Before the season began, the Indiana Pacers made it clear they would be doing something somewhat unconventional, starting Domantas Sabonis and Myles Turner together in the frontcourt.
Two players with somewhat overlapping skillsets, this felt like it would create a clear logjam for the team with fit and chemistry issues that would reduce both of the impact players to a lesser value for the team.
Kevin Pritchard and Nate McMillan wouldn’t budge despite the criticism, this is how the team would play, at least to start the year.
The pairing wasn’t one that would be married together for entire games. Primarily, the duo starts games together. Sabonis leaves the floor first, as he has a secondary role in leading the second unit to help the Pacers get leads over the opposing team’s weaker lineups.
The duo has shown promise this season. Heading into next year, there is reason to believe that this pairing is a net-positive and one that can enforce its will on opposing teams, especially in the playoffs.
To see that promise, one does need to look a little deeper than the season-long numbers, but those numbers are important to building up the picture of the process that has been connecting these two players together.
Indiana Pacers visage is different with Sabonis and Turner sharing the court
To understand this pairing, we must first understand how responsibilities have changed for Myles Turner. Turner was asked to adjust in order to fit Sabonis into the starting lineup.
One of the biggest things he would be asked to change is his shot profile. To allow for more space for Sabonis to operate on offense, Turner was asked to take an increased amount of 3-pointers.
Last season, Turner took 25.1 percent of his shots from beyond the arc, this season he has taken 44.3 percent of his shots from beyond the arc. Turner is hitting about 5 percent fewer of his 3-point shots this season, an expected dip with a higher volume.
Adjusting your shot profile can be a tough one for many players. We’ve seen dips in shooting percentages from both Malcolm Brogdon and Jeremy Lamb this season as they’ve taken more mid-range shots and fewer 3-point attempts to fit into the Pacers mid-range heavy system.
Turner took 25.6 percent of his shots within three feet of the rim last season, just 21.1 percent this season. He’s filling a completely new role that he’s not yet acclimated to, something that comes with expected bumps in the road.
For Sabonis, this means the opportunity to get after it on the interior. Not as gifted as a shooter, he doesn’t have the flexibility or the threat from deep to stretch the defense out as much as Sabonis. That’s why Turner was tasked with making the adjustment.
Let’s first look at how the duo has performed overall this season and look at an interesting case study from a month’s worth of games to see why, exactly, we should be encouraged with this pairing moving forward.
How do Domantas Sabonis and Myles Turner perform together on offense?
On the offensive end, the duo has not been very good throughout this season. We’ll use Sabonis as our centerpoint here for statistics, since he’s been the best player for the Pacers this year.
All lineup data considered here on out parses out anything that has only logged 100 minutes or lower.
Of the best offensive two-man lineups that include Sabonis, his best pairs are Doug McDermott, Justin Holiday, Aaron Holiday, and T.J. McConnell. Given that Sabonis plays a great amount of minutes in the second unit and that he is often the main piece on offense in these situations, this shouldn’t be surprising.
Of starters, though, the two-man lineup with Myles Turner has been near the bottom in terms of offensive rating. Malcolm Brogdon, Jeremy Lamb, and T.J. Warren all post better two-man offensive ratings with Sabonis.
Turner and Sabonis post an offensive rating of 105.7 this season together (the best duo with Sabonis is 113.2). Their turnover percentage is second-highest among Sabonis duos and their pace is the lowest.
How do Domantas Sabonis and Myles Turner perform together on defense?
On defense, things are good. For Sabonis, his best defensive partner is Turner, and together they post a defensive rating of 103.6.
Turner is a legitimately daunting rim protector (opponents shoot over 10 percent worse than their average within 6 feet of the rim) that carries most of the load here, but Sabonis is no slouch either, posting the team’s fourth-best defensive box plus/minus.
Overall, how has the pairing of Myles Turner and Domantas Sabonis fared?
In terms of net rating, the pairing has been positive. Overall, the duo has posted a net rating of 2.1, which is OK, but not great. He has a net rating of 6.0 with Justin Holiday, 5.2 with Doug McDermott.
With starters, he has a 5.0 with Malcolm Brogdon and a 3.1 with T.J. Warren.
According to PBPStats, the team has been better off with Sabonis on the floor and Turner off.
It’s hard to say that Turner is being held back by Sabonis, too, as the team puts up a negative net rating when Turner is on the floor and Sabonis is off. The inverse is true when Sabonis is on and Turner is off.
December was a signal of what can come for Indiana Pacers starting frontcourt
Coming into this season, injecting Sabonis into the starting lineup was great for Sabonis and an adjustment for Turner. We could even suggest that injecting Sabonis into the starting lineup has been great for Sabonis because of the adjustment for Turner.
Turner hasn’t been as good on offense as he usually is. A good amount of that has to do with that aforementioned shot profile adjustment that has pulled him out of the paint to make room for Sabonis. He’s traded in a more persistent conversion rate shot for a less reliable shot that will still pull his defender out to space the floor better.
A big issue is that for much of the season, Turner’s shooting was just that — a threat, not an action. It was only creating for Sabonis, not necessarily creating space and his own offense.
Turner showed just how deadly this pairing could be in December, and it’s an interesting case study to look at when evaluating this duo.
Let’s first look at how many shooting attempts Turner took beyond the arc per game each month this season (3P% and makes per game in parentheses, Turbonis net rating in bold)
- October: 3.75 (53.3% — 2) 3.9
- November: 4.28 (36.7% — 1.57) 5.3
- December: 4.66 (34.3% — 1.6) 11.0
- January: 3.83 (23.9% — 0.92) -0.2
- February: 4.12 (36.0% — 1.5) -3.5
- March: 3.6 (27.8% — 1.0) -5.8
Clearly, there is a correlation between the duo’s net rating and Turner’s 3-point attempts:
Though more data would do us well to prove that there is a correlation, with the few amount of months we’ve seen thus far, clearly more Turner 3-point attempts have made for more fruitful results during this time.
While this could be chalked up to simply a better team output, here’s how each month compared to the team’s net rating each month of the season thus far:
- October: +7.2
- November: -1.9
- December: +9.4
- January: -1.5
- February: -2.8
- March: -4.4
December, again, was the duo’s best month relative to the team.
This small and monthly itemized sample size does not necessarily prove that the improved net rating in December was not due to other team-wide outside circumstances (such as slate of opponents), but it does nail home that December was a great month for the pairing. In raw and relative numbers, it was their most impressive month in minutes they spent together.
What it shows us, too, is that as long as Turner hits 3-pointers at a respectable rate (30 percent seems like a good basement number), this duo will put up positive net ratings so long as the team commits to having Turner shoot the 3-pointer at a high clip.
The effectiveness is in the decoy of the 3-point shot, not the scoring itself.
When Turner makes more of those 3-pointers, the net rating will be even better, but the point of his attempted threes is not necessarily in the points per attempt themselves, but rather the wrinkle it gives the offense and the game planning it forces from the defense.
There’s reason to believe this pairing will be good if the Pacers keep having Turner shoot 3-pointers.