The Indiana Pacers have already suffered their first setback in this NBA season before even playing a game. The team announced that TJ McConnell and Aaron Nesmith will both miss the opener against the New Orleans Pelicans with hamstring injuries.
The standing of these two players on the roster is vastly different, and in the question of who will be replacing McConnell, it is relieving to have an easy answer for filling the void left by the other missing Pacer.
Enter Kelly Oubre Jr.
Oubre was a priority option in free agency for the Pacers, eventually signing for essentially a two-year 17 million dollar contract. While he was initially expected to be a bench piece, he will open the season as a starter, immediately proving why he was so sought after by Indiana.
How will the rotation look?
A starting lineup that features Oubre over Nesmith immediately loses quite a bit of shooting. That's to be expected considering Nesmith is one of the best three-and-D players in the entire NBA. It will also leave the bench light on creators, as Oubre's slashing to the rim has been one of the few things that has worked for the second unit on offense.
While there is no real option to fix this in the starting lineup, the Pacers could stagger Andrew Nembhard more off of Tyrese Haliburton in anticipation of him taking a bigger scoring load. This could also be where Jarace Walker's playmaking jump pops.
If you combine the absence of McConnell and Nesmith, Indiana has only six of their assumed rotation available. Without any obvious options to take each player's role one-to-one, Indiana's rotation may be expanded quite heavily by coach Rick Carlisle.
Maybe tonight is the night Quenton Jackson gets some run. The Pacers will need more guard minutes and more shot creation, so he seems to be the easiest band-aid option.
What this does certainly mean is that Indiana will be attacking the rim more than we could have expected. So far this pre-season, the Pacers have run a largely inside-out system, leveraging the shooting from Haliburton, Nembhard, and Nesmith to open up Ivica Zubac down low.
Attacking the rim against a team like the Pelicans that lacks any real size at center – Derik Queen and Zion Williamson are both NOT rim protectors – seems like a great strategy that surely would've been on the scouting report to begin with.
Patience will be vital this season, but it's nice to see the problem that ruined last year be so easily solved this time around.
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