Speaker 1: What is uh? Fellasico's I Am Dana Valley coming at
you with another twenty twenty four twenty twenty five NBA
season look ahead. As you're listening to this, we have
rounded the halfway point of the lookhead series. So if
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And two please tell people about us, share the episodes
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of fun around here and that we at least tried
to work really hard at covering the entire NBA. We're
onto the Indiana Pacers, though, which means I have the
distinct pleasure of being joined by the goat Caitlin Cooper.
Follow her on the Twitter machine at C two Underscore
Cooper just as importantly, if not more importantly, subscribed to basketball.
She wrote, just incredible content that she puts out. It's
absolutely ridiculous how good she is. I talk about her
all the time on this podcast, even when she's not here.
She is one of my favorite content creators of all time.
She is one of the nicest people you ever interact
with as well. Very thankful that she gives us her
time when I know she's super in demand because she
is mainstream Kaitlyn Cooper, the world famous Caitlyn Cooper. So
go subscribe to basketball. She wrote the link to that
is in the podcast and YouTube description. As you are
listening slash watching to this. That's enough out of me, though.
I have lots of questions about the Indiana Pacers, and
Caitlin's gonna have all the right answers to them because
she always has the right answers to them. So let's
get to talking about the twenty twenty four twenty twenty
five Indiana Pacers with the one, the only, the legendary,
the Goat, Caitlyn Cooper. Caitlin, we welcome back. Thank you
for coming back for what's like your upteenth appearance on
this podcast. Always grateful that you agree to return. It's
been too long, as I was telling you off air,
so we have not spoken in podcasts form since this
time last year, which means the most important question of
all that I'm going to ask, how the heck are
you doing.
Speaker 2: I'm doing well. I'm always excited to get the return
invites here. I told you I joked around ahead of
time and in our message threat and said, I think
this is my longest term podcast relationship, and I'm pretty
sure it is.
Speaker 1: I love it, And I was telling you before we started.
You were the first person outside of my little silo
of oh I met them through Bleacher Report years ago
that came on this podcast, which has been running since
I think twenty fifteen, and I don't know when the
year was that you came on, but I specifically remember
because I could probably remember the DM I sent you
because I get nerve wracked one reaching out to people
I know, but definitely people I've never interacted with before.
You were kind enough to say yes. You've been kind
enough to say yes every single time since then. So,
like I said, we are immeasurably grateful around these parts
that you canntinued to come.
Speaker 2: Back I'm immeasurably grateful that the people keep letting me
come back.
Speaker 1: Please. People are foolish if they weren't going to have
you on your podcast or even trying to talk about
the Pacers at a high level of Kaitlin Cooper is
not involved speaking of which, though, It's funny because this
time last year, we were having a conversation about what
direction the Pacers were going to choose, where they going
to play the longer game or kind of commit to
more of a semblance of urgency. They wind up making
the Passco Siakam trade in the middle of January. What
did you sort of make about that decision to lean
towards that route? Or is that even what they're doing
when you look at what they did this offseason where
they keep him, they focus on talent retention with Obi Topping,
and they extend TJ McConnell Andrew Mhard. What do we
just make of the Pacers overall direction right now? It's
interesting when reflecting back on that, because I vividly remember
that during preseason I wrote a piece called Jaris Walker
is going to be a micro cosm of the Pacers
next season, and I felt like looking at their road
to and what we had seen from him during preseason
that if he got to play, it was going to
be because they were leaning more toward development, and if
he wasn't playing, it's going to be because they exceeded expectations,
and pretty rapidly they did. And then by the time
the playoffs come around, we don't need to relitigate what
the playoffs were for the Pacers. But during the Bucks series,
I wrote another piece that was like they kind of
did the impossible right where they achieved the intersection of
winning in development where they were they had a series
lead at the time when I wrote the piece, and
I pointed out that, you know, Ben Shepherd, they had
cut out and gone down to an eight man rotation
in that series, and Ben Shepard was one of the
eight players as a rookie, which you know, a lot
of the talking points around Rick Carlile at times can
be that he can be harder on rookies and getting
into rotation, but that hasn't been the case for Ben Sheppard.
After Buddy he illustraded, and it wasn't the case for
Nemhart as a rookie. And then the piece more so
centered around Andrew Nemharden that you could see that for
a player who dealt with the kidney stone during preseason
and then had the back issue and also had the
hyper extended, that it was all coming together at the
right time for him, and that the Pacers really had
found two guys that like, hey, these are really solid
people to have in an eight man playoff rotation as
first and second year players. So in a sense, they
kind of ended up doing what I was skeptical that
they would be able to do. That being said, when
you mentioned the things that they did this offseason and
that they're virtually, you know, pretty much bringing everybody back,
sign multiple players to extensions, it's going to be very
hard given that they need to kind of bank on
internal development in a sense to maintain or level up
on what they just did, when it's going to be
really hard for them to be able to play Ben Shepard,
Andrew nemhar, Benedict Madam, and Jarris Walker. With the rotation
that they have, they can't really play all four of
those players, and yet two of them are very kind
of integral to answering some of the holes that they
have on the roster.
Speaker 2: If they're ready to play and will they be so
they kind of still find themselves in the same place
despite the fact that they did get better and they
did make the run in the playoffs.
Speaker 1: Before we kind of get into what might transpire this
season or just looking ahead. Was there any aspect of
their offseason? And I think we all knew once you
traded for Pascal Siakam he was coming back on the Max.
It was a question of length four years, okay, whatever?
Was there anything that surprised you were stood out when
you look at the money Obi top and got or
both McConnell Andrew Nemhar getting extensions.
Speaker 2: I think for the Pacers, and I pointed this out
at the time, especially of the McConnell signing, is that
and this is one of my intriguing stats that I
really like to share, is that they were plus seven
point thirty nine and over thirteen hundred minutes played when
any two of Tyreese, TJ. McConnell, Andrew Nemhard were on
the floor. They found out that they were, you know,
pretty effective when they had multiple ball handlers out there,
in part because teams started showing more exaggerated coverages against
Tyrese and Tyrese's role changed a little bit after they
moved Buddy healed as well, So it was to their
benefit that if Tyres is being picked up full court,
if he's being face guarded a lot, that they have
somebody else out there that can initiate offense, and then
he's doing more as a screener as a movement shooter.
It was something I talked about before last season even
picked up where I was like watching him at Team
USA and the Feeble World Cup, in the minutes that
he played with Jail Brunton, I was like, these are
going to be valuable because if he can become a
better role player, it'll make him an even better start.
And that was something that ended up really coming into
play over the back half of the season. So I
can't say I was surprised that they extended them or
that they extended Obi top in. I think that more
so with Obi top and my position on it was
I might have looked to see if there was somebody
at that price level that might have answered address more
of their weaknesses, whereas Obie Moore builds out their strengths.
He was one of the best play finishers in the
NBA last year. He definitely fits with their play style.
But I remember at the time I mentioned a player
kind of like Caleb Morton who maybe you could throw
out there more against Wings while still getting at least
some shooting from him and the Pacers. Quite frankly, their
offense is kind of a self sustaining machine in and
of itself, where I don't worry about that as much
in terms of them addressing the other end of the floor.
But I'm guessing they probably like sniffed around a little
bit or like maybe some of those opportunities aren't going
to be there for us. We'll keep our core guys,
And I think it more so as a reflection of eventually,
you know, having contracts keeping their flexibility because they're going
to be set up for a consolidation move at some point. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He I wasn't surprised by the extensions, actually, because I
think that's especially the response to the second Apron and
the way teams handled themselves in the way that we've
kind of been tracking. It feels like that's just the
new way of things happening. Obi Toppins contract was the
one that surprised me the most. I always expected him
to come back, but I looked at that and was like, well,
who was giving him? We saw no restricted free agency
offer sheets this year, by the way, to anybody, I
was like, who was giving him that money? And I
know a lot of Pacers fans they killed what me
and Grant said about their off season. They said, well,
you need these contracts to move and I do agree.
I just four years at sixty. I just I thought
the number was in. The years were a little inflated.
But like you said, he is a really good play
finisher and it was exciting to see him do so
well in India after watching him kind of be held
back in New York because he just had Julius Randall
constantly in front of him. The Knicks did not want
to play the way that the Pacers did, obviously.
Speaker 2: I mean we actually did see some things, like I
remember Game six when he and TJ were really keys
there against the Milwaukee Bucks when they advanced. He did
several things in that game where I'm like, even the
most optimistic Nick fans I don't think anticipated seeing Obie
top and like make up one handed pass off his
left going uphill along the three point line, making a
push shot as the role man, making a transition three
blocking a shot with his off hand, like he played
a lot of minutes at the five in that series,
which is I'm sure we'll talk about intriguing lineups later,
but that that's one of my most intriguing lineup combinations
to watch next season is how the minutes with Obi
at the five bear out over a larger sample.
Speaker 1: Six years into these look aheads, it's clear that I
dictate too much of how these podcasts go. So I've
been asking everyone, what is the biggest storyline for this team,
the Pacers in this case, that you will either that
you'll be tracking either entering the season or throughout the
entire season.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think to an extent, it's the same
storyline that's been the storyline at training camp for them
the last two years. I remembers talked about like that's
a tail as all as time, Dan. Now, I think
they talked about two years ago, like we need to
address defense and togetherness. They talked about last year, you know,
some of their requisites for people earning playing time because
they had so much competition at camp, was going to be,
you know, defense and unselfishness. It's going to be what's
it going to take for them to improve on the
defensive end, and what's a realistic expectation. I think that's
going to be the overarching thing this year, because, like
we said, I think that they showed enough proof of concept,
regardless of what the injuries were in the playoffs, to
think that they can still be a very good regular
season team. The offensive rating held up in the playoffs.
They outscore opponents in each round of the playoffs when
passcalen tyres were on the floor, including against Boston, who
were not nearly as banged up obviously as the Bucks and.
Speaker 3: The Knicks were.
Speaker 2: There's lots of little things that you can point to there,
but if they're gonna maintain the success that they had
last year, I do think that they need to have
a little bit more reliable of a defense, because that's
what stood out in games. You know, the losses that
they had to Boston. Obviously, you know, those were somewhat
the witching hour of things that you can't really completely
explained that went wrong. But also one team had a
defensive foundation they could rely on. One team was more
defensively versatile, and it wasn't the Pacers in those games.
So that's the main thing that they need to address,
and I think that's going to be the main storyline
they were gonna be watching all season.
