Indiana Pacers fans will finally enjoy modern basketball.
After five-plus years of a dated game plan, Nate Bjorkgren will usher the Indiana Pacers into the fast-paced small-ball era of the NBA.
In three preseason games, the Indiana Pacers averaged 42 three-point attempts per contest, hitting 34% of those attempts. Any guesses how many times the Indiana Pacers have attempted 42 shots from deep during a regular-season game in franchise history? Once. Only Once.
The first team in NBA history to average more than 40 shots per game from beyond the arc over an entire season was the Houston Rockets back in 2016-17. The Rockets have done it every year since with the Dallas Mavericks also accomplishing the feat last season.
Indiana has ranked in the bottom five of the league for three-point attempts each season during that span, including a league-low 28.2 attempts per contest last season. The best part is that those 28.2 three-point attempts per night last season is the current franchise record.
Sure, the Pacers took 40-plus shots from deep in a condensed preseason after the shortest offseason in league history after a resumed season that finished in a bubble during a global pandemic (what a strange reality). Will Indiana continue to take that many three-pointers regularly when the season starts? The Golden State Warriors started this trend and the most they have ever taken was 34.4 per game during the 2018-19 campaign.
Who cares? This just adds to the list of things Pacers fans should be excited about.
T.J Warren will be back in the lineup soon and Jeremy Lamb won’t be far behind. As the preseason went on, Victor Oladipo began to look more and more like the All-Star fans know and love. There were even some ball-handling displays from Domantis Sabonis and Myles Turner throughout the preseason.
For fans, this style may be slightly different than what is expected out of Pacers basketball. The franchise has always been successful playing a gritty, hard-nosed style with guys that love defense. That won’t get it done in the current landscape of the NBA.
Nate Bjorkgren, Kevin Pritchard, and the entire roster are showing us they can change and adapt to the modern playing style. They are not happy with first-round sweeps, either. They do not want to be the underdogs that overachieve each season anymore.
They want to be among the top contenders in the NBA. Their game plan was holding them back from reaching that goal over the past few seasons.
Not this season.