Indiana Pacers
The 2020-21 Indiana Pacers season can be defined by the fact that they fired the coach after his first season.
What did we learn?
Nate Bjorkgren, we hardly knew ya.
After four steady seasons under Nate McMillan, it only took one year for things to fall apart for Nate Bjorkgren in Indiana. When there are rumblings (and Woj bombs) about turmoil within an organization, you can expect a coach to be on the hot seat pretty quickly. And if that coach is in his first year with the team, his first ever head coaching job, that seat is going to be more on fire than T.J. Warren in the bubble.
Speaking of TJW, Warren played just four games all season and underwent foot surgery in early January. Former two-time All-Star and face of the franchise Victor Oladipo played just nine games for the Pacers before he was sent to Houston in the James Harden trade, netting Caris LeVert in return. LeVert was sidelined until mid-March when an MRI revealed a small mass on his kidney, leading to successful surgery that LeVert says quite possibly saved his life.
The Pacers were shorthanded without Warren and Oladipo/LeVert for half the season — oh, and Jeremy Lamb missed half the season, too — but Domantas Sabonis took his game up another notch, averaging 20 points, 12 rebounds and 6.7 assists per game on his way to becoming a second-time All-Star (and the Skills Champ!). On defense, Sabonis was as rock-solid as ever, tougher than bear’s breath. Still just 25 years old, it’s quite evident whose team this really is now with Oladipo gone.
Malcolm Brogdon was required to take on an additional scoring load and he was fit for the task, averaging a by far career-high 21 points per game, but his assists numbers did fall back as a result. Brogdon seems to be more comfortable as a classical point guard rather than the new-age score-first type. He’s still a steady presence on the court, a reliable table-setter.
Myles Turner led the league in blocks with a whopping 3.4 per game, but a wicked toe injury kept him out the last month and a half of the season. Without Turner, Pacers games turned into track meets of the highest scoring variety. One night they put up 152 points on OKC and then the next, the Wizards hung 154 on them. The Pacers finished 2nd to last in the NBA in rebound percentage.
It was surprising how good Doug McDermott was in his seventh year in the league. Defenses were prone to forget about him when he ventured away from the 3-point line. Dougie McBuckets proved more than just a 3-point shooter, making a career-best and stellar 64% on 2-point shots.
Justin Holiday was okay, about the same as he was before, but brother Aaron had a steep decline in production across the board.
Oshae Brissett graduated from a WHO HE!? averaging 7 minutes per game last year for the Raptors to a starter for the Pacers down the stretch. Brissett was actually pretty good! You’ll take 50% from the field and 45% on 3’s from a guy scooped up off waivers.
Checking in on the Goga Bitadze Experiment: He almost got into a fight with assistant coach Jeff Foster in the middle of a game.
T.J. McConnell’s extra peskiness and league-leading steals were a delight. His extreme hustle off the bench and knack for stealing inbounds passes is a rarity.
Speaking of the Pacers peskiness, we made a concerted effort to stay away for the very vast majority of the season. But if we didn’t, they still burned us without question.
The worst of it being in the first play-in game against the Hornets when they absolutely destroyed us.
Pesky, forever and always.
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Did our preseason Over/Under prediction hit?
Over 39.5 wins and this one feels like a Pure Lock.
Pacers 2020-21 Record: (34-38)
Nope, our preseason Over/Under prediction did not hit. It was not a Pure Lock.
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What’s Next?
Nate Bjorkgren is out so that Rick Carlisle can be IN. That seems like about the biggest possible coaching upgrade you can make in one season.
The Pacers are already close to the tax and McDermott and McConnell are both free agents. It’s gonna cost a pretty penny to bring back these Big Macs. This ain’t no BK Lounge.
At #13 in the draft, KOC’s mock has the 6’8” guard Josh Giddey from Australia going to Indiana. Seems like he could be kind of a redundancy with Sabonis, however, that is an awesome name. Moses Moody is another good one.
The rumor mill has the Pacers interested in everybody from Collin Sexton and Ben Simmons to bringing home Eric Gordon. (Good luck with that contract.)
Get healthy! A common theme, yes — but as prevalent here as any.
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Favorite Pacers Highlight from the 2020-21 Season:
We made it all the way until March 24th, 2021 before we bet on a game involving the Pesky Pacers. In the 25th hour, we locked in Under 219 in a Pacers-Pistons matchup on a random Wednesday night.
Edmond Sumner caught fire in the 4th quarter to the point that we wondered what we ever did to Ed. And then we remembered that he was the original WHO HE!?, and we once described the Pacers bench as being as exciting as an actual wooden bench. So yeah, guess we deserved that one.
Exactly one month later to the day, Sumner did it to us and the Pistons AGAIN.
The Edmond Sumner Game.
Sumner is from Detroit and we’re going to remember that next season.
But seriously, that’s as pesky as it gets.
