The Indiana Pacers aren't a team that embraces the prospect of bottoming out. The Pacers, through the years, have mostly re-tooled and remained in the dreaded middle ground of the NBA — not too bad to win the draft lottery, not too good to compete for a championship or at least a playoff spot. Even approaching the 2023-24 season, there are legitimate question marks regarding the Pacers' chances of making the playoffs, even with All-Star guard Tyrese Haliburton at the controls.

Nevertheless, Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle knows that better things are yet to come for the franchise after three straight seasons of missing out on the playoffs. The team has accumulated plenty of impressive young talent, including, but not limited to, Bennedict Mathurin, Andrew Nembhard, and Jarace Walker, not to mention the fact that they're also taking a chance on former lottery pick Obi Toppin.

Simply put, Carlisle knows that the Pacers are “in prime position” to determine which players could end up being core pieces for the team in the long run alongside Tyrese Haliburton and Myles Turner.

“If you look at our roster, if you look at our salaries, we have the lowest-paid roster in the entire NBA, which is a great thing, on one hand. We also have a roster full of exciting young talent,” Carlisle told Pacers play-by-play man Mark Boyle on SiriusXM NBA Radio, via HoopsWire. “Right now we’re in a prime position and as we move forward, there will be opportunities (for potential roster moves).”

Rick Carlisle acknowledged the fact that the Pacers will have to shell out huge money to keep some of their players for the long haul, and that there are no guarantees that some of the players on the current roster ends up sticking with the team. This is what makes the 2023-24 season such a pivotal one; there will be interesting position battles to monitor up and down the roster, and in doing so, the Pacers should have a greater picture on which pieces fit like a glove in a Tyrese Haliburton-led roster.

And it's not like the Pacers are going to be mediocre; last year, before Haliburton went down, Indiana was sitting in a playoff spot, And with the addition of Bruce Brown, expect them to mount another strong push for the postseason — putting them in prime position indeed despite all the concerns.