Indiana Pacers season review: Grading Malcolm Brogdon
By Luke Parrish
What went well for Malcolm Brogdon and the Indiana Pacers last season?
For starters, Brogdon averaged a career-high 21.2 points per game while also improving his rebounds to a career number, posting 5.3 boards per contest. His assists saw a slight decline but the rise of Domantas Sabonis as the leader of the offense took some of that load off of Brogdon.
Nate Bjorkgren was not shy of playing his best players a lot of minutes. Brogdon was right there with Sabonis in terms of minutes played, logging an incredible 34.5 minutes in the regular season. Those minutes would have likely continued in the Play-in Tournament if not for back-to-back blowouts providing different results for the Pacers.
Brogdon took a nice step in the right direction as a scorer last season. Not only did he improve his points each night, but he also saw a sizeable increase in field goal percentage and three-point percentage from the year prior. Across the board, Brogdon was a consistent force on offense for the Pacers.
How Brogdon could have been more impactful
The best ability is availability, right? Brogdon struggled with injuries in the second half of the season and missed the final 10 games of the regular season. With muscle injuries slowing him down at the end of the year, the Pacers missed their leader in the backcourt. While Caris LeVert did his best to keep the team alive, Brogdon’s absence proved to be too costly.
As far as on-court issues, there were simply too many horrid shooting nights from Brogdon. I understand his desire to carry the offense when things seemed impossible but hero ball never really worked in his favor.
An eight-game stretch back in January was a pivotal one for the Pacers and Brogdon. He shot just 60-of-156 over those eight games – or 38.5 percent from the field. On average, Brogdon hit just 7.5 of his 19.5 attempts. This was a common occurrence throughout the season as he could not find consistency for more than a few games at a time.