An enigmatic year in Indiana: What questions will plague Sabonis and the Pacers next season?

Given that Gregg Popovich’s San Antonio Spus was unable to play in the NBA Playoffs for the first time since 1998, only six clubs in the league can boast of having had to play at least five times in a row in the deciding stage.

The Pacers can be proud of this list along with the Oklahoma Thunder, Boston Celtics, Toronto Raptors, Portland Trail Blazers and Houston Rockets. But there is another side to the coin: The only Indianapolis club among these teams has never been able to cross the barrier of the first round of the playoffs.

The Pacers face a similar paradox on the eve of the 2020-21 season. The Indiana team welcomes the start of the new championships with a virtually unchanged lineup: Cassius Stanley’s 56th rookie call and three uninsured players, and Alize Johnson and TJ Leaf, who left Indianapolis, will be remembered in a few few years only for the most demanding fans of the Pacers.

In nineteen of the twenty cases, such a radical continuity would make it easier to predict the capabilities of the team or at least the roles that the players will play in the overall club scene. The 2020-21 Pacers are in this comparison that twentieth case.

The team’s starting five has five big questions

As for the Indiana Club’s ability to extend or finish one or both of the aforementioned five-year series, there is no need to look far into the fog of doubt. It is not just the team’s five starting points that can be unambiguously assessed, both when looking closely and when trying to see from a distance, each of its five planned members tentatively raises their own questions.

Malcolm Brogdon, Victor Oladipo, TJ Warren, Domantas Sabonis, and Myles Turner. Excluding the always possible possibility of upsets, the quintet should be on the pitch from the opening minutes of the Pacers’ season opener with the New York Knicks on Dec. 23.

It’s virtually impossible to assess the compatibility and potential of these players based on last season’s stats. The five most talented basketball players on the Indiana team in the 2019-20 championships appeared on the floor together in just six games and did not play 90 minutes at all.

The biggest contributor to these figures was Oladip, who was considered the undisputed leader of the team a couple of years ago. The defender, who graced the first two past seasons at Indianpol in the All-Star Match, suffered a serious injury in late January 2019, allowing him to return to the court only after a 371-day hiatus.

The basketball player who played in all 19 regular-season games last season was far from remembering the talent who fought with LeBron James two years before Game 7 of the series.

In both the regular season and the playoffs, Oladipo’s accuracy was less than 40%, and in the rebounding and interception statistics, the defender, who became the leader of the 2017-18 season according to the latter indicator, recorded the lowest averages of his career.

The notable reduction in the quality of the game also complicated the basketball player’s relationship with the Pacers club management. Oladipo, who will become a free agent next summer, has not received a satisfactory offer to extend his contract in advance. The player himself hopes that the club will offer him a contract that matches the impressive statistics of the 2017-18 season, and the Indiana club deservedly agreed to tie his future to the player until he proves he can return to the level of All-basketball caliber. Star.

The resulting tensions have recently started to become public. There have been several reports in the American press that Oladipo, who was offended last season, has repeatedly reached out to his opponents during the match, offering to join the clubs they represent and making sure his current teammates hear the comments.

The player himself did not comment on this information for a long time, but before the team met for the first training camp in early December, he finally denied such reports, calling them provocative rumors.

In the upcoming season, Oladipo and the Pacers will have to answer a series of questions: is the basketball player capable of recovering from an unfortunate injury and recovering at least 80 percent. to your athletics? Will the club and the player agree to a contract extension? If that step is not taken, will the Pacers risk staying with Club Oladipo until the end of the season knowing that the basketball player can leave the team after him? Or maybe the former team leader will be replaced before the trade window closes?

While the offensive defender’s companion to the enigmatic future on the team’s perimeter line should cause fewer headaches for the Indiana club’s leadership, Brogdon, who has finished his first season with the Pacers, also brings his own questions to the general enigma.

The Bucks, who moved to Indianapolis from the Milwaukee Bucks last year, posted career-best averages with 16.5 points and 7.1 assists per game.

The basketball player’s talent and courage are also well illustrated by the fact that Bucks’ decision to fire him today is considered the biggest mistake by Milwaukee executives in the past five years. If Giannis Antetokounmpo decides to leave the Wisconsin County Club a year later, Brogdon’s departure will no doubt be cited as one of the main reasons for such a scenario.