Speaker 1: What are sort of the one or two elements that
would go into this team sustaining a league average or
better defense? Then yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Mean I think I had this tagline last year where
I said, the defense doesn't need to be good, it
doesn't even need to be mediocre. It merely needs to
be bad, and it's too often terrible. And that took
place in a game when they had one of their
one one fifty one fifty you know, duels with the
Atlanta Hawks, and I later issued a retraction because they
did show some progress and they did make some adjustments
to the scheme as the year went on. And that's
why I told people. I just recently got asked the
mail back question by somebody said, you know, what would
it take to make this defense great? That's too often
eve an expectation you need to get in the range
of like bad, ranging to men.
Speaker 3: Because I will.
Speaker 2: Say that I think that this coaching staff, like when
you look at I mean, I'll ask you if you
looked at this the personnel on the roster, do you
think that the Pacers have top ten offensive talent just
based on the personnel.
Speaker 1: I mean, I might just be colored by what I
know Tyre's Haliburton is. But I guess in a vacuum,
you probably wouldn't look at especially heading into last season
and being like oh nemhard no siakam. So yeah, I
don't think you look at the roster like, oh, that's
for sure a top ten offensive team.
Speaker 2: Yeah you want to think that that's going to be
the number one offense in the playoffs, I doubt, And
again like some of that had to do with injuries,
but not completely because let's face it, like Giannis is
a big deal defensively, but Dame being out kind of
helped the Bucks defense then make them a better team,
But defensively they were better when when Dame wasn't playing.
So I think that they over you know, they get
more out of their personnel offensively, and I've told people
this many times. I think they're getting about what should
be expected defensively unless you look at a few specific things.
So I think last year they ranked thirtieth and close
outs per one hundred posessions, and in part that's because
they started the year really being somewhat dogmatic with the guard.
Your yards scheme, they were going to do all pick
and rolls two versus two. As the year went on,
they were willing to relax that they weren't trying to,
you know, use body as a primary against you anas
ant Tokumpo. They were building a three player wall. Some
of what you saw the Lakers in the finals of
the nd season tournament where they scored eighty six points
in the paint while the Pacers you know, quote unquote
held them to two of thirteen shooting from three. There
were changes to that, specifically in the playoffs where it's like, okay,
now we're seeing Siakam, you know, even helping off of
the ball side corner. He's flooding clear strong side, off
of Pachua, off of Josh Hart in ways that they
weren't necessarily as adaptable with earlier in the season. So
I would expect some changes there, but I don't think
that the like, no matter what this coaching staff does
with the scheme, I don't think that's necessarily going to
significantly move the needle because, to be honest, while it
probably wasn't what I would have done at the beginning
of the season, they tried to pull our opposite scheme
the prior year. In both years they resulted in a
bottom ten defensive outcome, including after they acquired Sakam, they
still ranked around twenty second after that. So I would
look at, you know, can Tyres come back and be
a little bit more physical? Can he take a bump
and still potentially get over a screen? Because he did
show that a little bit. You know, they don't want
to give up switches with him, so they use a
lot of show coverage and you got a little bit
better at holding the line on that, maybe even you know,
diverting the ball handler a little bit. So can he
show a little bit more physicality and not get overpowered?
Is there ways that you could potentially use Miles as
more of, you know, a weak side rim protector rather
than a wall side anchor just dialing up their overall attentiveness.
That's something that I like to point out with regard
to Benedict Maden, because you can dial up energy and effort.
I'm not always sure you can how to project you know, awareness,
some it might all click for him, I don't. I
don't completely know, but that's something there. And then the
biggest thing they need to address the hole that they
have at the wing like they still have it, like
they acquired Pascal Siakam, And a very telling thing. The
night before they acquired Pascal Siakam, they played the Utah
Jazz and Andrew nev harb Is guarding Lauri Markinen. They
acquired Pascal, they really toyed around with his role in
the first you know, however, many games that he was in.
By the time you get in the playoffs, it's game
four and when Tyresee is out and Ben Shepherd's a
starter and they can put Ben Shephard at the point
of attack, Pascal has put on Drew Holliday, and they
had Andrew Nelmhard and Aaron Nee Smith back on Tatum
and Brown. It was not Pascal Siakam doing that. So
what type of role they think that they want him
to have? And then just can Matheren or Walker become
that guy? Can veettitc Mathern or Jarris Walker be a
person that you could eventually see ending up being in
a starting lineup and having some impacts given that they
are more wing size wings. And I'm sure we'll get
into each of their games more specifically later, but I
think that the solutions more so are going to have
to come from little incremental steps from various players on
the roster or eventually seeking an outside solution with the
consolidation trade that we kind of allieded to before.
Speaker 1: I have so many follow up questions about the Pascal
Siakam stuff specifically, But one of the things we also
talked about last year when you shift to the other
end of the floor was in these half court offense,
and even before the Siakam trade, they were I think
they were second in half court efficiency that was Perkeley
in the glass before the Seacam trade, and so they
were twenty fourth the year before, again independent of the
Siakame trade. What went into just that stark of a
rankings improvement for them?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the defense of the versatility by which
they can score now. And I know you just told
me to ignore the Pascal Siaka of it all, but
like it's hard to because there's really it's difficult to
find a pick and roll coverage that will work against them,
because if you play and drop and Tyresee is Tyrese.
As Samson pointed out on my podcast, he's going to
plan his cross. It's going to be the Agraian economy
of buckets if you play drop coverage against Tyres and
that situation, if you go to blitz, then Miles has
become pretty good at knocking down that free throw line
area jumper.
Speaker 3: Out of the short role.
Speaker 2: And if you try to switch, then they're just going
to use Siakam as the switcher, as the screener I mean,
and then he's going to punish the mismatch inside. So
there's become a lot of variety by which they can score.
But even before that, and a way that I think
Siakam reflects it is that they didn't really change that
much after they acquired him, offensively, not a lot change,
And they even talked about this, Like I wrote an
article about all of the post entry passes that Pascal
had caught from the Pacers last season and how intriguing
it was that a lot of them were coming from
the top of the key rather than the wing entry
that he was more so seeing with the Raptors. And
part of the reasons why that was possible is because
Miles is at the top of the key. You're setting,
you know, an empty side ball screen with Pascal. To
get that switch, you reverse the ball the Miles then
on the backside, they'll have you know, a flare and
a lift to remove that low man, and if it
isn't a switch, they have an automatically built encounter that
you know, we're going to flow into a stagger. It's
one action into the next. And a lot of times
people think about the pacers playing fast in terms of
how quickly they get up and down the floor, but
they also transition very quickly with it between actions and
the half court as well. So I think that kind
of Siakam coming over and just so organically fitting in
in the ways that he did, and I think that
there's times where they probably you know, could be more
cognizant of him as that first initial domino, and hopefully
that happens with the full training camp and more so
what we're seeing. But that's one thing that I would
point to that, like with the coaching staff when I'm
talking about like they may not necessarily have top ten
offensive talent overall, and yet look at what they're getting.
There's little things like just in that one specific player
where you can see like how fool proof that is
against multiple coverages. The ball handlers that they have. I
think that they probably in my opinion, have the most
depth at the point guard position of any team in
the NBA, who are able to make really quick reads
based on what they're seeing on the floor, and they
really do. I mean it's become a cliche, but they
aim to play random as much as possible, and they
have a lot of players who.
Speaker 3: Are capable of doing that.
Speaker 1: What did you make of the Siakam Haliburton dynamic, like
just during that initial period before they've gone through a
training camp together, because it felt at times, I don't
know if this was the fact that Halbert missed some
time he was banged up, and they also have them
off the ball more once Buddy healed leaves, it felt
like they were leading separate existences to me at points
when I was watching them. But what did you make
of that dynamic and what would you like to see
or how would you expect it to grow leading into
next season.
Speaker 3: I think that's a good way to put it.
Speaker 2: I think there was times where they were kind of
existing in separate spheres if you look at the numbers,
like I think I anticipated seeing a lot more of
potentially tyres being used as an inverted screener for Siakam
than what you saw earlier on, but then when you
started watching the matchups, it's like, oh, this is actually
kind of tricky to get to because they're both being
guarded by the opposing team's best players, and then if
you get that switch, it's not necessarily an advantage. So
when you're talking about them kind of existing in separate spaces.
It became a place where it's like, Okay, enter the
ball to pass gal at the elbow and put Tyrese
at the weak side wing, put Miles in the ball
side corner, put a guard in the dunker spot, and
it can It became inverted spacing there, something that you
see the Thunder do a lot, something that you see
Boston do a lot, where they put those guards in
the dunkers. So it's a much smaller person as a
rim protector, a person who's not usually in position to
have to be bluffing to protect the rim, and both
stay at the dunker spot. So that's something that they
went to, but I think I would like to see
them go to the inverted looks a little bit more,
and they did it the playoffs. One of my favorite
playoff moments was against the Knicks when ty Resee was
being hounded to the degree that he was by Duce
McBride and he ends up being top locked, and he
tried to go set an inverted reverse angle screen at
the elbow fora which Siakam then rejected and got to
the rim. It was just a lot of high caliber
problem solving for them to be reading those things in
the moment and know what adjustment Tyres needed to make
given how much teams were also forcing into the sidelines
and those partular games to prevent him from being able
to get to his right and the angle that they
popped Siakam at to get to that as well. So
I think that there's still room for them to grow
with that, and hopefully that's something that will happen coming
out of training camp. And I will say on the
side note of that is that's also why Nemhard and
Siakam might be really good pick and roll partners to
a degree, because Nemhart is not going to be guarded
by the top assignment. He's going to be getting the
weaker assignment. So if he goes in screens for Seakam's
going to be getting a more favorable matchup, and a
lot of that's going to be dependent on if Nemhart
can have the same degree of gravity that Tyrese does
when he leaks out of that you know, that slot
screen and goes to the perimeter. So that's something to
monitor because I don't think those numbers shook out pretty
very well for the Pacers quite yet. But Nemhart obviously
did make strides with his shot during the playoff run.
Speaker 1: So you have already mentioned Pascal Siakam's defensive role, and
one of the pieces you wrote this offseason, which was
great obviously, was about his defensive role and how they
use him in all these different ways to a point
where it felt like just reading it inconsistently. What do
you view and I know you just mentioned about it
is his ideal role Okay, he's guarding the big and
then switching ball screens. Is that you want to tether
him to a primary wing assignment? What do you view
as his ideal defensive role if you were running things?
And also do we ever expect him to have maybe
more of a I don't know the way to phrase
like a stable offensive identity where it's kind of just
moving him around and changing the way he's used, just
going to be.
Speaker 3: The stasis.
Speaker 2: Defensively, it's interesting because as well, and like what I
just described about the post entry passes with Siakam and
in part why that's possible because Miles, you know, if
he's outside the three point line, typically people are the
bigs at least going to have their feet outside the
free throw line to kind of make that high, low
post terry pass possible as well as they fit and
as much as it makes sense that Seakham said, like
you know, after Kevin Durant, Miles is one of the
players that he wanted to play with most. It's a
little bit trickier defensively because Miles is a player that
you don't want to switch with, and Siakam's a player
who needs to switch. So there's times in like four
or five screening actions where Seakam's just running into contact.
