Sometimes, injury timing is everything. Just ask the Pacers

The Pacers fought through injuries to three of their starters this season. But in terms of overall injury luck, Indiana carried a rabbit’s foot.

The Pacers were as healthy as one could have reasonably expected this season. Victor Oladipo’s 75 games played was the second highest number of his five-year career. Thaddeus Young and Bojan Bogdanovic both played 80+ games. The other key rotation players; Cory Joseph, Darren Collison, Myles Turner, Lance Stephenson, and Domantas Sabonis missed a combined 48 total games.

Outside of Glenn Robinson III missing over half the season, the team was solidly healthy. 58 total games lost due to injuries for the top eight guys in the rotation is an excellent number, and Trevor Booker only missed one game in his time with the team. The Pacers incredible, as always, training staff deserves a ton of credit for keeping this team on the court as much as they did. More on them later.

The timing of the Pacers injuries, however, made them seem more substantial. Victor Oladipo missed seven games, but four of them were against playoff teams (but one was the last game of the season, which nobody cared about). When Myles Turner missed seven games early in the season with a concussion, six were against playoff teams. Throughout Turner’s nine-game absence due to elbow pain later in the year, the Pacers also played six playoff teams.

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So, while small in number, the missed time was large in impact. But fans of Indiana need not complain. They should thank their lucky stars, actually.

I noticed the trend when the Pacers hosted the Clippers on March 23rd. Well, they hosted some of the Clippers. Avery Bradley, Danilo Gallinari, and Patrick Beverly did not play in that game due to injuries.

I looked into this phenomena because I remembered Avery Bradley missing some games against the Pacers when he was with Detroit. As it would turn out, Bradley missed four of the six opportunities he had to play against this Pacers team. After a much deeper investigation, this would turn out to be just the apex of the Pacers luck in “avoiding” certain opponents this season.

Timing is everything

Speaking of Avery Bradley, let’s start the discussion of fortunate timing by talking about the guy Bradley was a part of a trade for, Blake Griffin. You want to talk about lucky timing, start there. Indiana played the Pistons four times this season, and they were all before the trade deadline. They then played the Clippers two times, both coming after said deadline. Becuase of this timing, they never once had to play against Blake Griffin.

But that’s not all or even close. The Pacers dodged a ton of other guys thanks to advantageous injury timing. Injuries, of course, always suck, but the Pacers found a way to be on the positive side of their fair share.

It started early in the season. The first game, in fact. Jeremy Lin got hurt during the Pacers matchup against the Nets. Just two weeks later, Jimmy Butler missed a game against Indiana due to an illness, his first time sitting out all season.

Exactly a month later, they dodged CJ Miles while he was with his wife, who was giving birth to their child. The next night, they ducked Jaylen Brown who missed his first game of the season.

Two weeks later, they played the Knicks without Kristaps Porzingis OR Tim Hardaway. Not long after, they got to play Denver sans Nikola Jokic and Paul Millsap. They were one of just seven teams to duck the Denver frontcourt duo, a stretch where the 46 win Nuggets went 3-4.

Later in December, Reggie Jackson got hurt against Indiana and missed three months. Avery Bradley also missed that game.

And the trend just kept on happening. They ducked James Johnson, who only missed nine games for the Heat the whole season. TJ Warren missed his second game of the season against Indiana. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope only missed two games due to injury all year. You guessed it, one was against the Pacers.

The January 31st game against the Grizzlies was the perfect storm. Mike Conley Jr, Tyreke Evans, Chandler Parsons, James Ennis, AND Jamychal Green all missed that game. That might be four of Memphis’ six best players.

They evaded Ersan Ilyasova when he was about to be waived. They sidestepped Tony Snell and Kelly Oubre Jr., two guys who both played 75+ games, on back-to-back nights. Heck, that was the only game Oubre missed the entire season!

They avoided Al Horford and Jaylen Brown in the same game. Kyrie Irving also got injured during that contest. We know how that ended up for Irving.

Then, not long after scrambling past the limping Celtics, they got to face the Warriors with zero of their all-stars. They didn’t face off with Steph Curry once this year.

I could go on and on. The pattern was incredible. This season was a really rough one for injuries around the league, and the Pacers were fairly fortunate on the timing with many of them.

Credit the training staff

This isn’t to say that the Pacers got lucky, they still had to go out and win the games, it was just a fascinating trend that happened this season. Only nine Pacers opponents had their rotation fully healthy against Indiana this season. That is bonkers.

So, it may seem like the Pacers had somewhat of an injury bug this season, but when compared to the rest of the league, they were fairly healthy. Only five teams had five or more players play 2000 minutes. The Pacers were one of them. Houston, Minnesota, Denver, and Portland are the other four. All five of those teams won 46+ games. Health is important, and the Pacers had more than enough of it, even though it didn’t feel like it at times.

And a lot of that falls on the shoulders of the Pacers training staff, who did a great job. They were chosen as the Team LeBron training staff in the All-Star Game for a reason. The trainers knew when to hold guys out of games and when it was appropriate for guys to return from injury. They truly did a sensational job this year, and the Pacers avoiding serious injuries in a season where other teams were unable to do so is proof.

But as for other organizations having players miss games against the Pacers, who knows how much that will continue to happen in the future. It may not have been a coincidence. Teams may have been cautious against Indiana, thinking they could win even with their important players on the shelf. That thought process was errant.

Next: Potential Pacers trade candidates: Kemba Walker

Hopefully, the Indiana training staff can carry that same ability into future seasons. They have certainly been one of the best for a while now. If the Pacers can remain healthier than their opponents in the future, it will only help them be a successful organization. It helped this year.