8p9s Roundtable: Nate McMillan Is The New Boss

McMillan had slow but average to above average offenses with the Portland Trail Blazers. Do you think we will have a better offense than Vogel? Will the defense take a step back?

Furr: I expect the offense to gain some natural improvement. Myles Turner will improve, the Pacers will likely sign/draft an offensive player, and Nate McMillan’s teams have typically been efficient. The defense will likely regress ,though. Vogel has been a consistently excellent defensive coach, and McMillan has not.

More from Pacers News

• Pacers’ Daniel Theis dominated Team USA in Germany’s semifinal win
• 3 Players who could beat out Tyrese Haliburton for 2024 USA Olympics
• Pacers’ Tyrese Haliburton takes step back in Team USA loss to Germany
• Pacers fans get angry at Tyrese Haliburton’s NBA 2K24 rating reveal
• Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton unveils lofty goal with Team USA

Comstock: Offense/Defense: Honestly, if they don’t have a better offense in year one, McMillan should be gone. I expect they will, but it may not equal more points. As for the defense, that depends on Dan Burke. If he stays, and he’s really been the mastermind of the defense, they should be fine.

Donahue: The offense will get better because both Bird and McMillan will shift the team’s emphasis from defense to offense. Nate is being hired to do what he’s told, and be tough about it. He will be told to make the offense better, and that will define the team’s focus. Theoretically, the offensive Xs and Os will get better, but the offensive flaw of Vogel’s teams were the lack of discipline combined with a lack of offensive talent.

Defensively, the team will get worse. McMillan has absolutely no history of putting anything better than average defensive team on the floor. In his 12 seasons as head coach, his teams have allowed 1.6 points per 100 possessions more than the league average . For reference, Jim O’Brien’s Pacers allowed 0.1 points per 100 FEWER than the league average, while Frank Vogel’s Pacers allowed 4.1 points per 100 fewer.

The Pacers have better defensive talent than McMillan’s previous teams – or had, depending on what happens with Ian Mahinmi and Solomon Hill – and Dan Burke will do a good job of maintaining the structure. However, the focus of both Nate McMillan and the team will be getting better offensively, and that will reduce the defensive discipline. That’s a power struggle Dan Burke will not win. The Pacers will probably make Nate a better defensive coach, but Nate will make the Pacers a worse defensive team.

Eggers: Bird obviously thinks he’s a better offensive mind, so I’ll give him a shot. I think almost any coach would be better with rotations and late-game play scenarios than Vogel was last season, so just for that I think McMillan can lead the team to an improved offense. However, if he runs his preferred tempo, that might not result in Bird’s ideal PPG quota. If McMillan runs a faster paced offense like Bird wants, then the answer to this question gets a little more ambiguous. As for defense, the team will inevitably take a step back. There’s no indication that Dan Burke can uphold the kind of defensive culture that Vogel created in his tenure (while adjusting to Bird’s offensive wishes the entire time) and McMillan certainly isn’t the defensive genius Vogel was. However, I doubt Bird really cares. The goal with firing Vogel was to find a better offensive coach. Everyone knew that they wouldn’t find a better defensive mind.

Ochoa: I honestly don’t think we will see a huge difference in style of play right off the bat. On either side of the floor, our schemes and sets may look new and different, but I don’t think Nate’s style is drastically different than Vogel to the point where we’ll say, “Wow, this looks like a completely different Pacers team!”

Next: Who would you have hired?