World traveler JaKarr Sampson wants to show Pacers what he’s learned

Newest Indiana Pacers’ addition JaKarr Sampson has been around the block a couple of times. Can he put it all together with the Blue and Gold?

Just a couple of days ago, the Indiana Pacers reportedly brought another new player aboard with the addition of JaKarr Sampson, who most recently played for the Chicago Bulls to close out the 2018-2019 season.

A quick look into the 26-year-old’s basketball history to this point will show you that JaKarr Sampson is a dude that’s already been around despite his still fairly young age in NBA-terms. Since joining the Philadelphia 76ers in 2014 as an undrafted free agent that had to prove himself in Summer League, Sampson has spent time with a whopping total of 9 teams, with the Indiana Pacers now being his 10th. He’s played for:

• 2014-2016: Philadelphia 76ers
• 2014: Delaware 87ers (G-League)
• 2016: Denver Nuggets
• 2016-2017: Iowa Energy (G-League)
• 2017-2018: Sacramento Kings
• 2017-2018: Reno Bighorns (G-League)
• 2018: Windy City Bulls (G-League)
• 2018-2019: Shandong Golden Stars (China)
• 2019: Windy City Bulls (G-League)
• 2019: Chicago Bulls

Whew! Clearly, this is a ton of movement for an NBA player in a 5 year span, which is a testament to JaKarr Sampson’s apparent willingness to do whatever it takes to continue playing basketball at a high level. It stands to reason that he’ll come to Indiana as a grinder, ready to give it his all from Day 1 (something the Pacers are always looking for).

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After one previous stint in the Chinese Basketball Association, it looked like Sampson was ready to return overseas again as he received little interest in free agency this summer. He had a deal with the Shandong Heroes already in place to return to China once again before apparently turning that deal down when the Pacers finally came calling.

Despite bouncing around so much, Sampson actually has seen some significant NBA action in comparison to other guys that hop around the G-League and international leagues. In his first couple years, he was a member of the Process-Era 76ers, also known as the team that tanked harder than anyone before on their way to gaining top draft picks that eventually turned into Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons.

With the 76ers, he started a total of 50 games over his first two seasons. He then ended up with the Denver Nuggets part way through the 2015-2016 season and started 22 games for them as well. During this time, Sampson struggled to really get much of anything going. His shooting percentages were weak from everywhere, and he barely cracked 5 points per game in any of these seasons.

This is when he really began to tour around with the G-League and China (and briefly the Sacramento Kings) before finally getting a real chance at the end of last season with the Chicago Bulls to really showcase his talents for the NBA one last time.

Take it with a grain of salt, because it was only a 4 game sample size on a team that was tanking to close out the year, but JaKarr looked good. In about 32 minutes per game, he was putting up 20 points and 8 rebounds on about 54% shooting from the field overall. He also seemed like he developed a three point shot while he was away too, firing off 3.5 attempts per game at a healthy nearly 36% clip. That’ll do.

If the Indiana Pacers opt to keep JaKarr Sampson around for the duration of the 2019-2020 season, it seems like they’ll gain a guy that’s literally traveled the world to hone his craft. Will he be a core piece of the puzzle moving forward? No, probably not. However, there’s a real chance that he can carve a role for himself on the end of the bench and have some positive value there. For a guy that’s likely looking to settle down, that should be a welcome change.