He's a big body, he's a big target. I don't
think it's necessarily reasonable to expect him to get over
those screens, and he really wasn't. So like you could
watch games like one that's very telling is they played
the Pelicans after the trade deadline, in which they put
Siakam on Jonas Valentiunas to start that game Miles Turner
was guarding Zion Williamson and Aaron NEI Smith was guarding
brandon Ingram And when the screener approaches being valentunis Aaron's
chasing over the top because they don't want to switch
it because they don't want Aaron to have a mismatch.
Whether Aaron Ne Smith would potentially be getting scrammed and
running out of the corner into a mismatch with Zion Williamson,
So then you kind of have Siakam and drop, which
isn't his best coverage. And like, I understand where that
line of thought's coming from, because I really do think
that Miles at this stage in his career as better
as a potential big that you keep low around the
rim and as a weak cybrim protector rather than a
ball side anchor. But the problem is you have to
have the right four to do that. And while Seacam
I do think is capable of guarding a screener and
switching out to the ball, they don't have that wing defender. Again,
like I mentioned that, if you know you had done
that with Aaron Nesmith, then he's going to be running
to a mismatch with Zion under the basket, and also
just the fact that I do think that quietly teams
have started getting better at adjusting for the roaming big
like they'll just use Miles as defender as the screener anyways,
and he's still going to be in pick and relaction,
So I don't necessarily know if that's all a fool
proof solution. The things that I've seen from Siakam, what
I liked from him the most is I did think
he was effective using his lateral size in that series
against the Knicks when you know he was roaming off
of a two Josh Hart and just having that shadow presence.
I think a lot of people talked about making the
switch between Nemhart and Nie Smith on ball, and that
didn't make a difference because Nie Smith had more linked
on Brunson, but he was able to press up and
use his link against bruns and more because Yakam was
back in the shadows and he again is okay and
contained when he switches out to the ball. But there
was a lot of other roles for him where I
think some of it comes from a very dramatic scheme
change coming from playing from Nick Nurse and even under
dark Oriakovic and then coming to what the Pacers were
attempting to do, and also just him reaching the point
in his career where he's not necessarily like an emphatic
secondary rim protector anymore. Sometimes when he's face with speed
on the perimeter, he can't quite stay in front. And again,
there was just a lot of games where it was like,
you know, I understand why in Game four he wasn't
guarding Jalen Brown anymore. So that's kind of the spot
that they find themselves in.
Speaker 1: Do you think when they got him, they like did
so understanding that they were still going to then need
to go out and get that other wing player. Do
you think the hope was that he would be able
to handle those more of those situations in higher volume.
Speaker 2: I think some of it depends on the wing too,
because late in the game against Phoenix, both teams ended
up countering in Nurkichen Miles term were not.
Speaker 3: On the floor anymore.
Speaker 2: Kevin Durant was at the five and Siakam managed there
because Kevin Durant, you know, is more of a player
who's going to attack with his jump shot and from
mid range, and there Siakam can use his linked and
stand front. So there are certain ones Jalen Brown's speed
bothered him. It also didn't help that sometimes they were
trying to execute in congruent pick and roll coverages against
Jalen Brown in that series between him and Tyree Saliburton
at the same time. But I think that they might
have because, to be honest, like I watched a lot
of Raptors because I do a lot of Raptors crossover content,
and I thought, in part, you know, there's a soul
tax to be played here, like one of.
Speaker 1: My favorite Kaitlyn Cooper phrases.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because like Ogionanobi wasn't defending great either before he
got traded in Nick like he only goes to the
Knicks and he makes that entire roster makes sense defensively,
like everybody's in a more natural role. So they might
have thought, you know, Pascal might bounce back a little
bit here, and there were times where he did. But
I think that they still overall, like even if they
thought this is the defense they were going to get
from Siakham, you still make that trade, especially with what
they gave up. Jordan Wore is not in the league anymore.
Bruce Brown kind of underperformed for the Pacers quietly before
he was even traded to Toronto, where he also underperformed
for reasons that I don't know how much he really
wanted to be in Toronto after he got traded there.
I'll just leave that there. But and you know, the
middling first that they also gave up with them, So
he answered so many other things that they needed that
were reflected in that nd season tournament loss that I
think that they're still you know, it doesn't color my
opinion of the trade and that it was a home
run for them to do it at the asking price.
It's just that, Yeah, now that they've seen it, I
would expect that they still think that they have more
work to do to build out the defensive foundation that
they have.
Speaker 1: Only tangentially related, I've been using soul tax thing to
describe Tobias Harris in Detroit because of like everyone was
so down on him in Philly, and I was, like
Caitlin uses the term soul tax. I feel like Tobias
Harris might be first team allsoll tax based off how
like the past two years went.
Speaker 3: The change of expectations could be good for him.
Speaker 2: You don't know, like going from where there's championship expectations
and he's always disappointing to going to a place where
he needs to be a floor razer and a veteran presence,
we might look at him differently in the year.
Speaker 1: So Tyre's Haliburton, what do you make of a season
in which he looks like a top five MVP lock
for a huge chunk of the year, gets injured, comes
back struggles. Then you also go through the Buddy Heel
trade in addition to the Pascal Siakam arrival, and then
Tyre's Haliburton it felt like after the Buddy Healed exit,
like he was being used completely differently. Again, what do
you just kind of take away from Halliburton's season and like,
what does the next front tier? Now that he's gonna
go through a full training camp and this is where
of the roster it's set for now, what do you like,
what is the next frontier for him?
Speaker 3: Then?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 2: I mean you said what's the biggest storyline you'll be monitoring?
And I feel like Tyres is probably the biggest story that,
like most national media is going to be monitoring because
there was that massive swing and as you mentioned, when
he started the season. I don't have the numbers in
front of me, but his conversion rate on pull up
threes was to begin the year, and on the volume
he was doing it at was very similar to Steph
Curry's MVP run in twenty sixteen. I don't know if
he's going to be able to maintain those types of
numbers for a full season, but I think he is
closer to being the player that we saw at the
beginning of the year than what we were seeing post
hamstring injury, especially when he tried to come back and
then they ended up being out a little bit longer
after playing that first game with Siakham and Portland, and
as you mentioned, like the Buddy Heel thing, like I
want to be clear because I think people confuse what
I meant about Buddy at times. I do not think
the Buddy held made Tyrese Haliburn. Tyre's Haliburn is a
star in and of himself. That being said, when you're
somebody who's going through a hamstring injury and you are
very notably struggling to gain separation on the perimeter, and
the number one thing that the Pacers do is they
were they ranked thirtieth in isolations before acquiring Pascal Siakam
thirtieth in isolations per one hundred posessions.
Speaker 1: They don't do McConnell on the roster. How are you
not isolating all the time?
Speaker 3: Exactly right?
Speaker 2: So, I mean when tyree would get a switch against
a big on the perimeter, and the number one thing
that they would do is have Buddy go, you know,
blur Go set a ghost screen to try to crrate
a little bit of hesitation to gain traction for Tyrese.
And I was tracking it at the time when he
was really going through that three point shooting slump, and
I was like, well, look at it. When he's having
to do self created threes, he's more often going to
his step back to his left, which is not Tyresee's
normal pattern. Tyrese prefers to step back to his right,
but he wasn't getting to that shot as often, in
part because people were shading him to his left more often,
but also because he couldn't power off of that left
leg with the hamstring injury as much anymore, and it
was affecting what type of shots he got. And also
because he became the best movement shooter in the starting lineup,
things that Buddy was doing, Tyresee was now doing. He
was the person running you know, off of floppy actions
under the basket, or he was becoming the ghost screener,
or he was setting you know, I'm incredibly high volume,
but he was the best person to set an inverted
screen and leak out to the perimeter because he has
the most gravity. So I mean, you saw he was
doing more as the off ball cutter. He was receiving
less picks as the pick and roll ball handler. Defensive
coverages were changing against him. So I think that when
he's healthy again, you're gonna see a little bit of
a restoration back towards what that role was, and hopefully
they can find other players that they can plug in
and you know, provide a reasonable facsimile for some of
what Buddy was doing. Because those guys, you know, tyres
had played with him for his whole career.
Speaker 3: That was a reality. Like I know, people like to
think that.
Speaker 2: I was like, you know, Isaac Newton and somehow, like
an apple hit me on the head and I just
made up the concept of gravity. But it really was
a thing in terms of what in terms of what
ways that Tyresee was operating in the offense. Like numerically,
you can look at it and see, oh, he's setting
way more screen, He's being used as the cutter way
more often, and he's getting like ten ball screens less
per a one under possessions. Since Buddy was traded, like
there was going to be an adjustment period, even though
like I said, I don't think Buddy made him. It
was just going to be a change from there. So
when you ask about like what I'm looking at going forward,
it's the most important thing for Tyrese is going to
be durability and being able to stay healthy. And there
was some reporting that he had kind of had some
type of an injury over the back two games with Timosa,
So we'll see how he's in training camp that's top notch.
And then obviously, you know, defensively, like I mentioned prior
to can he can he take a bump and still
be able to get over the top of the screen.
Not being bullied quite as much potentially, like you know,
was a little bit damaging at times in the Eastern
Conference finals when he was having to guard Drew because
he is giving up some hef there and those types
of matchups or Drew is going to some volly ball possessions,
and then also like this is a very niche thing,
but because he gets forced left so often. There was
one game last year where he made a lefty floater,
and I actually think that if he could develop an
off hand floater, that would be huge for him. Like
he went to it deliberately because you know, one of
the things with Tyrese is so much of his games
built on range and touch that there's added incentive to
weake him because you're already sitting on his dominant hand
when he goes to stop and pop in the lane
with the right. If you're sitting on that hip and
he can go to it with his offhand and get
to it, that would be a really big counter for him.
So that was like a really quiet thing that he
did against one of the games they played against the Pistons,
I believe, But continuing to see that accuracy there and
just being one just being.
Speaker 1: Oh, sorry, I an I mean to talk over you there.
I was gonna say, you kind of just made me
wonder who is the best offhand floater in the NBA
at the moment, And I don't even have anything.
Speaker 2: Conny Mike Conley deliberately goes like he you know, uses
as it is in his dombint hand.
