3 things to know about the Indiana Pacers calling up Edmond Sumner

The Indiana Pacers are calling up Edmond Sumner to the main roster to fortify their guard depth after Victor Oladipo’s knee injury.

Victor Oladipo is out for the season. That creates an obvious issue of depth on the roster for the Indiana Pacers.  Whether they make any other moves or not, the Pacers are calling up Edmond Sumner from the G-League to fortify their depth at guard.

If you haven’t paid attention to the Fort Wayne Mad Ants or the 9 games Sumner appeared in with the Pacers this season, you might be saying to yourself, “Why should I care about Edmond Sumner?”

If you have been paying attention, you already know Sumner stepped up his game in the G-League this year and deserves his chance to earn a spot on the Pacers roster.

Here are 3 things you should know about the former Xavier University guard.

Edmond Sumner is averaging 23.9 points a game in the G-League

The Fort Wayne Mad Ants’ leading scorer averages 23.9 points a game on 50 percent shooting. That’s pretty good. He shoots 40 percent on 3-pointers, which he is making almost three of a game so that isn’t a statistical blip as he is 40 of 100 on the season.

That shooting touch is something he developed in the past year as shown by a 25 percent 3-point percentage last season and 28.5 percent in college.

Before this season Sumner was heavily reliant on putting his head down and attacking the basket, sometimes to his own detriment. Thanks to the improvement in shooting from deep, his scoring near the basket is back around the G-League average.

Transitioning that to NBA scoring isn’t an easy task, but it is an encouraging sign none the less.

Edmond Sumner had a great preseason with the Indiana Pacers

Outside of garbage time, we haven’t seen much of Edmond Sumner in an Indiana uniform in the regular season. However, during the preseason he looked close to being ready for NBA action.

He played roughly 15 minutes a game while averaging 9 points on 66.7 percent shooting. On top of that, his defense was solid. It appeared his Summer League performance — 11.3 points and 3.3 assists — carried over into the preseason.

Unfortunately, the one real chance he got at playing with the Pacers (when the Pacers suspended Tyreke Evans for a game) in a game against the Cleveland Cavaliers, he missed the one shot he took and only grabbed one rebound in the 5 minutes he played an unimpressed Nate McMillan quickly cut the experiment short. While he wasn’t a disaster, he didn’t look ready the prime time, either.

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But with 17 G-League games under his belt, if given the chance, he should have more confidence in his game and hopefully leaves a bigger, and more positive, impact this time around.

It still looks like mostly garbage time for Edmond Sumner — for now

While the Pacers are recalling Edmond Sumner from G-League, he is basically moving up to take Aaron Holiday‘s spot on the bench as the rookie moves into Tyreke Evans spot in the rotation and Evans takes Oladipo’s as a starter.

That means he likely isn’t seeing major playing time any time soon. He may get minutes here or there, but we hadn’t seen much of Holiday when Oladipo returned earlier in the season.

Sumner’s looked great in the G-League, but there’s a reason the Pacers weren’t in a hurry to covert his two-way contract into an NBA one. As J. Michael of the Indianapolis Star noted, Sumner’s injury history is part of what is holding him back. His injuries at Xavier are part of the reason why he fell in the draft.

He missed a few games with the Mad Ants due to a hamstring issue, but the main reason he only played in 17 of Fort Wayne’s 27 games was his time at the end of Indiana’s bench earlier this season.

But, unlike before now, Sumner has a real shot at proving himself. His performance likely won’t hinge on just a few minutes as it did against the Cavaliers. He’ll earn whatever minutes he gets, but with the need for depth at guard now, the Pacers are more interested in seeing what he really can do.

The Pacers have a 32-15 record and the third spot in the Eastern Conference, but without their star player, holding on to that isn’t easy. But if there is a silver lining on any of this, it might be that Indiana finds out what it has in Edmond Sumner.