The Indiana Pacers dose of reality in the last week or so as games became harder to win. How far did they drop in the power rankings?
The Indiana Pacers are who we thought they were, and no one is letting them off the hook.
After early season optimism prompted talks of making a playoff run, the reality of the Indiana Pacers current situation was exposed. They are a young team for the most part, and young teams don’t close out games, nor do they win a lot of them to start with.
Indiana suffered their share of comeback losses in the last two weeks, but their loss to the Houston Rockets was the most humbling despite never being in control. The loss to Houston illustrates the gap between where the Pacers are and where they want to go.
As a result, the Pacers averaged a 24 from our batch of experts.
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On top of that, #SmallSampleSizeTheater is getting people to think that Myles Turner needs to give up his starting spot to Domantas Sabonis. Respectfully, no, that’s not a wise idea.
Outside of some of the obvious issues, moves like that have many second and third order effects. If you bench Myles and the Sabonis doesn’t make the starters better, that doesn’t just mean you can hit the undo button. That affects how players see themselves, how they believe the organization sees them, and a number of other issues.
If there is eventually a time and place where Sabonis deserves to replace Myles Turner or Thaddeus Young, you better be sure it works. If it doesn’t, you’ve got chemistry, trust, and a whole host of other problems to deal with. No player wants to feel expendable and throwing Sabonis in full-time as the starting power forward or center on a hunch isn’t worth the risk.
Let Sabonis earn his spot, don’t give it to him. With the way he is playing, he might just force Indiana into that decision sooner than we ever expected.
Next: Pacers Rank: Myles Turner doesn’t look comfortable on offense
Indiana’s next stretch of games takes place mostly away from home. Tonight they play the Memphis Grizzlies before a return home to host the Detroit Pistons on Friday. They head into the new week with a back-to-back in Florida with the Orlando Magic and Miami Heat.