Speaker 1: What stood out to you the most about Andrew Nemhard's
season last year, where like there was an actualization of
all the flashes or hints of stuff that he had
showed during his first year in Indiana.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think that's the thing that quietly
stood out is that he had a really solid Summer
league a year ago. He was just really mosing to
his spots, playing with a lot of composure. I felt
really confident about him at an end of the season,
but then you looked at the roster and it's like,
you know, where's the role going to necessarily come from
because they signed Bruce Brown, And it was almost like
he was gonna have a smaller role because TJ McColl's
the backup point guard. As it turns out, the first
game of the year, nem Hard's the backup point guard.
TJ ends up calling his way back into the rotation
when they played in the N Season Tournament. When you
look at those minutes, like he played four minutes against
Boston in the ND Season Tournament. He came in late
against the Bucks when they were in Vegas and kind
of was a little bit of a zone buster, made
some plays defensively, but he wasn't like TJ had usurped
him for a time. And some of it was just
the dynamic of at a certain point in time, it's
like Andrews doing the Bruce Brown things better than Bruce Brown.
But also he just had to overcome the fact that
he literally pretty much missed the entirety of training camp
because he had to have that kidney stone, and then
he got slowed down by other injuries where he wasn't
being able to have off day training days or his handle.
Like one of the reasons I could tell he wasn't
one hundred percent was because he wasn't going to his
inside hand throw ahead dribble or to throw a head
dribble that he would use in transition. It just didn't
seem like he had the same flexible. When you get
into the playoffs, he was getting to some more of
those dribble combination moves, it was tighter. And then obviously
the shot development. You know, he had worked with Jenny
Boussick a lot on that over the summer a year ago,
and it wasn't coming around for him until you know,
he makes that game winner. He made like I believe,
five self created threes the entirety of the season, and
then he makes that one. Wasn't exactly like picturesque in
his execution, given that he kind of mishandled the ball
twice before he made it. But you know, hitting fifty
percent on catching shoot threes is really big for him.
He was already a wonderful passers. Him being more aggressive
and looking for his shot. People are probably thinking I'm
droning on here, but like when you watch him play
early against the Celtics in the season in November when
they gave up you know, historic scoring out into the Celtics.
In that game, he had a hand like very few
I want to say, less than five potential assists. There
was times guys were ducking under he was immediately getting
off the ball without looking at the rim. Similar coverage
in the Eastern Conference finals, and he's actually like using
a bump to still get to his spot against that under.
He's looking at the rim looking for you know, he
made There was one game where the Patients made five
threes and he made four of them. So like it
was just a lot of night and day stuff there,
so we'll see how the shot holds up.
Speaker 3: He put the work in for it to be there.
Speaker 2: I don't think he's going to hit fifty on catch
and sheet trees, but the development from him. Overall, all
three point guards attack very differently from the pacers, and
all of them have their place and certainly, you know,
Memhard meshes really well with Tyres. Because of that, it
was very evident in the playoffs that it was helpful
to have a secondary ball handler out there that could
be initiating against Damian Lillard, against Jalen Brunson, to be
putting them into action with Tyres, you know, sometimes doing
some things off ball, and then also having Andrew obviously
be able to defend at the point of attack, which
is something that that dual dynamic isn't something that anybody
else does to his degree on the roster.
Speaker 1: From my million foot view last season, and like entering
last season, I just viewed to Andrew partners just like
this defensive specialist, and then to see where he is
by the end of the year, just so comfortable getting
off is created jumpers, was just like it felt like
a completely different player where it's like I just trust
his offense more than I trust his defense at that point.
And had you told me that that's how I would
feel last September, there's no I just I wouldn't have
been able to fathom it. And so like in.
Speaker 2: Now in the playoffs, the Pacers scored more points per
chance with Nemhart as the pick and roll ball handler
very quietly than they did with Tyree or with TJ.
And that in part again like I'm talking about, like
when you're being guarded by Damian Lollard and jaylen Brunson,
that certainly helps, but also it certainly helps when you
have somebody that can be putting those guys through pick
and roll actions and still be making the correct reads
for them to be able to do that. So yeah, no,
I will say I was one of the higher people
and Andrew Nemmart Like I did the preview pot with
Nate Duncan and they're like, you know, what, what guys
are you looking at? And I was like, Andrew Nemhart
had a really good summer.
Speaker 1: So you did You mentioned before about Tyresse Halbert and
some of his production or role restoration coming to the season.
Does that mean and then we're going to see is
that like something Andrew Demhard can replicate. Where you talking
about all the stuff that Tyri's Halberton was doing away
from the ball. Do you view Andrew Nemhart as someone
who can replicate then some of that volume or is
he more comfortable being the guy who's operating on the
ball in those situations.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was one possession that I was nervous about.
They were up in Toronto, and Andrew was kind of
playing in the buddy role standing at the weak side wing,
and Tyree's came off a pick and all season long,
Tyreese doesn't often see next coverage or that player at
the wing will literally, you know, hop onto the ball
on a pick and roll coverage with Tyresee's defender peeling
off to Andrew at the wing. And it really surprised
Tyreek because when you're playing with buddy, you know, people
face guard him and we'll stay Claire at the three
point line. It wasn't something that he normally saw. He
got caught off guard, ended up getting his shot blocked
on a pull up two, despite the fact that Tyree
shoots pull up two's his jump shots, whereas it shoots
threes as set shots. And I think it ended up
being a turnover after the Raptors collected the ball, and
I was like, ooh, you know, we'll see, We'll see
how that plays out and what the gravity's like. You know,
if if Nedmore's shot holds up, people aren't going to
be willing to do, you know, potentially those types of things,
especially because you know, something that I kind of pointed
out as an audity about Nedmot is how far he
stands off the three point line. And at times, like
he'll catch a grenade and he'll be like at thirty
feet and it's like, okay, like you haven't made any
shots from that depth. But and it allows him to
attack a longer close out and if sure paid a
dividend when he made you know, the game winner from
that depth and the playoffs agg on my face with
that one. But he doesn't take a lot of movement threes.
I will say that, like there was a point in
the game against Canada where I had looked up a
number because against Zone he'd actually moved into the corner
from the baseline and made a three, and I was like,
I don't know if I saw him do that all
season for the Pacers. So the movement shooting aspect of it.
He's not going to be on the same level as
Tyree sat in order to just flip flop them. But
in terms of, like, you know, having Tyree's being able
to do more out of the pick and roll and
Andrew being you know, a reliable catch and shoot shooter,
I think that that's possible. In addition, Tom continuing to
get you know, similar volume of ball screens, it's still
considerably less than what Tyree's gets, and being able to
have his own opportunity to run the offense too at times.
I think a lot of it's just going to depend
on what type of coverage they're saying.
Speaker 1: To be quite honest, what did you make of Bene
mcmatherin season pre shoulder injury and what is now his
pathway to fitting in on a team that has this
version of Andrew m hard in addition to Tyres Halbert,
not to mention Pascal Siakam who eats the ball, and
then of course TJ McConnell also getting his extension.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to be clear, I don't speak for
the Pacers here. This isn't something that they've said public
layer to anybody, But like if it were me after
the playoffs, I would feel like I have three rock
solid starters, and Tyreese Nemhard and Pascal Siakam. I have
a little bit more question marks at the other two spots.
Clearly Miles Turner on this roster, given the personnel that
are there, there's nobody, you know, there's not an in
house replacement for Miles Turner, and Miles did a lot
of good things for them offensively.
Speaker 3: We might touch on him later, but.
Speaker 2: Like with regards to Ben, I think that there's a
tendency to turn Andrew Nemoart and Bennettict Mathern weirdly into
the next Turner and Sabonus and make this contentious. I
don't really see as though that's the spot that Ben
would necessarily be coming for, because we just saw the
things that happened to tyres in the playoffs, the exaggerated
coverages that he saw in the way that Andrew Nemore
answered some of those. For Ben, if he's going to
leap frog over somebody, I would more so see it
being Aaron Neiesmith and Ben becoming the starter there, because
as many good things as Aaron does, you get into
a place in the playoffs, where you know, over eighty
five percent of Aaron shots were zero dribble threes. Of
his threes were zero dribble threes. He's not somebody who
can really recapture his own rhythm with a one dribble
side step three. And then he did make several pull
up twos in Game seven against the Knicks, but you know,
he made like twenty of those total in the regular season. Like,
if you run him aggressively off the line, he doesn't
necessarily have a counter. Ben, to his credit, has the
crystallized skill and that there are shots that he can
get to that nobody on the roster can get to.
So the question for Ben becomes can he make enough
strides defensively to warrant you not playing Aaron E.
Speaker 3: Smith.
Speaker 2: I have some questions about that to this current point
in time, because in games when they needed to do that,
like they started Ben, Andrew and Tyree against the Dallas Matvericks.
That was a game that they won, but you could
see early on like not necessarily ideal to be having
Ben guarding Luca or Kyrie irving in the same way
that you would feel more comfortable with it being you know,
Andrew and aaron Ne Smith. So Ben a lot of
it defensively, point of attack wise, like his screen navigation
is still pretty rough. He veers way too early. Like
you look at the numbers. If it's Ben Sheppard at
the point of attack with Miles Turner, they allow like
zero point eight points per chance.
Speaker 3: When it's Ben atic Matheren, it's like one.
Speaker 2: Point one two one, Like it's a dramatic swing for
Miles Turner when it's Ben at the point of attack
having to actually guard over screens. But Ben is okay
in certain situations. He's better on ball than he is
off ball, and that's where the awareness things happen, because
I genuinely projecting feel and projecting awareness, particularly on the
defensive end, is a very tough thing to do. It's
possible that Ben could come back and things really click
for him, and he does have the athleticism, he has
the tenacity that you could be like, hey, look there
is a defender in there. But if he continues to
have some of the coverage lapses, some of you know,
can be getting cut by Max Screws two times on
the same possession, and then some of the point of
attack stuff that you already need to relieve from Tyris
haliburtn it becomes it becomes trickier. And then also, like
the impact numbers weren't great for Ben on the year,
and Ben's usage swings wildly when he plays with Tyree's
versus when he doesn't. It's like twenty six percent without
Tyres and like twenty to below with Tyres. So in
some ways, I think it's just more natural for him
to be that six man score getting to play with
either tj or Ben Shepherd who can defend at the
point of attack, where you can funnel more offense into
the hands of Ben, and more importantly, you can run
more plays for Ben because Ben plays much better out
of plays than he does reads currently, And that's another thing.
He needs to make quicker decisions. He needs to find
the passing avenues when he gets to the rim because
the league is being called differently. He doesn't get the
same calls that he got as a rookie when he
gets to the rim, and he draws that physicality that
didn't happen last season, and teams know we can load
up on him at the room because he literally had
the lowest pass out rate on drives off any guard
in the NBA last year it's like twenty something percent.
So those types of things, and I want to be clear,
like I think people think sometimes I'm too hard on Ben.
Speaker 3: There again, he was one.
