{"id":168541,"date":"2025-09-25T17:14:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T17:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/168541\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T17:14:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T17:14:07","slug":"pascal-siakam-finally-gets-long-overdue-respect-in-recent-rankings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/168541\/","title":{"rendered":"Pascal Siakam finally gets long-overdue respect in recent rankings"},"content":{"rendered":"

While there is no doubt that the Pacers are Tyrese Haliburton\u2019s team, it is also clear that Pascal Siakam is a star. Everyone in Indy knows this, and now the team at ESPN seems to agree. When the site released their second phase of their 2025 NBA player rankings (players ranked 50-11), Siakam came in at number 22<\/a>. <\/p>\n

While some other Pacers were still disrespected<\/a>, Siakam is finally being seen accurately as a force on Indy\u2019s squad.<\/p>\n

Pascal Siakam\u2019s long road to recognition<\/p>\n

When the Pacers first traded for Siakam in January of 2024, many thought the Pacers gave up too much to get him. The same boo-birds were making a lot of noise last summer<\/a> when the Pacers gave Siakam a contract of 4 years\/$189.5 million. <\/p>\n

A Finals appearance and one Eastern Conference finals MVP trophy later, Siakam\u2019s prowess is now being recognized, though Indy fans were ahead of the curve<\/a>. <\/p>\n

While this upcoming season\u2019s efficiency has been questioned due to the loss of Haliburton, his offensive creation was appropriately highlighted. When the season embarks in just a few weeks, Siakam\u2019s play creation will definitely be an essential piece to this Pacers\u2019 puzzle.<\/p>\n

Is No. 22 an accurate ranking for Pascal Siakam?<\/p>\n

Whenever a national pundit releases any sort of league-wide ranking, it is natural to assume local players deserve a higher ranking. And while this 40-player list does include some questionable placements (I\u2019m looking at you, Kawhi Leonard; the Clipper clocked in at No. 20, a two-spot improvement from 2024), Siakam\u2019s slot at No. 22 seems quite accurate. <\/p>\n

Since this ranking includes the entire league, a spot at No. 22 assumes that Siakam is better than the best player on (at least) eight teams in the league. That really is quite the compliment for a guy who is the No. 2 guy on his own team. <\/p>\n

Again, there are some questionable placements in the 25-11 spots \u2013 though all of the players ranked higher than Siakam have a legitimate argument for their placement in this list.<\/p>\n

Pascal Siakam needs to be at his peak this season<\/p>\n

Assuming Haliburton really does not play this season, Siakam will need to earn his $45 million salary to keep the Pacers competitive. While Indy almost assuredly will continue the team-first mentality this upcoming season, the team will need their 2024-25 All-Star to step up for them<\/a> to retain any semblance of last year\u2019s success. <\/p>\n

If Siakam does hold steady or even improve (hey, it could happen!) and the younger pieces of the roster continue their growth, the Pacers truly will be a team to look out for this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While there is no doubt that the Pacers are Tyrese Haliburton\u2019s team, it is also clear that Pascal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-168541","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}