Are the 2017 Indiana Pacers really trying harder than last year?

Are they Indiana Pacers trying harder than last year or is there another reason for their (modest) success?

Many Indiana Pacers fans entered the 2017-18 season somewhat downtrodden from the Paul George experience.

After watching perhaps the most talented player in franchise history napalm his own trade value and force the Pacers to trade him for (what was perceived to be) pennies on the dollar, Pacers fans prepared themselves to watch a team of newer and younger players mature while  gunning for Indiana’s first high-lottery pick since the George H.W. Bush administration.

Yet, through seven games (small sample size!!!), fans have been delighted to watch a better-than-expected team, led by a better-than-expected new shooting guard, play a much better-than-expected style of basketball. After finishing dead last in Zach Lowe’s yearly League Pass Rankings, the PACErs sped up their offense, scored 130+ points twice, and sent home LaMarcus Aldridge and the Spurs home on one of the more memorable shots in Banker’s Life Fieldhouse history (post-Reggie, of course) — and that was all before Halloween!

Last night’s performance even sparked a lot of “This team plays so hard” buzz on Twitter.

In the absence of Paul George, Monta Ellis, and Jeff Teague (not to mention Myles Turner who’s missed the last six games with a concussion), it’s almost too easy to attribute the Pacers’ improved play to simply “trying harder.”

Yet, as is often the case, answers in the NBA are rarely that simple. In fact, a quick look at some advanced stats shows that an increase in hustle might not even factor into the equation at all.

For three years now, the NBA has kept track of the following “hustle stats” via their SportVU cameras.

• SAST – (Screen Assist) If Victor Oladipo curls off of a Myles Turner screen and buries the jumper, then Myles and the Pacers would get credited for a SAST
• Deflections
• Loose Ball Recovered
• Charges Drawn
• Contested 2-Pt Attempts
• Contested 3-Pt Attempts
• Contested Shots

Through seven games, the Pacers have not significantly improved in a single hustle category, and have actually underperformed compared to last year’s squad (league rank in parentheses).

Again, we are talking about an incredibly small sample size here, but if anything, one might have assumed that the Pacers’ numbers would have looked much better so far this season before regressing back towards the mean as the grind of the season began to show.

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Further, hustle stats, despite their name, can in no way count the complete story. We’ve yet to figure out a measurable way to grade things like “Darren Collison fights over screens harder than Jeff Teague” or “Domantas Sabonis more consistently gets a body on his man than Lavoy Allen.”

Still, based solely on the hustle stats that we do have, it would be wrong to say that this year’s Pacers squad is succeeding, simply because they are trying harder than last year’s iteration.

But what about leadership? One might postulate that with slower (whiter) guys like Bogdanovic, Leaf, and Sabonis getting consistent minutes, a lot of these numbers bound to go down anyway; but Victor Oladipo’s hustle and energy is contagious, and has inspired his teammates to work harder, right?

Wrong. Again, we are comparing a tiny sample size to an entire season of Paul George, but any insinuation that Victor Oladipo simply “plays harder” than Paul George would not be based in any objective analysis. Sure, Paul George might be expected to have a few more deflections and shot contests, solely because of his superior length, but as good as Oladipo has been so far this season, it’s not because he’s worked harder than last year’s best player.

So then, what has been the Pacers’ secret sauce, and why have they looked so much better this year?

Look no further than pace. Despite wanting to play a faster brand of basketball for years, this year’s Indiana Pacers are actually doing that. The 2016-17 Pacers finished the season with a pace of 98.15, good for 18th in the league. This year’s squad has ratcheted the pace up to 102.89, good for 10th.

Further, not only have the Pacers players moved faster, but the ball has moved faster as well. Even though this year’s squad is averaging 0.7 less assists per game than last year’s, they’re doing so on 30 more passes per game. Players have been more willing to make passes that don’t lead directly to baskets, simply because the team as a whole has been more committed to moving the ball.

Next: Locker Room Q&A with Victor Oladipo and Thaddeus Young

Here is where we throw in all of the requisite “SMALL SAMPLE SIZE!” qualifications necessary for an article of this type so early in the season. Further, two outlier games (against the Nets and Timberwolves) are certainly skewing the Pacers numbers (both in their win-loss record and the advanced metrics). But there does seem to be some objective reasons for the Pacers more watchable style of play.

It’s just a little more nuanced than, “Try harder, stupid!”