Speaker 2: He was the best isolation scorer and he doesn't get
as tough as assignments as Pascal as Tyres does, but overall,
like just on a points per possession standpoint, he was
the best isolation scorer on the team. He can shoot
over double teams in Toronto. There's some incredible shot making there.
And I can definitely look at spots in the playoffs
and be like, that's a spot where Benedict Madden would
have helped them. But in terms of him like taking
the next step and entering into the starting lineup, that's
going to have to be a prove it thing. Like
I don't think it's going to be the same as
last year when he and Obi Toppen kind of or
christened does the early season starters and then it was
like it was theirs to lose, which eventually did happen.
I think this case is going to have to be
for Ben, like what he does at training camp, what
he does in preseason, the early seas, and for him
to actually earn that spot, otherwise I would expect him
to stick with the same starting line up his last year.
Speaker 1: I guess they'll run into this issue with Jaris Walker
as well. But when you're juggling, the expectations of progress
isn't linear. So even throwing out the Eastern Conferent Finals apperiance,
this is a team that's trying to win. How much
of like a runway are they going to be prepared
to give Ben mcmather and when the thing that they
probably need the most is not what he does best.
And then I don't mean to make this a Mathin
or Shepherd thing, but like when you have Shepherd who
defends like he is an emotional attachment to the outcome
of every single defensive possession, Like, is there just a
chance that for what the Pacers are trying to do
this season, that Shephard winds up being like a better
option or more valuable or just more important to them?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I mean it's interesting because like I don't want again,
I don't want to be too hard on Ben because
I do think that Ben exists someone in liminal space.
I like to compare him to a trapeze artist. I
do think that there were times where he was trying
to make the correct read, it just wasn't always the
correct read, like go the wrong behind him. He just
hasn't quite grasped on to the next one quite yet.
So that's why it's difficult to say. And like you
just said, like Ben Sheppard was a part of the
Amien rotation, I don't think it's necessarily going to be
a case of Ben versus Ben either, because I'm pretty
confident that they would play Mathern off the bench for
that scoring punch. But if they're willing to go ten,
which there's reasons to think playing ten is hard in
the NBA, but there's reason to think that this Pacer
team in particular, if a team can do it, it's
them because they really tried to manage minutes number one.
That's something that Pascal's agent talked about that Pascal liked
that you know, he wasn't playing for Nick Nurse. He
didn't say Nick Nurse, but you know he wasn't playing
the heavy minute load anymore. That they do monitor that
the Pacers play a ton of press defense, they play
very fast, that Behooves playing deeper into the roster, it's
more going to be like, I think the tenth man
decision between Ben Shepherd and Jarris Walker, and when you
come to that, like Ben Shepherd, despite the fact that
he's not really going to be a player who shines
in Summer League because of what he does offensively, defensively,
he was making a lot of plays already, where like
if it was based on defensive merit right now, right
here today, without seeing whatever other progress has been made,
I would still say that that Bend's ahead of Jaris
defensively in terms of being able to plug him into
the team right here, right now.
Speaker 1: What is the I'm fascinated by Ben Shephard. There's like
always there was a Summer League play that stood out
to me in twenty twenty three. I pulled you in
the outline the play where he is denying an entry
pass from Brook Lopez then steals it in the series
against the Bucks. It just lives rent free in my
head for some reason. What is like, like, what is
the the ninetieth percentile outcome for a player like that?
Because the energy that he gives you on defense, but
there's also some discipline mixed in and you just he's
a type of player for me anyway, you watch him
and you feel him, It's like, what does that like
do for this pace receiver? What does that mean to
the pacers going forward?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Defensively, he and them hard are at the top
in terms of point of attack defenders. And then Ben
Shephard is very good at both holding his ground and
covering a lot of ground on a close out. He
can cover a long close out with his quick feet
more so than other people can, and then he can
hold his spot on a veer switch and we'll actually
like get in run the scene and box that guy
out or be able to front and really scrape and claw.
He projects his presence bigger than he is defensively, and
I'm sure he'll continue to add strength he's to his
frame as he goes, given that he was a rookie
last year. But for him, I think more so it
speaks to I think, I don't know how you are,
but there's like two archetypes of players in the playoffs
that I think really work. And one of them is
a two guard who can run offense, hence Andrew DeMar
and the other one is a movement shooter who can guard.
Once a Contavious Caldwell Pope a Danny Green, and I
think that Danny Green's kind of what you're hoping.
Speaker 3: For with Ben Shepperd.
Speaker 2: Like that model because Ben isn't going to be a
frequent driver. You know, you're always going to kind of
grin when Danny Green had to take more than about
two dribbles. But can Ben Shephard be the movement shooter
that he was projected to be coming out of Belmont?
He only made one three in the series against Boston.
When he's playing more minutes, can he start making three?
And also will he start taking them? Because this is
an interesting juxtaposition between Ben Shepperd and Benedict Matheren.
Speaker 3: Ben Sheppard's very.
Speaker 2: Easy to plug into a scheme. He's going to keep
the ball moving, He's going to continue advantages. He's going
to crash really hard on offensive rebounds. That has you know,
he doesn't always come up with the rebound, but it
does have effects on on their defense headed the other
way and things that they want to do there. But
there is a stat that I think is pree telling
and that he almost had more passes out of the
corners than shots from the corners. So like he'll he'll
catch a skip pass and the pacers very much want
to trigger the extra pass out of skip passes, but
he doesn't always you know, read that X out rotation
and know when he should put up a shot. So
he's so intent on playing within the team scheme and
playing for his teammates that he doesn't always rightfully look
for his own shot. Whereas Ben you know, is going
to drive into a crowd come you know, hell or
high water, and he doesn't always see those passing avenues.
So each of them provide a little bit different thing,
and definitely you have a place for both. But I
think at my high end, you got to where Ben
Sheppard wanted to be. He'd be that type of a
player that it's like, yeah, as a role player, I
won in my rotation because potentially, maybe you know, he
could be that facsimilar eventually of you know, being somebody
who could goes to switch, also be able to defend
at the point of attack and do a lot of
little other quiet things, you know. Rick Carlisle said of
him that he starred in his role for them during
the playoffs. He a big, always up for, big proponent
of Ben Sheppard.
Speaker 4: Whenever you hear him talk about him.
Speaker 1: I was listening to something earlier this summer. You were
on Knocked on Pacers with Tony East, and I think
you said that the Pacers have a Jaris Walker sized
hole on the defensive end. Can Jaris Walker be based
off what you've seen or what you project forward what
this team needs defensively?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think that there was a lot
of criticism that he wasn't in the rotation of the
degree that he was, and I think that they were
trying to teach better habits and then threw no a
fall of his own. They traded for Obie Top, and
they traded for Pascal Siakam, and now they're trying to
make a position change for him where he's going to
play more at the three and much too Walkers at it.
He had a hitch in his shot at Summer League
a year ago. I think some of that had to
do with the elbow, and then also he was leaning
to his left on his release on like almost every shot.
His three point shot really turned around in the G League.
You could see that mechanically he had made strides there
very quickly, and the three fell for him at Summer
League this year as well. So that makes it more
feasible to be playing him at the three, where there
might be more opportunities for him. I do think it
was very telling this summer though, that you know, Gennaro
Pargo talked about it. Rick Carlisle talked about it publicly
on the radio that they were going to be looking
for jarrifs, you know, high motor rebounding, being able to
take on a defensive matchup conditioning. It wasn't going to
be about, you know, how many points he scored or
how many fancy plays he made. It was going to
be looking about stuff there and that you know, you're
also seeing like Pascal Siakam. And I'm not saying there
was a tent behind this from Pascal, but Pascal working
with him at his home in Orlando and kind of
recording and talking about like, you know, to all the
young players, if you get sent down to the G League,
show them why you don't believe in the G League.
If you're playing in garbage time, you've got to play
hard during car which time to prove why you should
be in there during regular time, because if you're not
doing it, then how are they going to trust you?
You know, in LA game situation for you to be
out there and to hear Rick talk about it that
there was kind of an expectation from Jaris that you know,
he was going to play, and the fact that those
things were being said publicly kind of raised my antenna
a little bit because when you're willing to go on
the record with some of those things on the on
the radio, and then some of them were still showing
up in Summer League when Jarris is on the margin
of the rotation, like he made he had good rebounding
numbers in game five, but also some of the same
stuff was showing up where you know he's ducking under
a total action. There's one play where in transition you
know he's reaching, he's doing stuff with his hands more
than so than sliding latterly, and then telling Lee on
the very next possession he's picking up full court and
actually changing the direction of the ball a few times.
So his body of work to this point hasn't necessarily
reflected his body size. There was also some interesting like
matchup stuff going on where like he was picking up
Rob Dillingham at the point of attack where Ben Sheppard
was a low man, kind of like testing his ability
to be sticking with guards and seeing how he would
handle switching. I think he's kind of like Pascal. He's
better at switching out to the ball and lake clock
situations and potentially chasing over screens. He's a bigger body too,
but I think he's going to have more proof of
product to show in preseason to think that, like I said,
that he would automatically be pushing Ben Sheppard out of
the rotation despite the fact that like.
Speaker 3: He is a player that.
Speaker 2: If he could dial up like I don't want to
necessarily say the word effort, but for lack of better terms,
you know, the high motor, the conditioning aspect of it,
that could potentially, you know, rectify some of their problems
out there. But where necessarily are the minute's going to
come from? Is the thing for him?
Speaker 1: Should there be a concern at all about what he
becomes or is able to do offensively if they kind
of view him as the day Facto three where you
already mentioned just the improved jump shot, and he took
on a permanent basis, way more threes than I would
have thought as a rookie. I know he didn't play
it ton, but almost six per thirty six I never
would have I would have smashed the under on that
if he gave me that. But like, if you're going
to be in that role some of the stuff that
he does best, like the passing, if the ball is
not gonna be in his hands, how valuable is that?
Is there a way for them to unlock any of
that when he's playing the three, or to even help
unlock more rim pressure because he did not get to
the basket a ton last year, Like what does that like? Again?
Just the initial question, just like is there any concern
about what does he become offensively if he is viewed
as I don't eve want to call him a three,
but more of a wing who's gonna play in a
lot of lineups where there were maybe two or three
ball handlers in front of him in the pecking order.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's the thing.
