Indiana Pacers season review: Grading Domantas Sabonis in 2020-21

Grading Domantas Sabonis’ season with the Indiana Pacers

Individually, Sabonis was crucial to the Pacers. When he was on the floor, they were a much better team regardless of his defensive struggles. He opened up so much on the offensive end that it didn’t matter nearly as much as one would probably expect.

He fought until the final whistle all season. Given that he was not given the same calls as other All-Star talents, he had no other choice but to fight all season long. Frustration sometimes caught up to Sabonis, and rightfully so, but it hardly ever impacted the game for more than a possession or two.

The Pacers have an incredibly gifted passer and facilitator in their frontcourt for the future if they want to roll with Sabonis as the leader. While I do think that will bring some limitations to the team’s ceiling, there is plenty to build around with Sabonis.

We saw pretty much all season that although Sabonis is an excellent player, he is not at the level of others across the league and cannot carry a team on his own. He should not be expected to be the top dog each night or to lead a team to a high seed in the playoffs, especially when injuries deplete his running mates.

Final Grade: A-

The only thing keeping this from being an A or A+ is the simple fact that Sabonis did miss a key stretch near the end of the season and the Pacers as a team were not a dominant force in the Eastern Conference. I do not think it would be fair to give any player on this team an A+ on the season when they failed to even make the playoffs.