Indiana Pacers: Bojan Bogdanovic’s ascent reflects 3 franchise mistakes

Depleted Indiana Pacers could’ve used Bojan Bogdanovic’s near-flawless availability

At this point, no one in the Indiana Pacers roster should be clearly touted as healthy going into the season. I refuse to subscribe to the official numbers, but it would probably be safe to bet your money on the assumption that the team had the most startling injuries in the league for the past decade or so.

The recently-concluded season was yet another addition to Pacers fans’ exhaustive crest of injury-marred, what could’ve been seasons. Things looked good early in the campaign before the proverbial Indiana-magnetic injury bug ran its course, hounding everyone from nagging ailments to season-ending injuries and pushing the team down the East hierarchy.

Aside from his missed Bubble campaign last year, Bojan Bogdanovic is one of the league’s iron men and could’ve helped the team had he stayed. Including this season and excluding the bubble, Bojan only missed eight games in his NBA career. For comparison, Malcolm Brogdon missed 35…in the past two years. This is under the premise of him still donning the Blue and Gold, but it is also reflective of how the front office should be more meticulous with signing players boasting relatively lengthy injury histories.

For example, Warren and Jeremy Lamb, Bojan’s spiritual successors, have been in major injuries since getting here. The former had a season-ending foot injury this season while the latter tore his ACL in the prior campaign. If anything, those injuries put a cap on what the team’s ceiling is in a drastic, dispiriting fashion, though this doesn’t measure up to the next one.