Nate McMillan is a very good basketball coach, but his offense needs updating if he and the Indiana Pacers want to progress further.
A 4th place finish in Coach of the Year voting is fitting in a way for Nate McMillan as he had the Indiana Pacers on track to finish fourth or better in the Eastern Conference before Victor Oladipo went down with a knee injury.
But unfortunately, the Pacers slipped to 5th place and were swept out of the playoffs by the Boston Celtics. If you want to win coach of the year, you’re going to have to do better than that.
And if he and the Pacers want to do better than that, they’ll need to update how they operate their offense.
In a vacuum, not shooting more 3-pointers wouldn’t be such a big deal for the Pacers, but without Oladipo, we saw they were bereft of playmakers. What you ultimately end up with is an offense that is rather average despite a number of 3-point shooters that in theory, should make them more than just an average NBA offense.
We’ve suggested before that McMillan bring in an offensive coordinator of sorts, despite the unlikelihood of that option, because it’s clear Indiana need something to boost the offense beyond its current form.
You can blame a lack of creativity to get certain players, not encouraging Myles Turner to shoot more 3-pointers, not adjust rotations very often, or just general x’s and o’s, but Indiana doesn’t get as much as it could out of their offense.
To McMillan’s credit, he acknowledged change is needed and some of that comes from him (as well as changes in personnel), but ultimately as the head coach, whether the offense takes another step is on him.
Nate McMillan is a good coach as Indiana wouldn’t have had the 4th best net rating in the NBA before Oladipo’s injury if he was simply a bad coach. The rating was powered by the NBA’s second-best defense and supported by the 14th best offense, but that’s not a sign of bad coaching.
However, when the offense dropped to 23rd without Oladipo, that’s a sign that Indiana needs more scorers as well as more creativity to unlock more from the players they already have.
Some changes would be simple. While he often rides the hot hand within games, there’s a hesitance to make major changes to the rotation during the season, or at least not without a good deal of evidence something doesn’t work. Others such and overhauling the way they get shooters open would take more work.
Nate McMillan deserves to be in the conversation for the NBA’s better coaches, but until he expands what Indiana does on offense, there’s a limit to how good the Pacers’ offense — and team — can be.