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.
Back Court/Wings
Oladipo and Lamb will give the Pacers two attacking, aggressive threats from the wing; Oladipo as the primary threat, Lamb doing his damage off the ball. Brogdon will the the stable ball-handler, who can share those duties with Oladipo and provide steady reliable offense and three-point shooting. A bigger role will be waiting for Aaron Holiday. The money isn’t there anymore to spend on an improved backup point from the outside. It’s likely Holiday’s job. He showed flashes of creation and playmaking, but he’ll need to do it full-time now, filling the vacuum likely left by Cory Joseph.
Room is still there to add more shooting. Someone like Seth Curry would be a nice fit. Maybe not specifically Curry, but someone like him. Otherwise, the last guard on the roster is Sumner, who can, in theory, play three positions and do all sorts of athletic things. He just hasn’t stepped onto the court without looking completely lost yet.
These moves leave one final true small forward on the roster: Doug McDermott. His floor spacing will be invaluable now. I’m aware of the reservations about his shooting from this past season. What gets lost from his apparent less-than-savory debut campaign with the Pacers was that he shot 49% from three on the road, opposed to 31% at home. That’s an impossible statistical divide that has to be unrepeatable.
Putting it together, there are five main rotational pieces in these positions: Oladipo, Brogdon, and Lamb as the starters with Holiday and McDermott backing them up. Further tinkering could come here. The Pacers really could use another shooter, maybe targeting one with that room exception we talked about.
Front Court
Domantas Sabonis and Myles Turner will be filling out the starting lineup. They both excel at half of the center’s positional requirements, and this is why they should be able to play together. Sabonis is much better on offense, Turner is much better on defense; play both of them at center on their respective stronger ends of the floor then flip the roles on the other. Turner already likes to stretch and shoot threes, while Sabonis enjoys the fight inside.
T.J. Warren, at first blush, plays a style that would fit as a three-man front-court rotation with Sabonis and Turner. Play the two centers together, then insert Warren in to play when either Sabonis or Turner sits. Another layer could also be playing Warren, a combo forward, as the starting small forward while moving Lamb to the bench.
That would decrease the unit’s athleticism, but would open up room for T.J. Leaf to play a steady stretch four role off the bench providing more shooting. On the surface, it would make more sense to deploy Warren at the four, where he thrived in Phoenix, while entrusting the three to Lamb. But that makes room for Leaf tougher to find. In any event, there is flexibility at the three now.
The last piece is the Pacers’ draft pick, Goga Bitadze, who has a multi-dimensional offensive game and provides strong shot-blocking that will give the Pacers the second shot-blocker they lacked last season. Now when Turner is out, the entire defense won’t go to hell.
When the dust settles, we’ll be better able to evaluate where the Indiana Pacers stack up with the opposition. But a quick conclusion: The Pacers have revamped themselves and are much more dynamic than last season’s edition. The Pacers are attacking the East. They’ve plucked a key player from a division rival in Malcolm Brogdon. They’ve added an explosive wing in Jeremy Lamb. More stories will be written, so stay tuned as free agency continues.