2019-20 NBA Season Preview Series: Indiana Pacers

For a team that nearly won 50 games last year, it sure felt like for the most part the Pacers were overlooked once Oladipo went down. I think most people expected the team to fold and drop out of the playoff race once they lost their best player on January 23rd, they were 32-15 and a 3 seed but a lot of that was due to Oladipo showing that he was in the process of taking a leap. In the end they didn’t fold, they were able to be right around .500 the rest of the way (17-19) and only dropped two spots to the 5 seed. Part of that is the competition in the East, but it was also because this was a top 10 defensive team from that injury to the end of the reason. The Pacers enter this season I think with a little more respect based off what they showed despite the quick sweep in the first round, and they should be even better after a pretty solid summer combined with Oladipo eventually coming back. There’s no reason to think they can’t once again at full strength be in that 3-5 seed conversation given how the rest of the conference looks. But as always, before we dive into what you can expect, we first need to relive what happened last year.

2018-19 Season Highlights

If nothing else, the Pacers sure have been consistent over the last four years. After missing the playoffs in 2014-15, they’ve been a lock for a win total around the mid 40s which is pretty good, but haven’t made it past the second round in any of the seasons since. Even with a new coach in Nate McMillan, it was still the same first round exit story. But there’s still reason for optimism for Pacers fans, and it starts with their roster

We know IND is a small market, and their current cap situation reflects that. At just $117,110,818 the Pacers currently have the 26th highest payroll in the entire league. They’re grouped with teams like NO/SAC/NYK/CHI, none of which are playoff teams. Now they do have some important decisions to make moving forward like Domantas Sabonis and his extension, but as you can see they have all the space in the world to continue to build for the foreseeable future. If you think back to last year, one of the main issues for this team was their play at backup point guard. Darren Collison/Corey Joseph just didn’t cut it, so the Pacers did what they had to do and upgraded that position in Oladipo’s absence.

Whether you think Malcolm Brogdon is worth $20M or not, that’s the market price for a player of his caliber, and he’s 100% an upgrade over what this team had last season. You can play him on or off ball, he’s a solid defender and someone who always seems to come up huge in big moments. I feel like every Bucks game that was close there was always a huge Brogdon three at some point late in the fourth quarter. They also brought in TJ McConnell, who you may laugh at but you know what? He’s one pesky sonofabitch and really the perfect backup point guard. He knows his limitations, he tries hard all the time, and he fits their style of play pretty nicely. What was maybe a hole in their roster last year looks to be filled with quality options.

But that’s just the beginning. The fact that they were able to steal TJ Warren from PHX on draft night for basically nothing should be illegal. You may not have watched a ton of Suns basketball, but TJ Warren is legit

He’s coming off a season in which he averaged 19/4/1.5/1.2 on 46/42% splits with a career high 1.8 3PM which is important because he’s going to have to fill a lot of the scoring the Pacers lost with Bogdan Bogdanovic leaving for UTA in free agency. In my opinion when you factor in his defense, this is actually an upgrade for IND, especially if that three point shooting is for real. The combination of him and Justin Holiday/ Jeremy Lamb should be enough to cover wing scoring while Oladipo rehabs while improving a defense that was already pretty good. For a team that is operating with a small budget, you can do a whole lot worse.

Make no mistake though, the success of this team will depend mostly on three guys: Myles Turner, Sabonis, and Oladipo. It’s a big year for Sabonis to show he deserves a big time extension, and honestly the two of them may be one of the best big man combos in the entire conference. In terms of forward production the Pacers were 4th in the NBA in points from that position, and when you look at Sabonis’ Per 36’s he’s basically a 20/10 player and someone who seems relatively unstoppable around the basket.

you combine that with Turner who is a stud on the defensive end (lead the league in blocks) who is also capable of stretching the floor and knocking down threes

the Pacers can provide a unique challenge with their lineups because of the versatility of these two. They can go big and play them both, they can continue to let Sabonis feast on second units, either way when you look around the conference there aren’t too many teams that can match up with them. PHI has the bigs, but other than that it’s a clear advantage if both of those guys continue to develop.

And then there’s Oladipo. He’s the million dollar question, both in terms of when he’ll be back and how he’ll look. I’d imagine the Pacers will be uber cautious with him as they should, but if he comes back and looks like the All Star Oladipo we saw before he got hurt, this team can be a big time problem. If he comes back and looks more like Gordon Hayward in his first year coming off a brutal injury, well that lowers their ceiling quite a bit. There’s been virtually no video of his progress and rehab, all we know is he’ll be back at some point. He’s proven that what we saw in ORL/OKC isn’t the same Oladipo we have in IND, he’s a legit franchise caliber player no matter how you want to slice it up.

The good news is, while the Pacers wait they still have the right type of talent to continue to play the same style that made them successful last season. This was the 5th best three point shooting team percentage wise in the league, and they added more legit three point shooters. They’ll still rely heavily on P&R scoring w/ their roll man, something they ran more than any team in the league and averaged 11.3 points a night with that set, also leading the league. Where they struggled last year was with P&R ball handler scoring, finishing in the 10th percentile. That’s bad. Well this should be a massive upgrade with Brogdon who scored 0.833 points per possession and ranked in the 51st percentile in that set. Not great, but certainly better than they were getting last season.

What we know is the Pacers aren’t going to play super fast, they’re going to want to kill you mostly through smart half court basketball, some P&R, and consistent efficient three point shooting. Then once Oladipo comes back you have a pretty legit isolation option and a guy who can take over games on his own. They support all that with hard nosed defense at every level, all while being a top 10 team in terms of taking care of the basketball. Normally when a team loses their best player like the Pacers did, it sparks a tailspin. Instead, the Pacers have done a great job of addressing issues that plagued them last season, filled out their roster with good talent, and don’t really have any bad contracts on the books. In a wide open East, they absolutely should be talked about as someone who could end up with homecourt in the first round and if things break right, maybe more.

Official Greenie Prediction: 49 wins