The Indiana Pacers will take a gamble next season and start Myles Turner and Domantas Sabonis beside each other in the frontcourt. But what happens if this doesn’t work?
Myles Turner is a center. Domantas Sabonis is a center. Both are good enough to be starters. Both play for the Indiana Pacers. This uhh… This could get tricky.
Sure, when Sabonis was with the Oklahoma City Thunder his rookie season, they opted to mostly play him at power forward. However, it didn’t go well, to say the least. For most of the year, he looked very out of place on the court. Granted, he was a rookie and was still adjusting to the speed of the NBA, but as soon as he became a Pacer and was plugged in as the backup center, he flourished.
Then there’s Myles Turner, who by most accounts is growing into one of the top 3 best defensive centers in the entire league. He’s an absolute monster on D in the paint and either swats away any shot that comes his way, or at least severely alters it.
Both of these guys have seen great success at the center position since teaming up in Indianapolis. However, to this point, they’ve mostly been played offset from one another. Turner starts the game, Sabonis gets inserted into the lineup for a couple minutes next to him, and then Turner gets pulled for rest while Sabonis shifts back over to being the center on the court.
Kevin Pritchard mentioned in his post-season press conference earlier in the spring that the team would look to get Sabonis a larger role this coming year. We’ve now learned that this means he’ll shift into being the starting power forward with Myles retaining the starting center duties. This is a potentially concerning fit, and the success of the Indiana Pacers’ season this year hinges on these two learning how to co-exist in the same lineup.
Let’s be fair; it could absolutely work extremely well. Sabonis and Turner could gel nicely with one another and become a matchup nightmare for anyone without two competent bigs on their roster. Sabonis could learn how to defend stretch fours on the perimeter while Myles holds down the paint. They could figure out how to not get in each other’s ways on offense and set the team up to run more creative sets than ever before.
Or, it could all backfire. And then what? What’s the doomsday scenario for the Indiana Pacers if Myles and Domantas just can’t work it out? It seems it could go one of two ways.