indiana.”

Of course, they say that every year. But this year, they mean it. And for good reason: The Pacers are a contender. Sky’s the limit.

Somebody asked a question Tuesday about the opening of a “championship window,” and it wasn’t an outlandish thing to say. Just two seasons removed from a 35-victory season, the Pacers have entered the conversation. They were one of the final four teams remaining last year, the team that Boston coach Joe Mazzulla called the Celtics’ toughest playoff opponent during last year’s title run, and now they have the chance to run it back with Siakam for an entire season.

“(Re-signing most of last year’s players) is a reflection of how we feel about them,” Buchanan said. “We believe in our guys. You’re never completely satisfied, but we feel like they’ve shown great chemistry, the pieces fit well. There are areas we’ve got to improve…Are we in a championship window? Our ownership is committed to try to win. We’ve gone through some rebuilding the last few years and we feel like we’ve found a group that’s got something.”