Indiana Pacers
The Pacers will begin the 2019-20 NBA season without their best player and All-Star, Victor Oladipo, who is still recovering from a torn quad back in January.
Indiana will have only one opening night starter who finished in the top-7 on the team in minutes per game last season.
GM Kevin Pritchard let the vets walk in free agency: Bojan Bogdanovic, Thad Young, Wes Matthews and Cory Joseph. Tyreke Evans was suspended back in March for two years for violating the league’s anti-drug policy. And then Darren Collison retired this summer. These aren’t the same scrappy Pacers of the last two years.
Pritchard did what he could for small-market Indiana, not exactly a known free agent destination. The arrival of Malcom Brogdon in a sign-and-trade, as well as Jeremy Lamb and T.J. Warren, is not too shabby in the Junior Varsity Eastern Conference.
Indiana’s front court is going to be motivated as hell. Myles Turner coming off the Team USA disappointment and Domantas Sabonis in a big contract year. These boys already play with some fire, so we’re keeping a keen eye to see if they turn it up another notch. Head coach Nate McMillian has previously been against playing Turner and Sabonis together, preferring to stagger them, but he doesn’t have that luxury now that the Pacer bench looks about as exciting as an actual wooden bench.
A lot of shots are up for grabs in this offense until Dipo returns. This is your fantasy basketball sleeper alert! (And you thought there wasn’t going to be any talk of fantasy basketball.) Indiana newcomers Brogdon and Lamb could reap the benefits of inflated statistical starts based solely on the volume they will be required to handle. The same goes for T.J. Warren and maybe even more so. TJW likes to get his shots up, and going from the Suns to the Pacers ought to give him more room to work with.
The Pacers do have the gift of the Central Division and the schedule gods were also very kind. In the first nine games, the Pacers play the Pistons three times, the Cavs twice, the Bulls, the Hornets and Wizards.
Indiana is notorious for pouring it on at the end of the season, but either way, the beginning of the year against those Eastern Conference cupcakes should be very telling.
Wake us up when Dipo returns.
League Pass Notes
Myles Turner can power dunk. Domas can, too, and caught a body last November on Embiid.
Myles Turner Block Party.
We are curious about Goga Bitadze, the 6-foot-11 245-lb rookie from Georgia (the country).
The Final Questions / The Final Take
Who will bomb all of the 3-balls now that Wes Matthews is gone?
Can the Pacers hold on until their leader and heart gets back on the court?
The Pacers have been resilient overachievers over the course of the last two seasons. Perhaps they want us to count them out just so they can sneak up on us again.
Playing in the JV East will help tremendously, but we’re still skeptical. UNDER 47.5 wins.