The Indiana Pacers, after a slow start to the season, have found a winning formula. They have won six games in a row and have toppled the Boston Celtics and Cleveland Cavaliers already this season.
On Tuesday night, they will play the Cavs for the second game in a row. After winning the first game, pretty much no result against the 33-5 Cleveland squad will be able to dampen their spirits or momentum, but they are still itching for a win.
After making the Eastern Conference Finals last year in an unexpected run, the Pacers are a team to beat this year despite their lackluster start. Their offense, which was second in the NBA last year, has taken a bit of a dip, but there defense has improved, so all in all Indiana is playing more well-rounded basketball.
Their ability to fire on all cylinders, especially when Tyrese Haliburton is at his best, makes them a dangerous team as the postseason approaches.
"Their style of play works in the playoffs, so even though they are not destroying every defense they face, they should be feared if they’re going to be successful despite not having as powerful an offense," wrote The Athletic's Law Murray.
The Pacers have found success against the league's best teams this year, which bodes well for them, especially as their conference rivals New York Knicks have done the total opposite.
Regardless of where they end up in the standings, as long as the Pacers make the postseason, their year has turned around and they are a legitimate threat, which is quite the improvement from earlier this year.
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The Los Angeles Lakers finished last season with a dud after propelling to the third seed of the Western Conference, losing to the Minnesota Timberwolves in the first round of the playoffs. The one thing that the Wolves exposed was the Lakers' lack of an inside presence. The center spot was weak once they traded Anthony Davis for Luka Doncic midway through the season, but they found a way to manage despite putrid numbers coming from the center position. The Lakers were bottom five in both rebounds and points per game for centers during the regular season after the All-Star break. However, in the postseason, the numbers got worse. They tried to use their original starting center, Jaxson Hayes, to man the paint, but he only played 7.8 minutes per game while only scoring 1.8 points and grabbing two rebounds per contest. This team knows it needs extreme levels of help for the center spot, which is why it is reportedly looking at a former All-Star center's situation. Anthony Irwin of ClutchPoints reported that the Lakers are closely monitoring the situation between Nikola Vucevic and the Chicago Bulls. The Bulls have shipped out several key players over the last year, with Vucevic being the lone former All-Star still on the roster. As his trade market winds down, some have speculated that a potential buyout is on the horizon. However, Chicago Bulls insider K.C. Johnson reported on "The Fastbreak" podcast that the Bulls have no intentions of a buyout and would like to move him for assets at the trade deadline. Vucevic would be a massive upgrade alongside Deandre Ayton, whom the Lakers signed earlier in the offseason. Vucevic put up very impressive numbers last season, averaging 18.5 points and 10.1 rebounds per game while shooting 53% from the field in 73 games. His career numbers are just as impressive, and he's a former two-time All-Star as well. The Lakers should continue to monitor Vucevic and assess the Bulls' ultimate plan for him. With Ayton already in the fold, a trade for Vucevic could put them at the top of the Western Conference.
The New York Yankees revamped their bullpen on Thursday, acquiring relievers Camilo Doval, David Bednar, and Jake Bird ahead of the 6 p.m. Trade Deadline. However, that spelled the end of Marcus Stroman's tenure with the team. With fellow pitchers Luis Gil (lat), Fernando Cruz (oblique), Mark Leiter Jr. (fibula), and Ryan Yarbrough (oblique) all on their way to returning, New York needed to clear a roster spot. The club cut Stroman on Friday, who has a 6.23 ERA over nine appearances this season. Yankees manager Aaron Boone gave his thoughts about Stroman before the team's bout with the Miami Marlins, via MLB.com's Bryan Hoch. "The [public] perception around Stro, for us, did not meet the guy we got to be around for the last couple years," he said. "He's an awesome competitor. ... I feel like he's a guy I'll stay in touch with for the rest of our lives." Stroman signed a two-year deal with the Yankees in January 2024 after spending two seasons with the Chicago Cubs. The right-hander was 10-9 with a 4.31 ERA in 30 appearances last season. The Toronto Blue Jays selected Stroman No. 22 overall in the 2012 MLB Draft. The former Duke Blue Devil stayed with Toronto until 2019, when it dealt him to the New York Mets at the Trade Deadline. He then signed a two-year deal with the Cubs in December 2021. Stroman is a two-time All-Star and was the 2017 World Baseball Classic MVP.