Speaker 2: Like Summer League, there was probably two more too much
point jarrifs for my liking, And in part that I
had to do with the construction of the roster. Quinton
Jackson's like a dynamic slashing guard and Tristan Newton really
had to adapt from Yukon's playbook to playing the more
you know, processing on the fly style that the Pacers
made that put the all ball in the hands of
Jaris more often, just to have a lot of lead
playmakers on that roster, as handle wasn't really taking him anywhere,
and at times when he was running like high pick
and rolls, he wasn't necessarily making the right reads with
the tag, and I think he did end up finishing
with more turnovers than assists. He got to the ratio
of shots at the rim versus the runners was better
in Summer League than what it was in the half
court with the G League and with the Pacers, so
he didn't always he didn't finish particularly well on layups
when he got there, but he was getting there more often,
which is something. And I know that Pascal was kind
of working with him on certain moves to be making
in the post, so he's not relying on the fadeaways
quite as much, and I think that's that's something that
would matter. But overall to his role, I feel better
about him playing the wing, like you said, than I
would have a year ago, but I didn't get to
see him do that many wing things, like some of
the stuff like That's why I think preseason is still
gonna be really valuable for him because I want to
see him do some of that with Tyrese or Andrew
or TJ on the floor.
Speaker 3: Where like you can put him at the wing, you
can run a pick.
Speaker 2: And roll between you know, Tyres and Miles and maybe
if Tyresee is getting blitzed, you can throw it to Jaris.
And he has excellent soft touch. He can throw off
hand floaters where he can short the role and enter
that pass to the big and being that type of
a connective passer in that way rather than having to
be a lead initiator. I don't know what it is, because,
like you know, the roster in the G League wasn't
really set up for him to necessarily have that role
or even to be playing at the four all the
time either. He had to do a lot of ball
handling there too. It's almost like he plays with more
pepinist step when he gets to do it. So sometimes
I wonder if they're like at Summer League, allowing him
to do some of that to try to, you know,
potentially coax some of the other stuff that they want
to see. For lack of better terms, but like I
would like to see less of the pick and roll
ball handling, especially given the roster construction that they have
and just get to observe him more in Summer league
see what progress the defense continues to make. You know,
he did a three week training regimen with Jim Boyle
and headed into Summer League, and he continue to make
conditioning progress. And one other thing that I will say
is much like Pascal, the scheme that Jari's played in
Houston was a really big adjustment with pre rotations, very
aggressive ball screen coverages versus playing with the Pacers where
they aim to not be overzealous with the low man
at all. They were staying home a lot more often
and what that was called for him to do. So
as he continues to have another full training camp, we'll
see where he's at at the end of preseason. I
still just I'm not entirely sure where his role is
going to be coming out of Summer League. I think
I needed to see more defensively for me to pencil
him in as a guaranteed, you know, tenth man right
off the bat.
Speaker 1: Any early impressions or strong thoughts on Johnny Furfey.
Speaker 2: Johnny Furfey is somebody that like kind of the theme
I felt like for the Pacers this offseason is you know,
continuity for one, but they also continue to build out
their strengths necessarily than addressing their weaknesses. There was times
where he held up better defensively when he got targeted
in the game against Denver late than I expected him to.
He uses his linked Okay, that being said, there were
times where he was giving up mismatches under the rim
and they just didn't have the ball handlers to enter
it there where he was really getting buried. And you know,
he's a teenager, so adding strength to his frame is
going to be something, and I think it kind of
behooves the Pacers because there was clear ways that he
would fit into their offense. You know, his athleticism. Obi
was the first player in team history to make one
hundred threes and have one hundred completed dunks in the
same season. If Johnny Furfy is somebody that like his
athleticism off two feet and what they were running lob
sets for him. And also just you know, more of
his threes not really above the break. A lot of
them were stands still in the corners at Kansas and
somewhat at Summer League. But I can see really easy
ways that he can plug in and fit with what
they do. I don't think the opportunities are going to
be there for him this year, but that's kind of okay,
you know, give him a year of strength training, let
him get their reps in the G League, and see
where things are in a year. So the pick makes
sense given the style of play. He's very dynamic in transition.
That showed up in Summer league as well. But I
don't think that there's necessarily going to be a spot
for him unless there's you know, considerable injury stuff that
they have to weather next year.
Speaker 1: What should we expect from the odd be fascinated by
what the secondary from court rotation is going to be
for this team. Do we just pencil in, all right,
it's going to be Isaiah Jackson and Obi top and
is just soaking up those minutes. Or do we see
more of Obi Topping at the five or maybe even
more of Siakham as the low big without Obie Toppings
where that would allow Jaris to slide up to the four,
where maybe he might make more sense defensively or offensively.
Just what do you kind of make of that? You know, again,
without having seen games from this coming season.
Speaker 2: My expectation given what the coaching staff said last year,
is that it will be more of the same this
year and that people are going to compete for spots. So,
you know, Isaiah Jackson they had under team control. Jalen
Smith did end up leaving in free agency, but at
the beginning of the year, Jalen Smith had won the
backup five position. He had, you know, some struggles and
there was reasons why they went to Isaiah in the playoffs,
but they let it be who won the minutes and
that's who they played. So I think it'll be between
you know, Isaiah Jackson and James Wiseman during training camp,
see what James Wiseman can bring to them in terms
of which one of them is the backup big and
then it will likely be matchup dependent and made a
lot of sense in the Bucks series for them to
now be playing Isaiah or Jalen. The Bucks were playing
smaller with Danilo Gallinaure and with Bobby Portis doing stuff
and spread lineups, so they were just like, you know what,
we're going to go small to and we're going to
outrun you because we're not you know, we're not necessarily
getting a lot of stops trying to fend in space,
so that's what we'll go to. Then you saw in
the next round they were playing bigger sometimes with Isaiah,
Pascal and Obi out there all at the same time.
So I think I would expect it to be very
fluid in terms of which way they go with Weather
playing big. And when I say big, I don't think
they're going to play two centers at the same time,
but big in terms of like maybe Pascal or jaris
playing at the three and giving them more size at
the two forward positions, or if they're willing to go
really small with you know, Obi and Pascal out there.
Speaker 1: Are you ready to enter the cookie cutter portion of
this year's podcast?
Speaker 3: Of course?
Speaker 2: Of course this is the part I prepared for in advance.
Speaker 1: What is is or is there anything about this team
that is flying under the radar not receiving enough attention
that you think needs to be discussed? You know?
Speaker 2: I mean, I also use some cookie cutter cliches here,
but I mean I do think that there is something
to continuity and that there's been a whole lot of
wholesomeness going on around the Pacers this summer, like the
fact that that entire team showed up to watch Tyres
and Andrew Nemhard in Las Vegas. The fact that they're
all gathered this many weeks in advance at Pascal's house
that they you know, there is some out of motivation there.
Because one thing that I would like to say, I
don't want to relitigate the playoff run again. But the
Pacers don't have as many conflicting goals to manage next
season as some of the other teams in the East two.
And that doesn't necessarily mean that the Pacers are going
to be a better team, but it means in the
regular season, like when you look at Cleveland, for instance,
I know you already did the Cleveland look ahead, but
justin I feel like, you know, Kenny Atkinson's job is
really to raise the ceiling of that offense. So you
may have to do some things during the regular season
for the sake of the playoffs that may not lead
to a night to night win, but might pay dividends
for you later. Same with the Milwaukee Bucks. They can't
get to the playoffs again and not have Damian Lillard
and Yannas Santa Tookoompo in the playoffs. They're going to
need to manage that throughout the season. The Pacers play
a very devastating style of basketball in the regular season,
where they again they pressed on more than four hundred
possession in the playoffs, and that was more than any
team in Synergy's fifteen year database. So if you're facing
full court pressure, which they seem very committed to, you're
facing full court pressure, you're facing the pressure that they
and that full court pressure that they're playing on defense
feeds into their offensive identity too. You're facing them, you know,
being one of the fastest teams in the NBA in
terms of average time to shoot. They're gonna play deep,
They're not going to play their top guys the heavy,
heavy minutes that some of the other teams do. That's
a lot of things that I don't think necessarily be
considered when people are paging how good this team could
be because they're not. I think some of it's getting
too complated with the playoffs, like when you're just looking
at can they compete for home court advantage? Given the
other teams in the East made very splashy moves, I think,
is it guaranteed that they'll be a.
Speaker 3: Top four team?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: But can they compete for one of those seeds. Yeah,
I definitely think so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're like their style is grading in a way
too on the other team just because they're so And
it's as you mentioned before, it's not just transition. It's
even if it's like if it's semi transition, just in
the half court are so quick that it just grades
on defenses. And that's a really I don't I did
not give that enough thought, but that's it does feel
like it's a recipe to just win a bunch of
regular season games, maybe more than you would expect, even
if you don't believe that this is a top end
postseason team.
Speaker 2: Like I said, even then, the fact that like I
feel like they had some degree of proof of concept
in that you know, they still had one hundred and
twenty offensive rating, They still maintained their identity, and that
was a big thing that I was going to be
watching in the playoffs. Can they still play fast? Can
they still get in transition? And then pressing was a
big part of how they were able to artificially maintain
that in ways that you know, we don't always see.
The cliche is the game slows down in the playoffs. Well,
it didn't necessarily for the Pacers. So the fact that
they were able to maintain that, the fact that they
were in the positive with Tyres and Pascalen Tyres really
wasn't himself after that injury in the regular season nor
completely in the playoffs minus you know, I felt like
he was starting to get there right before he re
injured himself.
Speaker 3: I think that stuff bodes well in their.
Speaker 2: Favor, and I think that they're going to be highly motivated,
and I think on a night to night basis, let's
get be a tough team to play.
Speaker 1: I feel like Mott, I don't know if this is
under the radar, especially because you mentioned a couple of times.
My under the radar question for them is can they
like materially improve the defensive rebounding. We're like a big
part of what might boost their defenses if they could
just end possessions after a misshot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a huge thing, right because I will account
her and say they still rank twenty second in first
chance defense. So it's kind of like the Oscar Tashiboy
conundrum fans last year or was like, just play Oscar.
Their rebounding is terrible. It's like, Okay, but you as
to manufacturer enough stops to actually get the rebound, like
and Oscar wasn't necessarily enabling you to do that, especially
against spread lineups. So the defensive rebounding thing definitely. You know,
Game five against the New York Knicks, they gave up
twenty offensive rebounds. Isaiah Hergenstein had twelve on his own,
and you know, not exactly flattering that the Knicks played smaller,
removed pressures Atua and started Duce McBride. They had a
smaller starting lineup than the Pacers did, and the Pacers
still gave up that many rebounds and got a you know,
one of the enduring that I take with me from
that playoffs is wide at the end of Game four,
Miles is cross matched out onto Jason Tatum. He had
given up some self created threes to Tatum. Tatum, I
think only made ten during the entire postseason run and
made two just in that game against the Pacers and
then also had some drives against Miles. So Aaron He's
was like, oh, you know, holy crap, Miles is on
an island with Jason Tatum and he goes switch to blitz,
goes and blitzes that and as soon as he does,
then Andrew Memore is over there and it's a two
on one, you know, on the offensive glass for the Celtics.
