This one improvement in Andrew Nembhard's game makes the Pacers more dangerous
By Ryan Stano
A few weeks into the season, the Indiana Pacers decided to make a change to their starting lineup. Instead of having Bennedict Mathurin and Buddy Hield, they moved in Andrew Nembhard and Aaron Nesmith as the new starters. It ended up being the right move.
Nembhard was thought to be a better defensive player than Buddy Hield, so he was a better fit to start next to Tyrese Haliburton. While he was clearly better defensively, he still had some offensive deficiencies that made it hard for the Pacers to be truly great offensively.
For half the season, Nembhard wasn't able to hit catch-and-shoot threes with any regularity. He needed more time to load up and set in order to hit them. Quite frankly, his three-point shooting in general needed work. He knew he needed to fix that if he wanted to close games and be on the court when it mattered the most. So he went to work.
Andrew Nembhard improved his three-point shooting and made the Pacers more dangerous
Before the All-Star break, Nembhard was making just 34% of his threes. After the break, he improved those numbers to 37%. That may not seem like a big jump, but it makes Nembhard a bad outside shooter to an average one. That's a massive difference in the course of a sesason.
Nembhard was even better in the playoffs. He shot it at an incredible 48.3% from outside the arc on 3.5 attempts per game. Obviously, that's an unsustainable number throughout the course of an entire season, but that does inspire confidence that he can be a good three-point shooter.
Can Nembhard get to that 39% or 40% level? That's more possible now. He's sped up his shooting stroke just a bit. That small amount has really helped him lock-in. I do think that he can sustain 38% throughout an entire season, which would be a really solid number.
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Nembhard put in the work to improve his shooting over the course of the season and it paid off. It's good to see that he's willing to put in the hard work necessary in order to be great. The Pacers have a decision to make on his contract. We'll find out how much they believe in him.