Assessing Indiana Pacers Rookie Goga Bitadze’s season thus far

Through the first half of his rookie season, Goga Bitadze has seen fluctuations in his role. The Indiana Pacers need to find a way to maximize his future.

If hitting on rookies outside of the lottery were an art form, the Miami Heat would probably be Leonardo da Vinci and the Indiana Pacers would be a little closer to Jason Segel’s character in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. One is what everything else is measured up to, and one is a little sad, but probably not the worst.

The Pacers have success stories in Danny Granger at 17th overall in 2005 and Aaron Holiday at 23rd last year. Doing well in this area is not about trying to find the next Giannis Antetokounmpo, but typically finding the best role player to fit your team. This is what Indiana was hoping they had with selecting Goga Bitadze last June.

Bitadze was drafted 18th overall, a position in which Kevin Pritchard didn’t think he’d still be available in. His draft profile was solid, but his fit seemed odd. The Pacers already had two quality centers on the roster and drafting another seemed redundant.

Through the first half of the season, there has been some very encouraging signs. Bitadze had an eight game stretch early in the season when the team was struggling with injuries that he averaged almost 20 minutes per game and made two starts. He averaged 7.6 points, 4.9 rebounds, and 2 blocks during the run. Not a world beater, but a serviceable line.

There’s no question Georgian big man is still a few years away from his best basketball. The problem is the Pacers may need more from him now.

Goga has only posted a positive plus/minus four times in his last 22 contests. That’s while playing with a top-10 bench according to the same stat. This is a tough thing to figure out. His garbage time minutes could be an factor, but there are times when Myles Turner or Domantas Sabonis get into foul trouble and he looks outmatched.

Case in point came Sunday against the Denver Nuggets. Turner was struggling with foul trouble all night and totaled less than 20 minutes of game time. Coach Nate McMillan tried to use Bitadze sparingly to give Sabonis some rest. The results weren’t great.

At the start of the fourth, Turner was on the bench with four fouls. Goga was facing a line-up of mostly other bench players, but still struggled.

“Mason Plumlee is just too strong for him. They’ve got Myles Turner up,” Pacers announcer Quinn Buckner said following a quick move and easy bucket Plumlee.

The very next play, Turner returned and picked up his fifth foul with over 10 minutes left in the game. Bitadze just needed to be able to fill a few minutes to keep the Pacers in it, but wasn’t able to do so against the West’s number two team. Plumlee may not be a scorer typically, but he’s one of the most well-rounded back-up centers in the league. At lot could be learned from the way he plays.

This isn’t to say that Bitadze won’t eventually be able to body players like Plumlee down the line, he is only 20 after all. Transitioning to the NBA is hard for almost every young player, especially big men. The speed of play and complexities of defensive coverages can be a lot to handle.

It may be in the team’s best interest to look into a short-term upgrade at the back-up center spot. This would most likely come through the buy-out market, where the player would just be in Indianapolis for the remainder of the season and not hurt Bitadze’s long-term growth.

This would also open up more time for Bitadze to play with the Mad Ants. Playing nearly 40 minutes per game in the G League, learning the system, would be much more valuable than the 9.4 minutes he’s averaging with the Pacers. The key to this season is maximizing this year’s talent while still setting up for a strong future. Indiana has the pieces to fulfill both.