Pacers player grades: All-Star break edition

Darren Collison: B

Pertinent Stats:

10.5 points, 5.9 assists, 47% shooting, 42% 3-point shooting 1.4 steals, 58 games played

DC, first and foremost, deserves a ton of credit for playing every game so far this season. He’s been a bit banged up on some different occasions, but he’s made it out there for every contest. Collison is definitely having a down year when compared to last year’s stellar play, but he’s still been effective (and has really been coming on strong since the calendar flipped over to 2019.) Despite my feelings that the Pacers should probably flip him to get younger going forward, Darren Collison has been a major stabilizing force on the team. He rarely has a bad game, and the impact of his bad games is typically lessened by the solid Cory Joseph.

Bojan Bogdanovic: A

Pertinent Stats:

16.8 points, 4 rebounds, 49% shooting, 43% 3 point shooting, 58 games played

Bogey has been balling his butt off this year. The Pacers 2nd leader scorer (and only 2 points behind Oladipo) has been lights out. Bogdanovic has been classified basically as a shooter only throughout his career, but he’s added a lot to his game this year. His off the bounce game has been impressive, and he’s been absolutely cooking guys who don’t respect it with an array of surprisingly athletic dunks, creative finishes, and drawn fouls.

When teams try to hide a smaller defender on him, the big-bodied Croatian absolutely abuses them in the post. His defense will never be a strength due to his limited athleticism, but he’s been perfectly fine on that end. All this is great! Perhaps most importantly though, the best part of his game is only getting better. Bojan Bogdanovic has been lights out from the field, putting up a 49/40/83 campaign. There’s been much discussion over who the Pacers 2nd best player is – Myles Turner, Thad Young, and even Domantas Sabonis are widely mentioned overall. This year, Bogey needs to be mentioned in that conversation.

Thad Young: A

Pertinent Stats:

12.5 points, 6.4 rebounds, 53% shooting, 36% 3 point shooting, 1.6 steals, 58 games played

Thad has been awesome this year. People often use the term “glue guy” as a backhanded compliment to insinuate the player doesn’t necessarily do much well, but Thad is the Rolls Royce of glue guys.

At 30 years old, Young has become elite on the defensive end. He’s handled some of the best bigs in the NBA with aplomb (being next to Myles Turner’s shot blocking certainly doesn’t hurt). He stifled Giannis Antetekoumpo into his worst game of the year. Giannis got his revenge, but the great ones always do. He gets deflections, nabs steals, taps rebounds, is in the top 5 of the NBA in charges taken, and plays great help defense.

On offense, Thaddeus Young has finally added the 3 I’ve been telling the world he can shoot for years and is up to a robust 36% on the year. He’s putting up the best shooting year of his career and potentially the best defensive year of his career at the same time. Thad Young is awesome.

Myles Turner: B+

Pertinent Stats:

13.5 points, 7 rebounds, 2.7 blocks, 51% shooting, 41% 3 point shooting, 53 games played

After a really (reallllly) rough start to the season, Myles Turner has been lighting it up. Ever since going to the “ponytail Myles” look on December 10th, Turner is averaging 15 points on 52% shooting and 48% from deep.

Turner looked afraid to shoot 3’s to start the year but has started letting them fly (and hitting a ton) recently. He’s still only averaging 2.3 attempts per game (3.0 since the ponytail revolution), which is nowhere near enough for a guy shooting 40%+, but he’s getting there. He probably needs to double that number up to 6-7 per game, but he’s already putting stress on opposing defenses with his range.

On defense, he’s been absolutely incredible. He’s squarely in the defensive player of the year conversation, and deservedly so. He’s leading the NBA in blocks, is playing great help defense and protecting the rim even when he doesn’t get a block, and has absolutely stonewalled some opposing big men 1 on 1. His destruction of Marc Gasol in the very first game of the year set the tone for his defensive season, and he might leave this year with some extra hardware to start his collection at home.

Myles only misses out on the A due to the horrid offensive start to the year. Now, on to the bench unit.