Indiana Pacers: Is Goga Bitadze running out of time?

The Indiana Pacers drafted Goga Bitadze in 2019, a 6′ 11” center from Georgia. With almost three seasons under his belt, Bitadze is running out of time with the Pacers.

The Indiana Pacers have some decisions to make within the organization this offseason. Myles Turner is on the last year of his contract, and Isaiah Jackson’s potential excites.

This year was rather hectic for the center rotation in Indiana. To start the season, the Pacers started two centers in Myles Turner and Domantas Sabonis and had two more centers on their bench in Goga Bitadze and Isaiah Jackson.

Then, the team traded Sabonis, Turner got injured, and they traded for a young 4/5 in Jalen Smith.

After this movement, Bitadze remains on the backburner in this roster, as rookie Isaiah Jackson offers the Pacers a multi-dimensional offense that they otherwise cant attain.

Goga had his best statistical season last year under Nate Bjorkgren, where he averaged just over 5 points per game and shot 25% from behind the arc. This season, those numbers are down. Now shooting 20% from three, which isn’t ideal in this Rick Carlisle offense, but that isn’t the only issue.

Isaiah Jackson has shown flashes of shooting but makes his presence felt by and above the rim. Whereas Bitadze has shown flashes of shot-blocking and being able to score down low, but Jackson puts Goga’s flaws in the spotlight with their different skill sets.

Bitadze has a few good scoring outputs this season, his best being against the Clippers where he landed 17 points and a three in a high scoring loss to LAC.

Bitadze does quite well in knowing when to pop and he did it multiple times in the game. He isn’t going to come flying over the top to catch a lob, but he has shown the capability of making good reads in these situations.

I don’t want to do it, but Bitadze’s situation draws comparison to that of T.J. Leaf’s time in Indiana. Leaf and Bitadze both played their “best” seasons in their second year, where Bitadze averaged 5.1 points per game and shot 25% from deep and Leaf with 3.9 points and the same shooting percentage.

Leaf played in three seasons with the Indiana Pacers before being traded, and this is Bitadze’s third season as well. Not to say Goga is for sure being traded this offseason, but maybe a similar situation the Pacers did with Aaron Holiday to use Bitadze as a trade piece to move up in the draft.

It was a hit last season when Indiana was able to acquire the rights to Isaiah Jackson, and if the trade deadline was any indicator of their stance going forwards they seem apt to be aggressive this offseason.

Not to say Bitadze is the same as T.J. Leaf because I believe he is certainly better, but I’m not sure about his fit going forward with this roster. Since joining the Pacers, Jalen Smith is averaging more than double of Bitadze’s minutes played at just over 25 to Goga’s 11.

Goga’s time in Indiana thus far has been an odd fit for him on this roster and at just 22 years old, there is more for him to prove. However, maybe that isn’t going to happen for him in a Pacers uniform.