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The Indiana Pacers will resume their season on Saturday, August 1, with a matchup against the Philadelphia 76ers. Unfortunately, they won’t have the great All-Star player Domantas Sabonis when they hit the field. He’s been sidelined due to plantar fasciitis, and his foot is apparently bad enough that he can’t even stay in the Disney World bubble.
Early Friday night, the team announced that its “availability to return to the Orlando campus has not yet been determined.” Sabonis is going to see a specialist, and the damage to his foot is “significant,” according to a report by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
The Pacers are 39-26 on the restart and are tied with the Sixers for the fifth seed in the Eastern Conference. His chances of delaying Philadelphia for all five seeds, or even jumping the Miami Heat to fourth, take a serious hit without Sabonis. Arguably, he has been his best player this season and has a net rating differential of plus-4.9 points per 100 possessions. That’s the best mark of any rotation player for Indiana.
Sabonis was averaging a double double this season with 18.5 points and 12.4 rebounds per game, fifth in the league, and his effort and energy in the paint is virtually irreplaceable. He has also been a major facilitator for them without Victor Oladipo for much of the season, handing out five assists per game. In short, this is a tremendous loss.
According to SportsLine data scientist Stephen Oh, Sabonis ‘absence would reduce the Pacers’ chances of winning the East by nearly three percent, and their odds of winning the title by nearly two percent.
|
With sabonis |
4 4 |
11.2% |
4.6% |
|
Without sabonis |
5 5 |
8.5% |
2.8% |
|
IMPACT |
-one |
-2.7% |
-1.8% |
The irony for the Pacers is that, in surprising news, they were expected to get Oladipo back for the restart after he initially said he was not going to play. Now, instead of having their team in full force, they ended up exchanging one All-Star for another.
