Breaking down Edmond Sumner’s first NBA start with the Indiana Pacers
By Ben Pfeifer
Edmond Sumner was thrown into his first real action with the Indiana Pacers as a starter on Monday when they faced the Golden State Warriors.
If you didn’t watch all of the most recent Indiana Pacers’ game, I can’t blame you. Running into the full-strength Warriors at the worst possible time, the lioness champs bludgeoned the defenseless Pacers. But after a hurricane comes a rainbow (shoutout Katy Perry) and that rainbow was none other than Edmond Sumner’s first start.
A darling among the Pacers’ community, the Edmond Sumner hype train began rolling after his impressive Summer League and preseason performance. Buried in a deep Indiana roster, Sumner has spent most of his season up in Fort Wayne, dominating his competition with the de facto Warriors of the minors (Alize, Sumner, and more!). His gaudy splits of 23.9 points, 3.6 assists and 1.7 steals while shooting 40% from three is certainly indicative of an NBA player. Victor Oladipo’s season-ending injury gave that NBA player his shot to play with the big club.
With Oladipo as well as Tyreke Evans out against Golden State, Indiana thrust Sumner into the starting lineup. And against the greatest team since the Troy Murphy-Mike Dunleavy era Indiana Pacers, he played a fine game. Playing 28 minutes, Sumner recorded two points, three boards, two blocks and two steals shooting a poor 1-10 from the field.
On Monday night, the ball simply wasn’t going in for Sumner. He bricked two open triples and quite a few more layups. He’s a smart cutter, probing defenses before slicing help defenses through the back door, despite this denial:
He does well to catch Iguodala napping by attacking the closeout right off of the catch. It is clear how quick Sumner is diving into the paint here but it wasn’t his night making these shots:
Sumner struggled to separate at times, flashing his lack of an adept handle. But these are kinks that the Indiana Pacers coaching staff can iron out in time:
Ironically, Sumner’s only bucket on the night came off of a beautifully drawn play. Doing their typical thing where the Indiana Pacers have Thad post up a small (not really small though in this case), Indy adds in a Bogdanovic backscreen to free up Sumner for the score:
On the defensive side of the ball, Sumner brought an immense amount of value to the Pacers. A long, quick 6’6″ wing, Sumner theoretically has the frame to be a plus defender in the NBA. But we expect young players to struggle with their positioning, help side defense, and rotations. For most of the night, Sumner’s defense was spectacular. He had a few minor gaffes off of the ball, like neglecting to help the helper (although Young should be the one helping here due to guarding a bad shooter. However, Sumner still needs to rotate sooner):
I can’t think of a much more brutal assignment for the first start of a career than Klay Thompson, arguably the second-best shooter and second most dangerous off-ball player in the NBA (second to Steph Curry, of course). This is all-world level man defense on an underrated creator: sliding feet like an ice skater, active arms like one of those wobbly inflatable demons at car dealerships and ices the play with the strip at the rim:
Sumner had the exhausting task of chasing Klay around screens all night, which is difficult for even the best defenders to do. Yet, he always stayed sticky to Thompson, making his life difficult and blowing up Warrior actions like this:
Per our lord and savior Tony East, Thompson scored a measly eight points on 37 possessions in the ring with Sumner, well below his season averages per possession. It’s easy to see why, as Sumner’s great at gliding around screens. He concedes no airspace on this handoff, forcing Thompson to take a heavily contested three:
Sometimes great offense just beats great defense, as Sumner learns here on this gorgeous Klay pull-up middie:
Like his teammate Thad Young, Sumner seems to have the makings of a proverbial ‘glue guy’. He hustles, is smart and does the little things that so many young players neglect. Sumner boxes out Looney hard, not allowing the offensive rebound:
After a poor closeout which allows an open shot, Sumner leads the break and finds an open DC at the rim despite the pass being a tad late. More glue guy goodness here as Sumner dives on the floor, securing possession for Indiana:
Edmond Sumner is an Indiana Pacer through and through. He fits the “blue collar, gold swagger” moniker well. Imagining Sumner running around screens on one end before stealing the ball and racing down the floor for a thunderous jam is fun. He plays the game of basketball with a fiery passion and he will be a fan favorite for years to come, hopefully.
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And the front office seems to share our adoration for Sumner, as they’ve announced he will start on Wednesday against Washington, regardless of the status of Tyreke Evans. If Edmond Sumner shoots the ball well – and he should given his G-League sample – it’s hard for me to see Tyreke Evans being more valuable than him. Sumner has real 3&D equity off of the bench and that is a valuable thing in today’s NBA.
Nobody knows what the future holds for Edmond Sumner. And his matchup against Washington doesn’t get any easier: a brawl with Bradley Beal. We will, though, get another great chance to see Sumner’s mettle.