Barstool Basketball Mailbag: Pacers Bench, Indiana Success, Non-Conference Matchups, Nuggets Moves & More
Basketball is a year round sport, so due to that we’re going to do a year round mailbag. We’re still going to run this every Friday like we do during the season, but we’ll be talking about college hoops, transfers, NBA Draft, NBA and recruiting questions. That’s right you get an NBA and college hoops mailbag all rolled into one every Friday. Reminder you can always submit questions on Twitter @barstoolreags
This is the best bench in the NBA right now. I don’t think it’s a question at this point. When you look at the group of Cory Joseph/Aaron Holiday/Domas Sabonis/Doug McDermott/Kyle O’Quinn/Darren Collison that’s a pretty damn deep group. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them possibly try and move one of the guards to add wing depth but the nice thing about those guys is they can play off the ball too. Don’t be surprised to see the Pacers have an incredible regular season because of the bench – similar to what we saw the Raptors do this past season.
Sure, they improved last year but then they lost Tony Carr, their best player. They also lose Shep Garner, who played 81% of the minutes last year and was that veteran leader. I think they can be a decent team because Josh Reaves might be the best defender in the country and you have a rim protector in Mike Watkins. Throw in Lamar Stevens and you have a decent top-3. But, the Big 10 is going to be down again this year and we saw that hurt Nebraska this past season as they didn’t have a chance for quality wins in the conference. I think you see the same thing happen to Penn State this year.
I’m not going to answer this because I can’t get over how goddamn stupid this question is. I mean I get it, it’s a lazy statement to make that NBA players don’t need coaching, but imagine the Celtics without Brad Stevens. Or talk to a player in the NBA and they’ll tell you about how coaching is undervalued. I just wanted to vent when I saw this come into my mentions.
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We’ll stick with just the 2018 Draft obviously here and the two that stick out right away to me are Trevon Bluiett (New Orleans Pelicans/Xavier) and Allonzo Trier (Arizona/Knicks). Bluiett shot the hell out of the ball and got signed to a 2-way contract just hours after the Pelicans ended their summer league in Vegas. He has a role with the Pelicans, who want to play fast and like to spread the floor with shooting, which is what Bluiett can do from the 3 spot in the NBA. For Trier it was more about his ability to move to the lead guard position, something I was surprised to see after watching him at Arizona. Another guy I was impressed by was Chris Chiozza (Washington Wizards/Florida). He did an excellent job of setting up teammates, especially former Florida teammate Devin Robinson. He continued to be a hound defensively and while I don’t know if he’ll get a shot in the NBA, I was impressed with him out in Vegas.
Eh, I’m not exactly one to say Isaiah Thomas is going to change the Nuggets or anything like that. I worry more about if he’ll actually accept his role as a bench guy playing limited minutes, because that’s what he should be playing on this roster. The Nuggets absolutely should not be taking minutes away from Harris/Murray to play Thomas. I mean he’ll help with bench scoring and they did need a little bit more of that, but the Nuggets needed more defense/wings. The health of Michael Porter Jr., will be a bigger difference than Isaiah Thomas because of that.
Nah, I don’t think so. If you’re talking about ‘pure’ point guards, which is sort of a thing of the past, I’ll still take Kamar Baldwin over him. I think Jahvon Quinerly could be better, but I’m not sure if you want to call him a ‘pure’ point guard. But, the best pure point guard in the Big East is Shamorie Ponds. He was 83rd in the country last year in assist rate so he’s not just a scorer like a lot of people think. But, I’ll take Ponds and Baldwin over Goodin for the returning guys.
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Yes. Tyle Herro is an excellent shooter as is Jemarl Baker, who missed all of last year with a knee injury. Both of those two were described as one of the top shooters in their respective class. Right off the bat you have those two. Quade Green shot 38% from three last year, there’s a chance he can be a bit more consistent this year. The question is then can either Immanuel Quickley or Keldon Johnson be that fourth shooter? I’m not worried about Kentucky’s shooting this year, especially relative to past years.
Making the NCAA Tournament. It’s that simple. Getting there with Romeo Langford, who is expected to only be there for one year, would be successful. I know Indiana fans don’t want to hear that and likely want to hear winning the Big 10, which is possible, but just focus on making the Tournament. If you make it, you’re not talked about as not making the tournament with a guy like Langford. It gets Archie there in his second year and will just continue to help with recruiting. Again, a simplistic answer, but it’s as basic as that.
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I’m going to rule out any tournaments like the Maui/Battle 4 Atlantis, etc and just focus on individual non conference games. In no order, I like these 10 a lot:
Kentucky/Kansas
Michigan/Villanova
Nevada/Loyola
Kentucky/Duke
Indiana/Duke
Xavier/Cincinnati
Kentucky/Louisville
Nebraska/Clemson
Kentucky/UNC
Michigan State/Louisville
Their ceiling is going to be the No. 2 seed until Golden State slows down. This group is all under the age of 23 and locked up so they have a longer window than most teams. Houston is getting older, LeBron is getting older. You assume they only have another 3 years or so as the challengers to Golden State. At some point, you assume Golden State falls apart or takes a step back. Denver is in line to be the next one if MPJ is healthy and you build around Murray/Harris/Jokic/MPJ.