How Malcolm Brogdon and Jeremy Lamb fit with the Indiana Pacers
The Indiana Pacers broke off a gigantic curveball to begin free agency: Malcolm Brogdon and Jeremy Lamb are now in. The Pacers are going to look very different next year, so how might the new additions fit?
The rumor and expectation as Free Agent Sunday dawned was that Ricky Rubio would be the newest Indiana Pacers’ point guard. Hypothetically, a lengthy “How Rubio fits” article was being pre-written. Scrap it. Throw it away. The Pacers did a much different thing. Indiana acquired former Milwaukee Buck Malcolm Brogdon to run the point and signed former Charlotte Hornet Jeremy Lamb to play the wing.
Brogdon was acquired in the most interesting move of the day, via a sign and trade with division rival Milwaukee. The Bucks signed Brogdon to a 4 year/$85M deal and then shipped him to the Pacers for a future first and two second round draft picks. Brogdon was a restricted free agent and became a tough contract for Milwaukee to match after significant extensions were given to both Khris Middleton and Brook Lopez.
Lamb was signed more conventionally; 3 years at $31.5M. For Lamb (the exact financial numbers are unknown at present) that’s roughly $10.5M a year, $21.3M per season for Brogdon (Oladipo money). Indiana entered free agency with roughly $32.5M in cap space. That’s now been largely cashed out on the two newest Pacers.
With a small extension looming for Edmond Sumner, the Pacers have 12 players under contract with the room exception (about $4.8M) and minimum contracts left to fill the final spots (at least three). That’s not bad, rather inevitable when team building.
Pacers President, Kevin Pritchard, had vowed to be aggressive in free agency, and he was. The contracts to both Brogdon and Lamb are long-term investments in players who are just entering their respective primes.
Brogdon was a crucial piece for the Bucks. He started every game he played this season in Milwaukee and authored an impressive 51-43-93 slash line. He even led the league in free throw percentage. He’s not your standard point guard, but he is good at everything. A team-first player who defends well, protects the ball, and cashes in offensively when needed. He is the type of versatile player that will compliment Victor Oladipo.
On the wing will be Lamb. He’s probably better served in a swing-guard role rather than as the starting small forward, but unless something drastic happens, he’ll be penciled in as the starting three (more on that in a minute). Lamb is more of an attacker than a marksman. Shooting-wise, he’s a steep drop-off from Bojan Bogdanovic, but on the other hand, Brogdon can pick up the slack here too.
In the best case, Lamb can keep opponents honest while creating a more dynamic and athletic wing unit for the Pacers. However, a significant amount of shooting just walked out the door with Bojan Bogdanovic now departing (to Utah for 4 years, $73M).
Replacing 30 year-old Bogdanovic with Brogdon (26) and Lamb (27) ushers the Pacers into Oladipo’s (27) time-table. It also begins to put wraps on the structure on what the 2019-20 Indiana Pacers are going to look like.