NBA champions are usually built the same ways. The Pacers had to be different.

The Indiana Pacers aren't a destination for the NBA's free agents and rarely earn high draft picks. To reach the Finals, they had to buck convention and get creative.
OKLAHOMA CITY — Before the NBA Finals came the phone calls.
In the winter of 2022, Sacramento Kings guard Tyrese Haliburton got three career-changing calls within 30 minutes. The first was from his agent informing him, to his shock, that the Kings might trade him. The second conveyed information that Indiana might be the destination. The third was from the Kings’ top basketball executive, confirming the trade to the Pacers.
“I hung up, set my phone down, and started crying my eyes out,” Haliburton recalled shortly afterward.
Two years later, Haliburton picked up the phone and made his own call. Toronto was open to trading Pascal Siakam, an All-Star forward who had helped the Raptors win the NBA title in 2019. Before Indiana committed to dealing for a player who could be a free agent just five months later, it needed to gauge Siakam’s interest in staying long-term in Indiana and with Haliburton as his co-star.
Haliburton stepped away from a dinner in Atlanta and called Siakam, whom he knew only slightly.
https://www.nbcnews.com/sports/nba/pacers-trades-nba-finals-thunder-rcna211749
Rating: 5