The Struggle is real. The Struggle is back for the Indiana Pacers.
We’ve seen a number of ways the Pacers have struggled to reach their potential in the past. There was the post-Paul George injury era of uncertainty as his exit was all but known. There was 2014, when a team desperate to beat the Miami Heat traded away Danny Granger for Evan Turner and had an infamous photoshoot that came to symbolize what was known as The Struggle, and it was not a glorious struggle by any means. Even the post-Brawl Pacers had the built-in excuse of having to rehab the franchise’s image not just after the Malice in the Palace, but after a strip-club shootout.
In Indiana’s fallow periods since the Reggie Miller era, there was a good explanation for why Indiana wasn’t winning, even if it wasn’t entirely apparent at the time.
This is a different sort of struggle for the Pacers.
Yes, Tyrese Haliburton is out for the year. Yes, there have been a lot of injuries — more on that below. Yes, Myles Turner is gone too. But the struggles go beyond just the missed games. The players that are playing are putting up some of the worst numbers of their careers.
One number or one stat doesn’t tell the whole story, but each one explains how and why this season has been so difficult for Indiana.
Let’s descend into the hell that is this Pacers’ season, shall we?
Pacers lead league in missed players, games
One of the most obvious reasons for Indiana’s woes is that they’ve had 12 different players miss games, and only the Dallas Mavericks with Anthony Davis, have had more money tied up in those injuries, according to Spotrac.
It’s a simplification of all the issues contributing to the losses, but certainly explains why not only is the team not as good as expected, but woefully so.
It was one thing to lose Haliburton and the unique ways he sparks the team, but it has been another to lose even more of last year’s major contributors for extended stretches. Bennedict Mathurin, Andrew Nembard, T.J. McConnell, and Obi Toppin have played half or fewer of the Pacers’ games. Now Aaron Nesmith will join that list after his knee injury.
Pascal Siakam has been the only constant, but when he is playing with guys that we’re suppose to be part of a deep rotation, not starters, he is like a running back facing an eight-man front in football.
That’s shown in the fact that Siakam’s points per attempt are in the 18th percentile. He’s went from a 51.9% shooter who could take advantage of smaller defenders. His 57.2 eFG% last year was built on above-average three-point shooting and grinding away for two-pointers. This year, he’s the only consistent threat for Indiana, and opponents are making sure he isn’t getting anything easy.
It seems safe to say Indaina’s opponents aren’t hesistating to send help defenders away from Siakam’s supporting cast toward the Pacers’ lone healthy star.
Hardly scientific, but opponents don’t look overly worried about him dishing the ball out to a teammate.
The Pacers aren’t getting out and running where Siakam and anyone else can thrive in chaos before the defense settles in.
Offense isn’t getting out in transition
Indiana pushed the ball up the court last season as fast as possible. Even when it wasn’t scoring in transition, its egalitrian form of basketball translated to the 6th best half court in the league according to Cleaning the Glass.
As Caitlin Cooper points out, Indiana doesn’t have two Andrew Nembhards this year. They had two capable ball-handlers capable of pushing the tempo and getting Indiana into its offense quickly.
This year’s offense is 13 points worse and the worst team in the NBA when it comes to half-court offense. It’s also second from last in transition offense and 10.6 points worse than a season ago. They aren’t forcing turnovers or pushing the ball up the floor like they did relentlessly like they did before.
But it is beyond just his absence, or anyone else’s. Indiana just can’t make a shot.
Indiana could be the worst 3-point shooting team in recent memory
At 29.9%, the Pacers are not only the worst team in the NBA right now at getting the ball it the cylinder from beyond the arc, but they giving the all-time record for missed 3-point attempts a run for its money.
According to StatMuse, this season’s Pacers (and Dallas Mavericks at 31%) are in the top 10 for worst 3-point percentage since 2000. The worst goes to the 2002-03 Denver Nuggets at 27.8%.
What sticks out, looking at StatMuse’s top 25 on that list is how long ago most of the worst squads were, and how few three-pointers they attempted.
Only this year’s Mavs and Pacers average double-digit made attempts a game, a reminder that the game has evolved drastically over the last 25 years.
Back then, no one expected a center to shoot threes, much less make them. Now every position is expected to make them, and if not, they’d better bring something special to the game or they’ll soon find themselves played off the court. Back then, 3-pointers felt more or less like a nice wrinkle in an offense. Now they are more common than a mid-range jumper.
That evolution also highlights what makes Indiana’s inaccuracy so troubling. The basic math of modern basketball is 33% is the mark where three-point attempts are worth as much as going 50% from inside the arc. You pretty much have to make at least that many to have the offense running with any efficiency.
The Pacers are shooting so poorly that as whole, on paper, one would basically advise the team to not shoot threes, as their inefficiency makes them a worse option than shooting mid-range jumpers at the 32.1% clip that Indiana is currently making them at. Of course, the deep ball opens up the floor, but there is little reason for opponents to worry about that at the moment when playing the Pacers.
The Pacers are working on not just rewriting the history of struggle, but also breaking the math of modern basketball as well.
The Pacers have won 11 quarters this season
Basketball is a game of runs, and while quarters do not constrain a run, they can tell a story of how the Pacers’ season has gone.
As Keerthika Uthayakumar pointed out after the latest loss, Indiana has only won three quarters this month. You can bring that total to 11 if you go back to the beginning of the season, but both tell a story of a team that can have spurts of good basketball followed by long and dreary periods of basketball failures.
Simply put, of the 56 quarters of basketball Indiana has played, it’s won less than 20% of those. Sadly, this includes 13 straight games where they have lost the third quarter. Why does the third quarter matter? They’ve partnered with Culver’s to give away cheese curds every time the Pacers win in the third quarter. Instead of “Yes, Curds” the Pacers have given out no curds since the season opener against OKC.
Indiana’s subpar offense and defense make it nearly impossible to win games. The math and mathin’.
Worst start in the Pacers franchise history, threatening for the worst record in NBA history
According to Champs or Chumps, nine teams have started the season 0-15. Indiana avoided that fate, but they are a game away from a 1-14 start, which has happened 16 times in NBA history.
The Pacers are currently on track for a 6-76 record. Indiana and the Washington Wizards are on pace for the worst seasons in NBA history at the moment. Only the 1973 Philadelphia 76ers have accomplished a single-digit win total in NBA history.
The worst Pacers team by record is the 1982-83 squad, with a 20-62 record.
And it’s not just that they are losing, they are losing badly. While they are one game under the threshold used on Champs or Chumps, the -203 +/- for the Pacers would be is the 6th worst after 15 games. Depending on how things turn out tonight, they could dig deeper toward the bottom (-280 by the 1970-71 Cleveland Cavaliers) or find a tiny sliver of light to follow to the surface.
Cleaning the Glass’ calculations for a team with this point differential is to win about 10.8 games, which is hardly encouraging for the Pacers.
Welcome to Hell
What that all means is it’s been a miserable experience for the players and fans. There was an expected dropoff without Haliburton, but the other injuries — particularly to Indiana’s guards — have made the style of basketball that all but won an NBA title last year all but impossible.
It isn’t fun, and until at least Indiana’s guards are healthy on a regular basis, there’s little reason to expect change.
Welcome to Hell, Gehenna, Jahannam, or whatever you would like to call it. Maybe if in the Buddhist and Hindu tradition, this Naraka can be a place where all the negative karma that brought them there has been used up.
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