Indiana Pacers
Key Acquisitions: F Justin Holiday, F JaKarr Sampson
Key Departures: None
The Indiana Pacers return pretty much their entire roster from the 2019-20 season and with everyone fully healthy should be a pretty good team in the East right? Well, Indiana Pacers’ management would sure hope so, but this may not be the case. The Pacers hired Nate Bjorkgren, former Raptors assistant coach, to be their new head coach, but he inherits a roster who got swept in the first-round of the NBA playoffs last season.
As a matter of fact, the Pacers have won just 6 of their last 26 playoffs games and have been eliminated in the first-round of the playoffs for five consecutive seasons. With the injury concerns circulating around Victor Oladipo and the trade talks that have surfaced revolving around both Oladipo and Myles Turner, this Pacers team could be unraveling from the inside out!
Last offseason, the Pacers signed Malcolm Brogdon to a four-year, $85M deal that may not pan out the way they had hoped. Brogdon’s shooting numbers were down about 7% from the floor and 10% from three-point range this past season as he dealt with a slew of injuries. He missed three games with a sore lower back, one with a sore right hand, three with a sore left hamstring, four more with a sore lower back, one with strep throat, and two while in the NBA’s concussion protocol.
With just under $90M tied up in their starting-five, the Indiana Pacers did not have much money to go out in free agency and bolster their bench and they did not do so. While they could have signed some veteran players to minimum contracts to help with their bench depth, the Pacers elected not to, which is what earned them a spot at #4 on this list.
Last season, the Pacers ranked 20th in the league in bench scoring with about 34 points per game off the bench. Jeremy Lamb, Doug McDermott, Aaron Holiday and Justin Holiday all seem to be reliable shooting options off the bench, but the question that remains is if these four guys can provide enough scoring in the second-rotation for the Pacers to compete for an Eastern Conference Championship.
Between bench depth and injuries, the Indiana Pacers have a lot of question marks, much like the Golden State Warriors, entering the 2020-21 NBA campaign. If they can stay healthy, which seems like a big if at this point, then the Pacers would likely be in good shape. Time will tell what the future holds for the Indiana Pacers as they may look to shake up their roster near the trade deadline if things are not going well.
