Photos: Best images from 2025 NBA Finals Media Day for Thunder, Pacers
Photos: Best images from 2025 NBA Finals Media Day for Thunder, Pacers
The Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers held their 2025 NBA Finals Media Day on Wednesday. It comes on the eve of Game 1 of the championship round.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder dominated their way through the playoffs to get to this point. After a 68-14 campaign, they went 12-4 through the buzzsaw of the Western Conference. They enter the championship series as a heavy favorite.
Meanwhile, Tyrese Haliburton and the Pacers got hot at the right time. They escaped with a close series win over the New York Knicks to reach this point.
Let's look at some of the best photos from the Media Day:
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It was the rashness of the decision, yanking goaltender Jake Oettinger after just two shots, neither of which was all that stoppable. It was the humiliating manner in which he made the decision, emphatically and animatedly calling Oettinger back to the bench for a globally televised walk of shame after a timeout. And it was the callousness with which he threw Oettinger under the bus in his very first response following the game, all but saying Oettinger was incapable of beating the Edmonton Oilers, and that there was 'a pretty big sample size' worth of proof. Advertisement Yes, Pete DeBoer got himself fired as Dallas Stars head coach with the way he treated Oettinger in their last game of the season, a 6-3 loss to Edmonton in Game 5 of the Western Conference final. Oh, sure, everyone said the right things two days later on locker clean-out day, but you have to think the exit interviews that day were a tad more blunt and a lot more truthful. 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Rantanen is signed for eight more years, as is Oettinger. Hintz is signed for six more years, Johnston and Lindell for five, Miro Heiskanen for four. Nill was adamant that Benn and Duchene, both unrestricted free agents, would be back next season, but you have to wonder if the way things ended will prompt Nill to shake things up — if just for the sake of shaking things up. Which brings us back to the coach. Who takes over now? The timing of the firing leaves Dallas with few big-name options, as the annual game of coaching musical chairs has left the Stars without a seat. Does Nill look within and promote Texas Stars coach Neil Graham, who has worked with Oettinger, Harley and Jason Robertson in the AHL? Does he try to pluck an assistant from another team's staff, perhaps even Oilers power-play mastermind and former Stars head coach Glen Gulutzan? Or does he target another rising AHL coach, such as former Stars assistant Todd Nelson? Do Peter Laviolette or John Tortorella, as abrasive and nomadic as DeBoer, hold any appeal? And most importantly, will any of them fare any better than DeBoer, one of the most successful coaches of the modern era? Or is this simply a conference-final level team, a group that performs better on paper than it does in the biggest moments? Advertisement This is now the big question facing Nill, bigger than Benn or Duchene: Who are these Dallas Stars, and what is their ceiling? 'We've been knocking on the door for a while, and you only get so many opportunities,' Nill told me. 'I've been talking to a few of the young guys here, who came in the last three or four years, and they think this is ordinary stuff, winning like this three years in a row. I tell them not to take this for granted. This is not easy. We've got an opportunity, so let's take advantage of it.' Dallas didn't. Again. Which leads to this kind of existential crisis, this kind of drastic decision. The Stars are a very, very good team. DeBoer is a very, very good coach. Together, they had very, very good results. But Dallas is looking for great. And so DeBoer is looking for work. We'll just have to wait and see who's looking for longer.