Plus Miles has switched out to the perimeter, which means
You're big isn't under there to be able to get
the rebound, so they couldn't switch, And then if they
have to commit two to the ball, they're even more
vulnerable on the glass. So like this is another double
edged sword. Because I've talked about like I would really
like to see them implement some more zone. I think
zone would be to their benefit. I have a wrinkle
in mind that I would like to see them use.
But when you play zone, your offensive, your defensive rebounding
tends to get worse. So can they afford to you know,
it's the opposite of the oscar if you maybe manufacture
some more stops, but can you get the rebound out
of that. That's something that they have to consider and balance.
And that was in part why after the playoffs, Like
I think a lot of the stuff that Miles could
be criticized for in the past, he really you know,
pushed back against during the regular season, and then when
the playoffs happened, some of it, especially in that series
against Boston, what he did against certain switches against Derek White,
the fact that he had more turnovers. He led the
team in turnovers, had more turnovers than three point attempts
in a series where at times he was defended by
Al Horford, and Drop wasn't necessarily picking and popping, kind
of inserting himself in strange places, trying to post against
Jason Tatum when Tatum was guarding him at the five
with some of his cross matches. And then the fact
that they really couldn't go to the switching scheme with
him at the five, tried to go with Obi toppin
at the five, Obie gets targeted, Miles goes back in,
and then you're seeing that rebounding issue. I had more
questions about him after that series than I expected to
have going into it, because I just thought, you know,
Miles was you know, Tyres and Miles were the most
effective pick and roll combination in the NBA last year.
He did more aganst switches, he was hitting that mid
range shot against the Blitz. Defensively, you know, he can
be an effectively seger and protector. Although I do think
he's shown some slippage there and the rebounding is what
the rebounding is. So that's something that they're going to
have to consider as like you said, the next year
of Miles Turner being in a contract year and given
that they gave out a lot of contract extensions to
several players this year.
Speaker 1: So yeah, look, we didn't really talk about Miles like specifically.
I know you've mentioned him a few times, but that
I feel like that's going to become. It won't be
under the radar, but that's going to become. We got
like a year hiatus from like the Miles Turner rumors,
and now if it's like they're going to fire back
up again this coming season, yeah, I mean, I.
Speaker 2: Don't know how much they will, because I mean it
is a special thing that this is going to be
his tenth year with the same team. A lot of
players don't accomplish doing that, and like I want to
make clear for fans that I really don't think that.
You know, Kevin Pritchard and and Chad Ye Cannon and
Ted wu were in a room and Kelly fross Coff
and we're like, oh, well, we would like to retain
TJ McConnell Andrew Nemore, and we didn't realize that this
could potentially affect our ability to sign Miles Turner and
Benedict Matheren later on, Like, I'm sure there's some planning
place for this in addition to them having contracts on
their books that you know, if they do want to
do a consolidation trade at some point.
Speaker 3: They need to be able to have those.
Speaker 2: And also just continuing to evaluate Miles on this roster,
because there is the tiny piece in the back of
my head where I think to myself, like you can
see the numbers for Miles in the pick and roll
when you look at second spectrum of what he was
doing as a screener before Rick and Tyrees got there,
versus what he did as a screener when Rick and
Tyree's did, And like, that's no knock on him. Tyre's
is a great pick and roll creator, so is t
J McConnell. Andrew Nemar very good too. But like, can
you get that boost out of another player if if
you have that same arsenal of creation creation on ball
and is it worth it weathering some of the other things.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Maybe the better answer is fine players that you know,
there isn't an upgrade for Miles on the market.
Speaker 3: There isn't.
Speaker 2: I will admit, there's not one readily on the trade
market that I know of who's available. There's not one
on the roster, And maybe you're just trying to better
support some of what we saw prop up for Miles.
Then I should have pointed out Miles was dealing with
a back injury in like Game four as well, and
I'm sure limited to him to an extent, but those
were other things that you saw throughout that series. So
I don't know that that would necessarily be something that
they do in season. I think with Miles and what
they have there, that that's something that you'd probably be
looking at next summer.
Speaker 1: I actually think, and I tell people this all the time,
is that because you have the entire year to get
out of the luxury tax, that I would expect them
to resign them even if it takes them in and
they will figure it out later. And I also think
you look at some of the you mentioned consolidation trade
definitely or just you can now use the mid level
exception as a trade exception obi top and I think
will still slide into someone's mid level next year if
they need a clear salary for Miles Turner exactly, and
I just think he's still too mission critical to what
this team wants to do, and especially if you want
to have a respectable defense. However, this team is fully healthy,
this is the scenario you have to narrow down the
rotation to ten players. What is the top ten rotation?
It does feel like they have kind of just you know,
you could order them minutes differently, but it feels like
they have nine locks for a top ten rotation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think that I would expect that
the starting lineup is going to start out being the
same still Andrew Tyrese, Aaron, Pascal and Miles and then
depending upon you know, what Ben does, maybe there's room
for Ben to assend if he really makes strides there.
And like I said, for me, it would be looking
at Aaron's spot, not necessarily Andrews because of the other
things that Andrew brings. But if not, then I think
you're looking at the bench.
Speaker 3: TJ.
Speaker 2: Benedict Matheren, Obi Toppin, Isaiah Jackson is probably the big
that I would lean to currently, and then you're looking
at if you're going to play ten deep either Ben
Sheppard or Jarris Walker, and currently I would think it
would be Ben Shepard. But again I'm very open to
seeing what Jaris does during preseason, and I hope, because
I do think that he can answer some of their
problems and balance out some of the issues they have there,
that we see some progress there from him.
Speaker 1: I know it's just to some extent matchup depending, but
if you had to guess what their most used closing
lineup ends up being, is it just what you expect
their starting lineup to be, the version that has our
Nie Smith in it instead of benecmather Yeah, I think they.
Speaker 2: Played one hundred They've played one hundred and sixty seven
crunch time minutes, I believe with Tyreeves after a crying
Pascal and about fifty of them were.
Speaker 3: Just the starters.
Speaker 2: I think that the flex piece could be mathering there
if Matherin's having, you know, a really good game. We
saw them close games with him against the Milwaukee Bucks
last year. He's played fantastic play against the Bucks during
the regular season matchup depending, he.
Speaker 1: Looked like the defensive player of the year that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he had some he had some good moments there
for them. Defensively and on the glass. He's another person
that like maybe you address some of the defensive rebounding.
There's times where he can look like he's embodied by,
you know the spirit of Lance Stevenson when he's crashing
from the wings. And you know a lot of times
the very good teams in the playoffs, you can see
like wing players tend to level up, like Paul George
did this for the Pacers in the playoffs. He would
up his rebounding numbers, Andrew Wiggins what he did for
the Golden State Warriors. You know, I have some hope
that there is more of that within Benedict Matherin, and
that could be something that you know, size for position wise,
maybe he brings a little bit more up to as
well in certain lineups. So I would expect it to
either be the starters or somebody subbing out in place
and ben going in in that group.
Speaker 1: Is there a weirdo, funky, offbeat lineup you would like
to see this team roll out?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So mine aren't necessarily funky. It's more so like
what I will learn from these groupings. So it's anytime
that you play two of Jari's Passcalen Obie with Miles Turner.
They did some of that against Phoenix because it allowed
them to play Obi top and opposite of Grayson Allen.
Pascal could check Kevin Durrant, Miles obviously opposite of Nurkic.
There's certain matchups where that's feasible for you, or if
you want to play Jaris at the three with either
Passcal or Obi and Miles. I really want to see
can they play bigger at the forward positions than what
we've seen to this point. Last year, I think they
were a positive five point five, but that was only.
Speaker 4: Sixty three minutes that they attempted to do that.
Speaker 2: The next one for me is gond totinue to be
the small ball with Obi and pascalach just because it
was such a small sample size and they were very
defendant on outscoring opponents. They did so, but their defensive
rating was like one hundred and twenty.
Speaker 4: Two during those minutes during the regular season.
Speaker 2: And then lastly, Tyres and Ben and Andrew playing together
at the same time. To this point, Tyres and Ben
on the floor just as a two man unit, they
have not won those minutes. In Ben's rookie or sophomore season.
I still think that more. It's kind of the overall
better fit just at the two next to Tyres. But
I'd like to see, you know, those are the two
guys that they drafted. Ben was their highest draft pick,
you know, in like three decades at the time when
they selected him. How successful can you be with all
three of them out there at the same time. So
mine are kind of more mission critical than they are
funky lineups, but you always come up with the best
ones to do. So I'm very curious to know what
you have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm trying to find a way to get five
bigs on the court at once, maybe four. So let's
go Miles Turner, Siakam Jarvis Walker of course, then we'll
go Johnny Furfey, and then because I care about defense,
we could put Andrew m Hard instead of Tyre's Haliburton
in at the one.
Speaker 2: And I say, you might have to play TJ just
because TJ like is gonna be able to stir the
drink without necessarily having to have Like he makes sense
of weird spacing, like only TJ could make sense of
TJ's spacing when TJ's off the ball, Like that's like
his unique skill. So you literally, you know, might need
the flight of the bumblebee master to come out there
and make sense.
Speaker 1: Of the Only problem with that is, I feel like
you would have fewer pathways to putting the ball in
Jarvis Walker's hands while having three bigs around him if
Andron m Hard isn't on the.
Speaker 3: C I'm not sure that's the worst thing the worst.
Speaker 1: So honestly, I won't be picky. You could put whoever
you wanted to one as long as the four quote unquote.
I know Jaris Walker and Furfey and even siakamarn't traditionally huge,
but give me four bigs at once plus whoever the
fuck at the one, and I'll be content. As we
record this on September the seventeenth, and this is one
of the rare ones that will be going up immediately
the day after Caitlin. Their win total is set at
forty seven and a half. Would you take the over
of the under on that?
Speaker 2: You know last year, I was like, it was a
rare instance of me being very optimistic, and I was
like telling most people that I talked about, I think
they can get to forty four wins, even with me
being like after a preseason, I was like, I'm kind
of nervous about this defense. I don't know what's going
to happen, but I think they could get to forty four.
They exceeded even my optimistic expectations. I think that they
can take the over on forty seven because of the
things that we were talking about during the regular season.
Speaker 3: I think they can get there.
Speaker 2: When Tyre's, Pascal and Miles were healthy, they posted a
win rate of you know, zero point five to seven
five they went nineteen and fourteen, So that's that's right
on the bubble last year of being you know, in
the five to four hole. Forty seven wins, forty eight
wins gets you at home court advantage. Last year, other
teams in the East did get better, presumably in relation
to themselves.
Speaker 3: But I think the Pacers can.
Speaker 4: Take the over there essentially if they stay healthy.
