RealGM

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?page=FuturePowerRankings-5-100802
http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/insider/news/story?page=FuturePowerRankings-6-100802

For those without Insider, the order from best to worst is:

Golden State Warriors
Detroit Pistons
New Orleans Hornets
Memphis Grizzlies
Philadelphia 76ers
Toronto Raptors
Phoenix Suns
Cleveland Cavaliers
Minnesota Timberwolves
Charlotte Bobcats

This means that the Pacers are recognized to have more upside for the future than all of these 10 teams that have fans that automatically count us out.

Is this for this season or the next few seasons?

Could've used this week ago when I was trolling the Detroit board.

Have they said yet where the Pacers are ranked

The Pacers are ranked #17.

They are ranked first in "Money"--no one will be farther under the cap next summer than the Pacers.

#17 is pretty much middle of the pack, which seems about right to me--the Pacers have an ill-defined, not very talented present roster, but it is a roster with some young players who could turn out to be good, plus there is a lot of flexibility just around the corner.

We made a 9-spot jump since last year.

aquatic, don't troll.

Miller4ever wrote:We made a 9-spot jump since last year.

aquatic, don't troll.

I meant trolling in the sense that i was reading stuff on the Pistons board where every other post was about how good they are going to be in a few years, not trolling in the sense of purposely annoying people.

aquatic92 wrote:

Miller4ever wrote:We made a 9-spot jump since last year.

aquatic, don't troll.

I meant trolling in the sense that i was reading stuff on the Pistons board where every other post was about how good they are going to be in a few years, not trolling in the sense of purposely annoying people.

I was on there too. They thought the Pacers were the worst team in the league and they thought they were better than the Bulls and Bucks.

I mean, we have people who think that Lance Stephenson is ready to start at PG in the NBA.

^^^ We are very optimistic about Lance, although I have never called on him to start, but wouldn't care if he did.

I get what Indy2tW is saying, and it is a prevailing thought throughout RGM.

Fixed my sig.

in 3-4 years, assuming the "core" with Granger, Hibbert, George, Stephenson, Rush, and Hansbrough remained intact, i think we'll be in contention again. And by the time the Celtics diminish, the Heat cooled down, there's a big chance that we could be on the rise.

^ If the Pacers aren't "on the rise" three years from now, and a major run of injuries isn't the reason why not, then it will prove conclusively that the front office sucks. The jury is out on how good most of the team's young players can be, but there is absolutely no excuse not to improve after this season with the kind of payroll flexibility the Pacers are going to have. In fact, all that flexibility is the #1 reason to feel any enthusiasm about the team's future.

mizzoupacers wrote:^ If the Pacers aren't "on the rise" three years from now, and a major run of injuries isn't the reason why not, then it will prove conclusively that the front office sucks. The jury is out on how good most of the team's young players can be, but there is absolutely no excuse not to improve after this season with the kind of payroll flexibility the Pacers are going to have. In fact, all that flexibility is the #1 reason to feel any enthusiasm about the team's future.

I think 3 yrs is a fair amount of time.