Kelly Oubre Jr. has been in the league for 11 seasons for good reason. On paper, he is the exact type of three-and-D wing with creation abilities that every team would want. He defends like a bull in a china shop and attacks the rim with reckless abandon. He has also played well alongside superstar talent like Steph Curry and Joel Embiid.
This feels like the exact type of player that the Indiana Pacers have needed for years. He does what Bennedict Mathurin does, but is more self-contained. It's why so many people were so high on him as a free-agent signing.
However, looking back at who he was on those Golden State Warriors and Philadelphia 76ers teams, there is a worrying trend in his analytic profile.
Suspicious superstar fits
In 2021, when Steph Curry was on the court with Oubre off of it, the Warriors had a plus 15.2 net rating, with a 127 offensive rating that was the best in the league. However, when Curry and Oubre shared the court, that net rating cratered to a negative 6.4 as the offense went from that record-setting 127 to only 107.4. The defense got worse as well, but not by enough for it to matter much.
The same can be said about Oubre's fit alongside Embiid. The team was regularly better off with their supplementary option.
So much of what Oubre will have to do will be playing around the stars on this Pacers roster, with so many mouths to feed, including Pascal Siakam, Tyrese Haliburton, and Ivica Zubac. He will need to make an impact in a limited role.
However, these numbers make it seem like he has failed to fit in at his different stops on winning teams.
Ironically, Oubre has been beloved everywhere he has stopped. Phoenix Suns fans still rave about how his Valley Boys slogan started the best era the Suns have had since the Eight Seconds or Less offense.
Still, he was a part of the package that brought Chris Paul over from OKC, meaning he missed out on being a part of a winning team there by just a season. When Oubre was on the Wizards, he did the same, but in reverse.
Washington's decline started the year Oubre was drafted. Before anyone knew it, Washington had gone from one of the best teams in the East with a star backcourt to a team that was, at best, mediocre and, more likely, completely content with simply making money on the fringes of the playoff race.
Oubre seems like the exact type of player that former teammate Draymond Green described as "the dynasty starts after you". He's not a bad player, but the aesthetics (yes, he's attractive, but that's not what we're talking about) of his play often cloud the truth of who he is.
Maybe he's learned how to downsize, but the more likely situation is that the same will happen in Indiana.
Analytics are not the be-all and end-all of sports. However, this is a worrying trend that the Pacers and their fans will need to keep track of.
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