By the numbers: Which Indiana Pacers should get more playing time under Nate Bjorkgren?

Goga Bitadze only averaged 8.7 minutes per game

8.7 minutes is how many minutes Goga Bitadze averaged last year after being drafted 18th overall. Some may point to the rawness of him as a prospect, a clogged rotation, or a close race for specific playoff seeding as reasons to limit rookie minutes. And maybe all of that is true, but I still believe that Coach Bjorkgren needs to find a way to get Goga and future picks more minutes, even if it means more losses in the regular season.

Of the 2019-2020 rookies that played more than 30 games (about half the season), 41 out of 44 played more minutes per game than Goga. Those rookies played on 21 different teams, 13 of which were in the NBA Bubble with some shot at the playoffs, and half of those teams actually made the playoffs.

A few teams – Toronto, Miami, Boston, Denver – even had one or more rookies playing double Goga’s minutes, yet finished with better records in the regular season and got further in the playoffs than the Pacers did.

Simply looking at minutes played by a rookie doesn’t tell the whole story, as those teams were very clearly better than the Pacers by the time the year was over. Maybe they could afford to play their rookies more, and a few of those teams drafted a couple of picks higher so they had a better prospect. But at least with Miami and Denver, it wasn’t as clear as the year was going on they were that much better, yet they were playing their rookies and the Pacers weren’t.

The part of this that makes it an even bigger mistake rather than the traditional not developing rookies is that the team should have had in the back of their mind that the Myles Turner and Domantas Sabonis pairing may not be the future for the team. I absolutely support starting Turbonis after last season so we know for sure if it can work, but with the direction of the league there had to be a small part that was unsure of the fit.

If you’re unsure of the fit, I feel like it should have been a priority to see what you had in who might end up as your backup big or potential successor when one of them was traded, especially when Goga has a skillset that is perfect for today’s NBA. Hopefully, Coach Bjrokgren can recognize how little Goga was used last year and put him in positions to succeed this year, even if we run it back with two bigs in the starting lineup. Speaking of how little someone was used, that brings us to the next stat.