The Indiana Pacers head into the summer facing big, decisive questions about the future of its rookie head coach, Nate Bjorkgren. With the man on the sidelines failing to elevate the team this season, even missing the playoffs for the first time in six years and at the crux of locker room discord, the first-year tactician may be on his way out.
Like most fans of the Blue and Gold, I was initially ecstatic about the hiring of Bjorkgren. After all, he was one of the architects behind Toronto’s championship run in 2019. Aside from that, Nick Nurse credited him for his creative flair in the X’s and O’s of the game, even being the main proponent of the box-and-one scheme that they used against Stephen Curry to usurp Golden State and win the title.
As the Pacers found themselves in a constant matinee with then-coach Nate McMillan, failing to get past the first-round in five consecutive season, the front office took a gamble and hired the rookie coach in hopes of him being the catalyst for more playoff success. Sure, Indiana avoided its traditional first-round exit, but this time, it’s because the team didn’t even get to the postseason.
First-year coaches don’t always make the engine run smoother than before, but with the Indiana Pacers’ unprecedented decline and the widespread improvement in the East, waiting for him to chisel out his flaws and improve may not be worth an exhaustive waiting game anymore, especially with the team hungry for success. That being said, how exactly did Nate Bjorkgren fare in his first year with the Blue and Gold?
What did Nate Bjorkgren do well in his rookie season with the Indiana Pacers?
The driving force behind Nate McMillan‘s exit and Nate Bjorkgren’s arrival was the team’s below average offense. Despite their defensive excellence under the former, their old-school and plodding scoring attack, including a head-scratching lack of acuity with three-point shooting, limited their ceiling as a playoff team in the modern NBA.
In theory, Bjorkgren was slated to diversify the team’s attack and install a faster-paced offense. In practice, there’s no question that his scoring schemes worked and paid huge dividends in maximizing the team’s potential as a point-producing unit.
Despite only making a slight jump to 14th in offensive rating from 18th and 19th in the past two seasons, it does not justify the noticeable improvements of the Indiana Pacers on offense. The Blue and Gold’s offense was always dependent on ball movement even under McMillan, but Bjorkgren maximized that this season with Indy now racking 27.4 assists per game, good for 2nd in the league. Aside from that, the team also ranks in the top five in assists percentage and assists to turnover ratio.
Another layer to their much improved offense is the pace, where the Pacers made a tremendous jump. This season, they finished 4th in the department, which is a colossal leap from the previous two campaigns where they ranked 25th and 22nd, respectively. In fact, this is the highest that Indiana has ranked on pace since the 2009-10 season.
In addition, as you might expect from a high-tempo team, Indy managed to rack up more opportunities this season. Again, only Golden State recorded more possessions than them this season, as they also tallied the third-most field goal attempts per contest, canning 47.4 percent, good for 11th. Not to be left out as well is their uptick on three-point attempts, where they now rank 18th after being 29th and 30th in the past two seasons.
More impressively, the team numbers don’t tell the whole story. On an individual basis, a lot of players had career years scoring the ball. Domantas Sabonis, Malcolm Brogdon, Caris LeVert, Doug McDermott, TJ McConnell, Oshae Brissett and Edmond Sumner all registered career-highs in scoring this season, attributing to the modern and more potent attack that Bjorkgren installed in Indy.
Evidently, much of Bjorkgren’s strength this season lies in the Indiana Pacers’s much-improved offense. With multiple players having career years and the team boasting great offensive numbers, there’s no question that he’s been as good of an offensive engineer as advertised. And better yet, there’s still room for growth, especially with a healthier lineup.
Grade: B+
Where did Nate Bjorkgren fall short in his first year with the Indiana Pacers?
Aside from offense, Nate Bjorkgren struggled in almost every aspect of the game on a coaching standpoint. You’d think that with an improved scoring unit, the Indiana Pacers will be better than last season’s finish, but there are a lot of factors that chipped in to their lottery finish this year, and a lot of that rest on the coach’s laurels.
First, the defense was noticeably worse compared to previous seasons. Their 14th-ranked defensive rating is a major slip from their excellent 3rd and 6th finishes in their last two campaigns under McMillan. And it doesn’t even stop there. Despite finishing 5th in steals and leading the league in blocks, Indiana had the 6th-worst scoring defense in the campaign, allowing the opposition to bleed a staggering 115.3 points per outing.
More so, the Pacers surrendered the most second-chance points per game and were tied for 5th in allowing the most fast break points. Most disappointing is their defense on the paint, where they were the worst in the association after being 4th and 14th in the same category in the last two campaigns.
Bjorkgren’s shifty tactics and possession-by-possession approach on defense was a recurring theme that worked in Toronto, but not in Indy. The schemes were quite effective in throwing offenses off, but his penchant for puzzling set-ups, like deploying zones against good shooting teams, and questionable decisions on points of concession, like leaving the corners open to aggressively tag the pick and roll, doomed the team on multiple occasions, which led to blown leads and poor clutch play.
Also, his minutes management this season was simply on Thibodeau territory. He often went to extreme lengths in going with the hot hand, notably leaving players on the court for almost entire halves. Even in blowouts, it took him a long while to pull the trigger on deploying the third stringers with the game already decided.
Lastly, as you may have guessed, his off-court difficulties with gaining significant traction in the locker room aggravated an already dire team situation. His micromanagement of players, abrasive communication style, and alleged rift with the staff unsurprisingly shocked many, especially the Indiana Pacers organization that banked on resilience and continuity to build a strong culture.
While the reports may have been overblown, especially with players coming to defense, the tension has already been built, and may have been a major factor in his uncertain future.
Grade: C-
How do we rate Bjorkgren as coach of the Indiana Pacers this season?
The Indiana Pacers haven’t had as much organizational unrest this year since the notorious Jim O’Brien days. While that may be a relatively unfair comparison especially with the injuries, COVID, and the general peculiarity of the season, a team that prides itself on sound team culture doesn’t just go into a state of flux with the same roster in abrupt fashion.
Of course, losing smears everything for worse, but Nate Bjorkgren also deserves ample blame on his part for his inability to piece a team that can brave through adverse circumstances. An injury-marred season is not novel in Indianapolis, and with his predecessor having proven himself to be a master at adapting in previous seasons, a comparative view here screams “ah, the good ol’ days”.
As Kevin Pritchard recently noted, Bjorkgren is a scientist at the X’s and O’s of the game, but there’s a reason why coaching is both a science and an art. Establishing himself as a rookie coach isn’t easy, but the general precedent for first-year coaches in the NBA is the trend towards improvement and gaining solid traction — two facets where he evidently fell short.
However, he himself acknowledged that he must improve. And he may still get that chance despite the franchise’s non-committal to him. But given the state of affairs in the East, and the elephant in the room for the franchise in the form of a substantial change, Bjorkgren may be the bell that strikes it all.
It’s easy to give a first-year coach some cushion with understandable struggles on the off-court intangibles, but that only comes with an immaculate on-court pedigree — something which he certainly hasn’t proven to have yet.
Overall Grade: C+