Evans was not the creator the Indiana Pacers were looking for as he failed to reach the same level of play as he did a season before.
The Indiana Pacers brought in Tyreke Evans to be a secondary creator off the bench the team so sorely needed last year. He was a highly coveted commodity last offseason, with interest from the Los Angeles Lakers, Oklahoma City Thunder, Golden State Warriors, Charlotte Hornets, and incumbent Memphis Grizzlies just for starters.
Evans eventually settled on a short term deal with nice money for the playoff-contending Indiana Pacers, who needed exactly what he brought to the table for the second unit. $12 million for one year felt like a steal in the NBA landscape for a player who’d just averaged almost 20 points on (relatively) efficient shooting with the moribund Memphis Grizzlies the year before.
The general reaction among Pacers fans was not only excitement about the signing, but disappointment that it was only for 1 year.
Tyreke’s ability to score for a bad Memphis team as their focal point of the offense was supposed to help fix the second unit scoring droughts, and provide some Vicsurance to help make sure the Pacers didn’t go 0-7 without Oladipo against this year.
The hope (of course) was that the blue and gold wouldn’t have to face life without Vic, but the NBA gods had no such kindness in mind. Oladipo played only 36 games this year, barely half of Tyreke Evans’ 69 games.
If you had told fans coming into the year that Evans would play 69 games, the reaction would’ve been fantastic. Injury history was the number one concern for Pacers fans, and Evans’ body held up well throughout the season.
He did miss a bit of time to get a PRP treatment on his knee (the Kobe treatment) and came back looking even better from that. No, the injury wasn’t what derailed Tyreke’s season.