Pacers rookie Shayne Whittington is going to be in the rotation very soon. Are we entering tank season?
He entered the game last night in the third-quarter. Shayne played eight minutes and finished with six points on 2-of-4 shooting. He chipped in one rebound, one assist and a steal.
Coach Vogel and Larry Bird have spoken about Whittington receiving minutes in the coming days.
Vogel said he and Larry Bird talked about inserting Whittington in games. Whittington said he was told recently to "stay ready."
— Candace Buckner (@CandaceDBuckner) January 22, 2015
Vogel specifically said that he will play when games aren’t going their way. In my opinion that translates to: We are going to play him a lot. The Pacers have not had much go their way this past much.
In case you forgot what kind of player he is, here is Draft Express’s take 0n him:
"While lacking explosiveness, Whittington isn’t a stiff. He moves well for his size, most evident by his footwork and ability to shoot on the move. Whittington gets excellent lift on his jumper for a player his size. Although he would most likely be relegated to a floor-spacer role at the professional level, Whittington has showed some game inside the arc at the college level. He doesn’t have the best feel for the game as he’s prone to forcing the issue and driving into traffic in face up situations, but Whittington has solid touch on his right hand jump hook and has the ability to knock down face up jump shots and pick and pop to mid-range spots. With that said, Whittington lacks a consistent left hand, gets pushed off the block too often and shouldn’t be relied on as a primary scoring option on the block.Defensively, Whittington lacks potential because of his limited athleticism, short arms (6-10 ¼ wingspan) and strength (237 pounds) for the center position. He works very hard battling in the post but struggles keeping stronger bigs from backing him down and scoring at the rim. He’s a bit of a tweener on the defensive end, unable to stay in front of power forwards but not strong enough to battle centers. He’s also a limited rim protector (1.9 blocks per 40) due to his short arms and lack of lift. Whittington covers up some of those deficiencies with good effort, but figures to struggle against elite athletes and strong bigs."
In 13 games played, he is averaging two points and a rebound on 47-percent shooting. He somehow has a 23.8 PER, too.
We have four months of season left. We’ll have a pretty good sample of games and statistics to gauge how he could fit in for the 2015-2016 season.