However, the 27-year-old defender missed more than a quarter (19/73) of the team’s regular-season games last season due to injuries. Reasons for Missing Meetings Brogdon has amassed a whole series over the years: back pain, groin injury, sore throat, concussion, neck pain, hip swelling, quadriceps muscle rupture of the thigh and COVID-19 virus. The scope of the list makes it surprising that the defender did not help the team in just nineteen games.

Plus, injuries have haunted this basketball player for years. In his three seasons at Milwaukee, Brogdon missed a total of 61 games, so the athlete’s athletic “stamina” shouldn’t give Pacers fans much confidence. Even more so when Oladipo, who looks like his shadow, agrees with him.

Warren, who has become the team’s biggest star in the NBA Orlando bubble, doesn’t leave an unequivocal impression. The Pacers, who made their All-Star All-Around Match debuts due to injury, flew to the extreme in dazzling colors: In six regular season games played in Orlando, Warren posted a staggering 31 points per game and hit up to 52 percent. throwing triples.

The incredible revelation of the player earned him the nickname “bubble god” among NBA fans. Still, in the playoff series with the Miami Heat, Warren’s stats dropped significantly and Saboni’s return to the rotation should significantly reduce the role of the attacking player in all six games after just 21 pitches. Will the “god of the bubble” not become a symbolic nickname that embodies a short-term flash?

Turner, who has been a starting midfielder in Indiana for a year and a half, is likely not only to pose questions to his team, but to ask them himself. During the offseason, the Pacers negotiated a possible deportation to Boston with the Celtics in exchange for Indianapolis-backed forward Gordon Hayward.

When Hayward finally found himself in the Charlotte Hornets club, only Turner himself could probably describe Turner’s well-being. The tall man, considered the future face of the Pacers organization three years ago, came to training camp knowing the team was ready to say goodbye to him. Even for the most professional basketball players, knowledge of the team’s desire to trade them is far from facilitating their daily performance at work.

Furthermore, collapsed negotiations with the Celtics revealed that the true value of a midfielder in the eyes of NBA clubs is much less than previously thought. The Boston club, instead of having the opportunity to replace Turner, decided to release Hayward without receiving any compensation for it. And sign a contract with Tristan Thompson. Until recently, the tallest, considered the Pacers’ MVP, was ultimately of no interest to the club, which was desperately seeking a starting midfielder.

Due to his role in the upcoming season, even Sabonis, who demonstrated the best way to kayak last year, cannot rest easy. With 18.5 points, 12.4 rebounds and 5 assists per game, the Lithuanian was probably the most important weapon for ousted coach Nate McMillan, but new strategist Nate Bjorkgren already promises to change the team’s style of play.

An important aspect of the criticism leveled at McMillan in recent years has been the lack of innovation in the attack on his team. The strategist’s conservatism didn’t bring much of a benefit to the team, but he made great use of it throughout the NBA league most of the time in the mix. two before two found Domantas.

New head coach Bjorkgren says he will seek to introduce an attacking philosophy at Indianpol based on ball movement and a much higher number of long shots. A Lithuanian who is likely to have the ball in his hands much less often than last year will have to prove his worth in such attacking schemes and increase it last year by just 25 percent. aimed at a precision of three points.

Bjorgren’s personality undoubtedly contributes to the five dilemmas brought on by the unaltered but hard-to-predict team start. Nick Coach, the coach’s closest career partner, took the NBA championship title from the Toronto Raptors in his debut season, but the analogy should not be drawn between the two strategists’ ability to adapt to new circumstances. .

Nurse, who became a Canadian club strategist in 2018, had already spent five years on Toronto’s coaching staff at the time. The strategist not only had a good knowledge of the Raptors club kitchen, but he also had a close relationship with most of the team’s basketball players. An entirely different kind of challenge awaits Bjorkgren in Indiana.

In the event of a failure, the Pacers’ playoff series could end next season, but the sixth straight loss in their first round probably wouldn’t be considered a success by club leaders either.

Due to its geographical location, the Indiana State Club, called “Crossroads of America”, welcomes the 2020-21 NBA championship in a suitable situation for the nickname. In the coming years, the Pacers will have to answer a series of sensitive questions and choose the way forward for the organization.