Speaker 1: Where do you see them kind of stacking up relative
to the rest of the East, Where I think the
discussion is mostly centered on Boston, New York, Philly, and Cleveland,
and then Milwaukee is like, oh, we could see those
teams finishing in any kind of order, or if you
want a pencil, Boston for first place, which feels a
little weird just giving them porzingis injury Horford's old and
is this team gonna be as invested in the regular season?
But whatever, If it's like those five teams are predominantly
the focus, then Indy and Miami and Orlando or mentions
like oh they could be frisky or INDI will be
super fun. I guess that the five teams that are
talked about the most in the East. Do you see
a pathway to Indie kind of breaking into that mold
and you were you already mentioned before like finishing with
a home court advantage spot.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it's potential.
Speaker 2: I mean, you can't deny what the core for net
rating is for the Milwaukee Bucks. When Yannis and Chris
Middleton and brook Lopez and Damian Lillard are out there,
that's very formidable. But I think that they're gonna have
other things to balance, and I think that there also
is a potential where it's just like at one point
in time, there might just be too much wear and care,
Like I think brook Lopez's game is going to age well,
but that is a consideration, and I do think that
they're going to have other things that they like what
seed the Milwaukee Bucks are doesn't really matter. They just
need to get to the finish line and be healthy.
That's what they needed against the Pacers in that playoff series.
And I think that there is other counters that they
obviously would have made in addition to just you know,
having Jannis, who is arguably maybe the best player in
the Eastern Conference. As far as the other teams, I
think maybe the one. I think you could probably pencil
the others as being more complete to a certain extent.
I'm very rock solid on Boston. I was rock solid
on Boston last summer. I really liked the Knicks roster.
That was the opponent that I was most concerned about
playing the Pacers if they would have been at full strength,
just because of the rebounding element, and then also now
they have even more defensive versatility. I knew that John
Brunton was going to be a very tough matchup because
as good as Andrew Memoart is, he had one of
the lowest blow by rates in the NBA last year.
You really have to have link to guard John Brunton
despite how small he is, because I am not a
separation he creates. So I really like the Knicks there,
Philadelphia I might be a little bit lower on than
consensus I think in some way, and then Cleveland's probably
the big one. Like I can be talked into all
those teams being better than the Pacers when everything's said
and done, but I think Cleveland's gonna have to show
me something that their offensive ceiling can be higher than
what they've shown at this point. And I know that
they had a lot to do with injuries last year,
and Darius Garland wasn't himself half their roster, you know,
not necessarily playing at the end of things, but the
fact that they couldn't crack one hundred points for one
hundred possessions against that Orlando defense is something that matters.
And I do think that they have, like strangely, a
lot of specialists on that team, which is a good
thing to have, but there's also times where it's like,
because they have so many specialists, their offense can become
somewhat predictable because so much of it does need to
be initiated by Garland or Mitchell, and then Mitchell can
kind of I don't want to say tunnel vision, but
it becomes like he feels like he has to take
all of that on because they don't have as many
other playmakers and ways to initiate. And I think that's
why it's really gonna be important what Kenny Akinson does.
Can they get more creation out of every mobile? Would
they be more like to use him as a hub?
Would they even? Do you know some inverted looks with him?
Some of those were successful in the playoffs, they just
didn't do very much of it. So can I say
that the Pacers are going to be better than any
of those teams? No, But I do think that they can.
They can compete for home court advantage. I think that
they're gonna have to show us something at the defensive
end of the floor for me to see them as
like a true championship contender. But I don't know that
I necessarily agree with putting them on the same tier
with the Miami Heat and even the Magic to extend.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that I'm like so out on the Heat,
so they're in like their own tier below everybody else
for me, Like they're closer to Atlanta and Charlotte for
me right now than Orlando or Indy. You are the
closest that someone's come to talking me down on Cleveland.
This season, because I might fuck around and pick them
to win the East, Like I just I don't know
if I'm.
Speaker 2: The defense is legit. The defense is definitely legit.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: One thing I want to ask you what I'm having
trouble is so the PACER's still have stuff that they
could trade, Like the Pascal Siakam trade was a home
run in the sense that, like they only have one
future first round pick that still needs that convey We know,
we've talked a lot about how they could still use
that wing, and they're probably going to give a chance
to see if it can be addressed or if they're
good enough with the current personnel. But do you think
based off what they did last year? So they make
the midseason trade, but then they also kind of focus
on talent retention this season also then by extension limit
some of the pieces that they could trade that if
they are to kind of finagle the roster at all,
like I'm talking about within the top seven or so
of players, that it's more likely to happen over the offseason.
Or is this a team that views itself urgently enough
that you could see them making them It doesn't even
need to get into the players who's giving up, but
that they're on an urgent enough timeline where they're going
to consider to make another swing in the middle of
this year.
Speaker 2: I think the one thing that you can say about
this front office is that they're both provent but opportunistic.
So I think that they recognized last year that what
ty Rees was doing, you know, they've basically got to
development years in one. They've said many times, like they
talked about like they don't want to get intoxicated by
a mistake.
Speaker 3: By success. Nothing that they did last year is guaranteed.
Speaker 2: This isn't linear if they were opportunistic in terms of
what they did in the playoffs, but I think they
were watching Terri's early on. They saw what they did
in the nd season tournament and both negative and positive
light like we made it to the finals of this
there's a very clear hole here. We can get Pascal,
you know, by being patient and not trading for him
over the offseason, which granted it just sounds like Pascal was,
you know, trying to limit what teams could potentially create
trade for him last offseason because he was in the
final year of his contract. But they got him in
the way that he did and the Pacers struck at
the right moment. I think that that could still potentially
happen during the regular season this year. If they really
hit the ground running and this group looks like they're ready,
I could see them being aggressive during the middle of
the year and it looks like, hey, we weren't quite
ready yet. Maybe we did, maybe not necessarily a fluke,
but maybe you know, some of it was just us
being opportunistic against injury health, and it's possible that they
might be a little bit more patient. But I think overall,
if I was to say I have a hot take
about this team, it's that the roster will not be
the same at the end of the year. Is either
they're going to get significant development from a few of
these guys on the roster that's going to make it
so that they don't need to consider those traits, or
I think that they will consider the trades because your
timeline does have to adjust. I think the Pascal's game
is going to age well offensively. We've already seen some
slippage defensively. But when you sign a player like that
and you haven't won a MAX deal in its four
year contract, you have to be thinking when now so
if the opportunity presents itself to be aggressive, I think
that they will do it.
Speaker 1: I think that that's the right call. And it's actually
refreshing to hear someone like yourself who has that type
of insight to say that they will be Is there
anything else anyone else on this team? I didn't ask
you any really scorching hot James Wiseman opinions that you'd
like to fire off before I let you go.
Speaker 2: I will say this for James Wiseman. You know, his
feel can be very frustrating to watch. He's a very
odd relationship with a pound dribble. I don't like watching
games where James Wiseman gets, you know, a veer switch
against TJ. McConnell, goes to a fade away rather than
trying to get him under the basket. But in Golden State,
Golden State plays a very red, big not a lot
of pick and roll offense by comparison to other teams
in the league. Detroit's play context and environment is what
Detroit's play context in environment was last year. And he
comes and plays with the Pacers, you know, one of
the most efficient pick and roll teams in the league.
Like I said, many times. He's a player needs to
be spoon fed, and the Pacers have a lot of
silver spirits. I think it's entirely possible that James Wiseman
may not help the Pacers as much as they help him,
But if either side helps the other, then it was
worth the veteran minimum and the flyer. I don't think
he necessarily addresses things. He only switched on like five
percent of his screens last year. He's a guy who
needs to play, and Drop needs to play with somebody
in hard rearview pursuit, and if Ben Shepherd isn't out there,
I'm not sure that beneedtict Matheren is necessarily going to
be a great defensive pick and roll partner for him.
But I think offensively there is some stuff there. Defensively,
you know he's going to go from a team that
was bottom five and pick and roll defense to a
team that was bottom five and pick and roll defense.
So I don't know that he necessarily answers those questions,
but you know he gives them out size for position
at the center spot at a depth and you know
there's potential that you could push, you know, Isaiah Jackson
in training camp and that's all for the better for
them and that in that particular span and seeing.
Speaker 1: What else you can do.
Speaker 2: So if if the Pagers help him improve, then I
think it was worth the deal for sure.
Speaker 1: Kaitlin, this was wonderful as always. You were able just
to tell our listeners slash viewers where they can find
you and all the fantastic work.
Speaker 4: That you do.
Speaker 2: Right So, my Twitter handle is at C two Underscore Cooper.
If you're watching on YouTube, it is there, and then
if you go there, my link to Patreon is there
at his patreon dot com slash basketball. She wrote, I
still have two more summer projects to release. By the
time you're listening to this, one of them may already
be out. I did some extended ones where, like I mentioned,
I wrote about, you know, the different ways that the
Pacers keep Pascal Siakam posted or else that might go
next year.
Speaker 3: I wrote like.
Speaker 2: Something pretty nerdy about time management in the way that
the Patris kind of play three D chess with two
for ones. Some other stuff can just like basketball curiosities,
is the way I would term some of the pieces
that I've been just things that I've noticed, things where
the game might be going things that teams might be
able to implement. That's kind of what these last two
pieces are going to be headed into training camps, so
hopefully people like those. And then I also want to
throw in there just as a closing statement that, like,
I was not aware of that hardwood knocks. I don't know,
I missed it, but they have T shirts before I
have done here, I ordered one of those. I'm pretty
excited about that. People should join me. I also think that,
like if you've come to this show because you for
some reason wanted to just hear me talk about the pacers.
Dan's one of the best people. I truly believe that
at doing these preview points, the depth that he came
up with for this outline like these pushed me to
be able to provide intelligent answers, and like the fact
that he can do this for thirty teams incredibly impressive.
I've said it before, like I'm not somebody who really
delves into like ranking pieces and some of the other
stuff that he does with fake like fake trades and
other things. But I read his I read his because
the quality of the writing is that good, and I
enjoy the blurbs, so follow his work, follow Hardwood Knocks,
and continue listening to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I don't know what your bleach reports. Never even asked
me to do a fake trade article, so I have
no idea what you're actually talking about. You're making me
blush those kinds of words of mega appreciated anyone who
has not subscribed to basketball. She wrote, the links will
be in our podcast YouTube description. As always, I say
it all the time, even when she's on the podcast.
Nobody does this better than Caitlin. She is a superhero
when it comes to content creation for basketball in general.
So follow her subscribe to her if you do not already.
As you know by now though, I will be pesturing
you again down the line. But thank you as always
bringing me so much of your time and all your insight,
and I will talk to you soon.
Speaker 2: Thank John.