INDIANAPOLIS – The Pacers are better today than they were yesterday, and that will have to do. We’re a humble group here in flyover country, are we not? Other markets, like Los Angeles and Phoenix and even San Antonio, where the weather is cruel but the NBA Draft lottery is kind, can dream about things like NBA championships.
Here in the land of the Indiana Pacers, where the fan base has always been more loyal than the players, we can dream about getting better. Maybe even a lot better.
What exactly does “a lot better” mean in the context of last season, when the Pacers had the seventh-worst record in the NBA? It means a .500 record after the Pacers went 35-47. It means a spot in the 2024 NBA Playoffs, or at least the play-in games of the playoffs. A possibility, you call that kind of season. Purgatory is another word.
Out here in the cheap seats, where it’s not our name on the paycheck or our butt on the line, we can dream big dreams, because those are free. What was that song by Kenny Nolan in 1977? Ah, here it is: “I Like Dreamin’,” which reached No. 3 on the pop charts in March 1977.
I like dreamin’
Cause dreamin’ can make you mine
Some of us were humming that song last week – OK, it was me – when the 2023 NBA Draft was approaching and Pelicans star Zion Williamson was available (maybe) and it’s easier to dream about the fantasy of a healthy Zion than the reality of what actually happened over the next 10 days, concluding this weekend when the Pacers made their biggest moves of free agency and got better.
Doyel: Safe, shrewd Pacers go nowhere. How about Zion Williamson?
Maybe even a lot better. Relatively speaking, etcetera and so on.
Pacers overpaid Bruce Brown? Yes. Here’s why.
Does it seem like I’m complaining about the Pacers, or about team president Kevin Pritchard? I am not. Pacers owner Herb Simon, 88, wants to win as soon as possible. You understand. Pritchard’s job is to make it happen.
It has been a Herculean, damn near Sisyphean effort for Pritchard, who very seriously tries to roll that boulder up the NBA’s hill, past unserious franchises like Detroit and Washington and Orlando and Charlotte. Pritchard, like Larry Bird in that chair before him, has done well, pushing that boulder up the hill only to have Paul George or Victor Oladipo come crashing back down in an avalanche of injury and ego.
So Pritchard starts pushing the boulder again, starting over with Tyrese Haliburton and making a series of small but serious moves, drafting wing Bennedict Mathurin and guard Andrew Nembhard last season, and power forward Jarace Walker and wing Ben Sheppard last week.
Last week was some of Pritchard’s finest work, most of which went unnoticed around the country, other than the laughter.
Yeah, we heard it. The Pacers signed free agent Bruce Brown, fresh off an NBA championship parade in Denver where Nuggets coach Michael Malone had a few cold beverages and crooned to the crowd: “Is Brucie B going anywhere? Hellllll no!”
Turns out, Brown is going somewhere – here, matter of fact – and he’s getting a big bag of money: $45 million over two years, an awful lot for a 6-4 guard who was his team’s sixth-leading scorer (11.5 ppg) in 2022-23, a player whose career averages are 8.5 points, 4.2 rebounds and 2.4 assists, whose career shooting percentage from the all-important 3-point range is 34.1%.
People around the country, they got a kick out of how much the Pacers paid Bruce Brown.
People around the country, they have no idea what it takes to get a player like Bruce Brown – a role player on an NBA champion – to come here. It takes a whopper of a contract offer, because nothing else works. You wanted the Pacers to exercise fiscal responsibility, and offer Brown a deal more in line with his market value? Hey, great idea. Ten other teams are doing the same thing.
We’d be his ninth choice, ahead only of those knuckleheads in Washington.
What did Herb Simon get for his $45 million? A franchise linchpin, perhaps. Brown is an excellent defender whose offense improves each season, and he’s a winner. That ring on his finger doesn’t lie. Neither does Malone’s wobbly attempt at the victory parade to talk Brown into staying. They know what they had there in Denver.
What do we have now, here in Indianapolis? We’ll see, because Brown will get the chance to show us. Pritchard has a habit of identifying role players on other teams, giving them a bigger opportunity, and watching them flourish. Haliburton and Oladipo come to mind. So do Domantas Sabonis and T.J. Warren and, to varying extents, Jalen Smith and Oshae Brissett and T.J. McConnell and even Caris LeVert.
When Pritchard thinks he’s seeing something in a young veteran that nobody else has seen, he tends to be right.
Another boulder up another hill
Obi Toppin is another of those Pritchard moves. The Knicks saw in Toppin a backup to All-Star Julius Randle, the eighth or ninth man on an improving Eastern Conference team, a career 7.0-ppg scorer. What does Pritchard see? More.
Insider: Pacers to acquire Obi Toppin from Knicks for 2nd-rounders
He see a 23-year-old who played just 14 minutes per game last season, a high-flying 6-9 athlete – Toppin won the 2022 NBA Slam-Dunk Competition – who outshot Mathurin from 3-point range last season (34.4% for Toppin, 32.3% for Mathurin) and at a minimum can hold down the starting spot while the rookie, Jarace Walker, is getting ready.
Projected Pacers starting lineup: Haliburton, Buddy Hield and Mathurin at guard, Toppin at forward, Myles Turner at center.
Projected second unit: McConnell, Nembhard and Brucie B at guard, Jarace Walker at forward, Isaiah Jackson at center.
Promising deep reserves: Ben Sheppard, Jalen Smith, Aaron Nesmith, Jordan Nwora.
If Toppin makes a T.J. Warren-type jump here – here’s the boilerplate stuff you have to say, about injuries and so on – the Pacers are easily a playoff team.
Maybe Toppin is what the Knicks think he is, just another player. They all but gave him to the Pacers for two second-round draft picks, aka two future pros in New Zealand. Maybe the Pacers are wrong about Bruce Brown, too, but Pritchard isn’t often wrong about these things.
You wonder what Pritchard could do with actual assets, don’t you? He’s not the guy you want pulling up to your garage sale, because he’ll talk you down a few bucks on your $7 coffee table, and later you’ll learn it was an antique.
What could Pritchard do at the finer shops? We’ll never know. He’s not Bruce Brown or Obi Toppin, given the opportunity of a lifetime elsewhere. He’s president of the Indiana Pacers, which means his opportunities are limited, but when Pritchard gets a dream player/person like Tyrese Haliburton, he signs him to a five-year contract worth up to $260 million because after PG13 and Oladipo, there’s no way he’s letting that guy get away.
Doyel: Tyrese Haliburton is the player the Pacers have wanted for years
That’s the centerpiece, Haliburton, along with Turner, Mathurin and Walker. It’s not exactly LeBron and AD, or Kevin Durant and Devin Booker and DeAndre Ayton and Bradley Beal, but we’re not those places. We’re Indianapolis, and if you like dreamin’, pop in some Kenny Nolan and listen to a song from 1977, when the Lakers were 53-29 and about to get Magic Johnson, while the Pacers were 36-46 and about to get Rick Robey.
But Slick Leonard was pushing that boulder up the hill in 1977, wasn’t he? By 1981 the Pacers had won 41 games.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.
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This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Pacers got better in NBA Draft and free agency. You like dreamin’?