The 2025 Major League Baseball trade deadline was 6 p.m. ET on Thursday. Some teams managed to get better in either a short-term or long-term outlook. Other teams did not. We've already gone over the five biggest winners, which featured some surprising teams. Here we are focusing on the five teams that were the biggest losers. Minnesota Twins The good news for Twins fans is the team did not trade outfielder Byron Buxton or starting pitcher Joe Ryan. The bad news for Twins fans is the team traded pretty much everybody else. The worst news is the Twins have pretty much sabotaged any goodwill the team had built up in recent years, including their 2023 trip to the American League Division Series. Since then the Twins collapsed late last season, did very little in the offseason and then completely gutted the roster over the past two weeks, including a straight salary-dump trade of Carlos Correa to the Houston Astros, his former team. This is going to be a long, slow climb back to the top. Pittsburgh Pirates The Pirates had a chance to have a potentially impactful trade deadline with some intriguing trade chips in what had become a seller's market. They ended up trading closer David Bednar, third baseman Ke'Bryan Hayes, starting pitcher Bailey Falter and relief pitcher Caleb Ferguson. They held on to pending free agents Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Tommy Pham and Andrew Heaney. What's so baffling about the trades they did make is that they gave up useful, productive players with years of team control still remaining, did not get a single highly-ranked prospect back in return and kept the players that are going to leave for nothing. The only winner here is owner Bob Nutting's bank account for all of the money he saved in the future by dumping Hayes' contract and potential arbitration years from Bednar and Falter. Chicago Cubs After paying a steep price to get outfielder Kyle Tucker in the offseason everybody in Chicago knew the clock was ticking on the Cubs to build a winner around him. He is a free agent after this season and seems determined to hit the open market for the highest bidder. Even though the Cubs have emerged as a contender, it was pretty clear as the season has gone on that they needed at least one more starting pitcher. They did not get one, and instead only added a utility infielder (Willi Castro) and reliever Taylor Rogers. While so many teams around them in the NL managed to get better, it's an underwhelming deadline performance for a team that should be going all in. Atlanta Braves It's not that the Braves did anything poor at the trade deadline that makes them losers. It's that they didn't do ... anything. At least not anything that they needed to do. None of their pending free agents were moved, no significant changes were made to a team going nowhere this season and the only move they did make was a marginal trade involving Rafael Montero. That is extremely underwhelming. Boston Red Sox The Red Sox were rumored to be in the market for a significant starting pitcher, including Minnesota's Joe Ryan. They did not make that sort of splash move, and instead added Steven Matz and Dustin May. For a team trying to hang in the American League playoff race, that is not really exciting. They also paid a steep price to get May, giving up one of the top prospects — outfielder James Tibbs III — they acquired in the Rafael Devers trade to the San Francisco Giants.
The Pittsburgh Pirates brutally fumbled the 2025 trade deadline, even by their miserable standards. But it wasn't just the fact that their moves made little sense and did nothing to improve the short-term and long-term outlook of the franchise. It is also now about the way they handled the trade involving closer David Bednar going to the New York Yankees. Bednar revealed on Friday night during an interview with YES Network that he only found out about the trade on social media, and it took a phone call to his agent and quite a bit of time before he got the actual confirmation that he was going to the Yankees. On one hand, this is not entirely unheard of. Sometimes trade news breaks early due to a leak within somebody's front office, and on trade deadline day, teams can have their hands full trying to make deals before they run out of time. Sometimes things slip through the cracks. But it still seems like poor form for the Pirates not to have their ducks in a row when it comes to informing their player about a trade. Especially, in this case, a player like Bednar. Not only has he been one of the few bright spots on the Pirates over the past five years, but he is also from the Pittsburgh area and fully embraced being a Pirate. He loved it. He loved playing there. He wanted to play there and seemed open to staying. That is not an easy thing to find, given where the franchise has been and how consistently bad it has been over the past four decades. Outside of a tough 2024 season and some early struggles this season, he was also a wildly popular player among the fans. The Pirates also knew that to the point where owner Bob Nutting reportedly blocked a potential Bednar trade a couple of years ago. A player with that sort of standing within the organization should not have to find out about being traded through social media. They should certainly not have to have their agent track down official sources to confirm it. For most teams, and if this sort of situation were taking place in a vacuum, it may not be that big of a deal. It would probably be just a minor slip-up and footnote to the trade deadline. But the Pirates are not a normal team, and this situation is not happening in a vacuum. The Pirates have spent the entire season creating self-inflicted PR nightmares all over the place, from the Roberto Clemente tribute that was taken door for a hard seltzer ad, to the handling of Bucco Bricks outside of PNC Park, to "Sell the team" chants consistently breaking out, to the simple fact the organization has been an absolute mess on the field and one of the worst teams in baseball. Now they can add allowing a popular, fan favorite to find out about his trade through social media to the list. Even worse for Pirates fans, they seemed to get the worst value for their All-Star closer than other teams (specifically the A's and Minnesota Twins) received for their All-Star closers. This is a franchise that just simply can not do anything right.
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