Indiana Pacers: 3 players who may see increased roles next season

Doug McDermott’s shooting could be weaponized more

Doug McDermott is a player that you’d love to see get more minutes for his contributions on the offensive end. The problem is that his struggles on the defensive end threaten the Pacers’ identity and their largest team strength.

While the Pacers have been mediocre at best on offense, they have been an extremely solid defensive team (7th best defensive rating in the league, 18th best offensive rating).

One player could interject some offense, sure, but enough to move them up to 10-12th in the offensive rating leaderboards? Likely not. And the sacrifice of points given up to the opposition would not be a positive.

At a certain point, you’re sacrificing the entire identity you rest your team on by using McDermott too much.

That said, McMillan and the Pacers need to find a way to utilize McDermott in more lineups while covering up his defensive shortcomings as best they can. He’s hitting 44.5 percent of his 4.3 3-point attempts per game. His presence on the court would provide requisite spacing for offense in the paint.

The two-man game between Sabonis and McDermott has been extremely good. They have combined for 813 minutes this season with a net rating of 5.2. Their defensive rating of 108.0 is actually right on par with where the team’s average defensive rating is.

If they can get McDermott inserted in lineups where he produces defensive ratings with his teammates below the team average, that would allow McMillan to more boisterously get him time on the floor to interject sudden offense.

McDermott and Myles Turner might be an interesting pairing to try and roll out in more frequent situations. That duo has seen the floor for just 195 minutes this season and has posted a defensive rating of 100.8.

Unfortunately, the offense has been hard to come by there (offensive rating of just 99.8 with that duo) because Turner and McDermott don’t have the same lethal two-man game Sabonis and McDermott have.

Much of that may just be familiarity, as McDermott has an offensive rating above 100 with each of the other starters, all of which he has played greater than 200 minutes with.

The Pacers have denied the trend of high-volume 3-point shooting as much as possible and kept their mid-range attempts high. Second to the Spurs in mid-range attempts per game (17.6) the Pacers are dead last in 3-point attempts per game (27.5).

A solid mid-range is a tool that will be extremely useful against swarming and more active postseason defenses where you need to be less selective about which shots you want to take, but having the 3-point shot on your side really helps the team.

McDermott can increase those attempts with more minutes and get them to fall.