In year two of the Ike Anigbogu project, the Indiana Pacers have to be watching closely.
The youngest player in any draft class is always going to be a project. When the Indiana Pacers drafted Ike Anigbogu back in 2017, that was very much the case.
When Ike was selected, he had not yet had his 19th birthday. He was too young to vote in the 2016 elections. That kind of player, young and lacking in life experiences, has an uphill battle in front in them to become a useful NBA player.
Ike showed us some stuff to like in his 30 minutes his rookie year, but he was mostly a G League player spending most of his time developing. We saw him show signs of being a rim protector and an above-the-rim finisher, but not much else.
This season, he’s only played six minutes with the pros across three games. I’m not going to call that enough of a sample to say anything egregious. But the specifics – things not in the stat sheet – have been better.
For example, for young players seeing the whole game is challenging, and Anigbogu didn’t rack up a single assist in his rookie year. He changed that this season, tossing Aaron Holiday the ball while setting up a pitch-and-pick that freed up a floater for the rookie.
And his 3 rebounds in 6 minutes isn’t nothing. His explosiveness when jumping allows him to zip up for misses in a way that no other Pacer big man can:
His explosiveness and his power are pretty much all he had going for him last season. This year, he has combined that with some refined pattern recognition and anticipation skills to show improvement around the rim on both ends of the floor…
In the G League. I’m not ready to say he has shown a ton in the pros because he has only played ~300 seconds. But he has been better for the Mad Ants this year than he was in 2017-18.
He’s still a menace blocking shots, and that improved pattern recognition has really helped him in this area. Watch here as he effectively reads the fake DHO UCLA cut action and is able to slide over from the weakside and embarrass the shooter:
That is an important step in the growth of players. Recognizing that a problem is happening and having enough time to do something to fix it is hard for some veterans, even. Anigbogu is growing in that area.
His anticipation skills have shown growth in other ways too. After nabbing only 6 steals in 491 minutes last year, Ike Anigbogu has 6 already this year in under 200 minutes in the minors. He is alert and in the right place, ready to take the ball away if it comes around him. These two are from the same game:
On the offensive end, the growth has been a little different. He is still throwing down monster dunks when he gets a free run to the rim, but he has clearly been working on his jump shot away from the basket too.
2 of his 3 shots in the pros have been long-ish jumpers, something he struggles with. He is working on expanding his game, and adding a jump shot would help him get more minutes on the pro court:
Those shots aren’t going down yet. But they don’t look awkward. He looks cozy taking them. That’s a good sign for his future.
Anigbogu’s usage in Fort Wayne is up over 20 percent this year after hanging around 15 percent last year. Head Coach Steve Gansey wants him to have the ball more this year, both because he is an improved player and because he needs to develop.
With that hike in usage, we have seen some good signs and some bad ones. His turnover rate is astronomically high, up over 20 percent. The Mad Ants try to get him the ball rolling towards the rim, but he has bad hands and can’t hang on to all the passes. He needs to get better at catching those.
But his scoring and rebounding are both up, as is his free throw rate. When the ball actually does end up in his hands and he doesn’t cough it up, good things do happen. That’s a good sign.
Ike Anigbogu has a long way to go. He’s still only 20. But the athleticism and explosiveness he has could lead him into having a strong career. These seasons, where he learns about the typical tendencies of opponents and manages more on-ball duties, are important for his growth. Seeing him make incremental improvements is overall a good sign for the Indiana Pacers.