Can Indiana Pacers turn season around during NBA Cup break again? Roster moves coming? 24’ draft?

Can Indiana Pacers turn season around during NBA Cup break again? Roster moves coming? 24’ draft?

The NBA Cup break is almost here. Can the Pacers turn their season around today and again, should they even want to? What does history say will come next for this team? And we have a lot to discuss on this team’s roster, upcoming moves, and the draft. We’ll get to all of it today on the Locked On Pacers podcast. You are Locked on Pacers, your daily Indiana Pacers podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. What’s up everybody? Happy Monday. Hope you had a great weekend and welcome in to another edition of the Locked On Pacers podcast where we of course talk about the Indiana Pacers. As always, my name’s Tony East. I cover the team for Forbes and Circle City Spin. And today I am back from a crazy weekend of IU sports. I am very sorry to any of my non IU fan listeners who have to see me look obnoxious in my football jersey and hat, but it’s a crazy day. Uh, and we’re going to talk a lot about the Pacers today. I have lots of stuff I want to dive into. The NBA Cup break will start after the Pacers played tonight. Can the Pacers turn their season around again in that break like they did last year? Should they even want to have that happen? What history says they’ll do next? I want to really dive into that stuff before they have two after they play the Kings tonight. They’ll have two games in the next about 10 days. What can that do for them? And then I want to talk about some roster moves that are certainly coming, some injury stuff, and the draft, but not the coming draft, the past draft, because a certain player that many of you already know who I’m talking about has been getting brought up a lot when it comes to the Pacers. Uh the cup break approacheth. Many teams have already are already on it. Tuesday night, there will be quarterfinal games. The Pacers last year, everybody remembers, right? They got there terribly limping. They had this feel-good win in in Chicago. Ironic timing. And then they played the Hornets at home right before the break and just got smoked and the vibes were bad. And then they turned everything around in that time off. Can the cup break help the Pacers again? something I want to talk about both because it’s interesting and because it’ll be a good launching point for basically every discussion I’m going to have during the cut break. Spoiler alert, we’re going to do a mailbag. We’re going to peek ahead at the trade deadline. We’re going to assess this team season so far and going forward with guests. It’s going to be a fun break. It’s a great time to really assess what’s going on, but you need to have the perfect scene set to do that. And I think to perfectly set the scene for you, I need to go back two weeks. This is two weeks ago to be clear. So, uh, perhaps updated thinking applies. Uh, and since this moment, the Pacers are three and four, one more loss than wins. Uh, but at the time the Pacers were in Cleveland and Rick Carlos doing his pregame press conference and Joe Varden of the Athletic basically asks Rick, “Hey, you guys really turned things around last year. Uh, do you feel similarly this year that you can do the same thing that that that is possible this year?” And Rick Carell said, “Yes, I think something is still possible. This is a day-to-day thing. We’ve just got to stay in the fight dayto day. look for daily improvement. And then he talked about those daily improvements being key and the Pacers constantly adjusting to their situation. They’ve currently won three out of five. So, let me be clear. I am not in any of my next 15 minutes of explaining things going to tell you how to think or what you should think the Pacers should do or will do the rest of the season. That is not my intention at all. I just want to lay facts on the table in front of you. So you can see the thinking that others may have that the team may have what this break may be about because there are obvious reasons to say, “Hey, we’re five and 18 if we’re the Pacers. We should be looking for the draft.” And there are other reasons to say, “Hey, why not uh why can’t we be the this team or that team?” That I’ll bring up at some point during this episode. We could do it. We did it last year. So, I’m not going to tell you how to think. But here’s what I’m going to say. Last year, the cut break was a couple things for the Pacers. They obviously turned it around with practice time. They practiced on Sunday ahead of Pacers Kings. I think that’s the first practice the Pacers have had at home the whole season. They had one in Denver, one in Dallas. I think this was their first one at home. It’s hard to find practice time in the NBA these days. Uh so that’s a big part of it and that will be brought up a lot in the coming week and a half or so. One thing that also happened last year at the cup break and we’ll talk about the differences is they got healthy, right? Andrew Nhard came back around that time, Ben Shepard came back around that time, a couple other guys. There was another major difference we’ll get to. And so he lo and behold be popping to practice. And look who’s over on the other end working with uh shooting some jumpers, passing the ball to Garrison Matthews. It’s Cam Jones. I’m We’ll get to him. I’m not saying he practiced. That’s just what we saw. And then a couple minutes later, oh look right there. Scrimmaging. That’s Quinton Jackson. All right. So what what is going on? Like could this could this be a part of the Pacers turning their season in a positive direction? Here’s the quotes. Cam Jones on his recovery. R Carile says quote it’s non-cont stuff today. I don’t think he’s scrimmaging live yet. He’s getting there. I would think sooner than later. He’ll be out there banging and stuff. He’s making progress. He was in a lot of non-cont stuff, offense and defense today. I know he’s very anxious and very excited to be on the floor 100% finally. So, that’s obviously good for the Pacers. They would love to evaluate their rookie. And boy, are we talking about Cam Jones later. However, Cam Jones returning is not going to turn the Pacers fortunes around in a positive direction. With no offense to Cam Jones, he might be awesome. Who knows? But rookies are not good. Second round rookies are not usually good. and especially point guards up to the ball a lot. Usually not a good player, right? Especially one who doesn’t play their first three months now of their NBA season and probably should start their career with the Noblesville boom. That is still progress. Aaron Nith, Rick Carlo says there’s no timetable. It’s going to be a while. Hopefully not too long. It’d be great if he could be come back playing sometime this month. This month being December. Aaron Nith, I remember the hope last year was that it might be December and then it ended up being late January. Yikes. Not good. Uh but we’ll see. Ben Shepard, we don’t know. Uh, and Quinton Jackson, we got timeline clarity on this, in Chicago after that game. I talked about that on this podcast. The exact quote to be clear, uh, was he’s doing better. I don’t think Monday, that’s tonight, is in the cards. Maybe at the end of next week, maybe the game Friday he could be ready. They play Philly in Philly on Friday. He said we’ll have some practice time between now and then, so we’ll see what’s up, but he’s doing better and progressing. I saw him and I posted the video on my social media feeds of him scrimmaging with Jeremia Robinson Earl, Tony Bradley, Tayen Peter, and a bunch of basketball interns. Looks pretty good, moving pretty well. Uh, again, not he’s already listed out for the Kings game. So, can the Pacers turn it around again with the information you just had? Not Aaron back, probably not chat back. Cam, we’ll see if he’s even helpful. But if Quinton Jackson is back and the schedule is soft, right, they just played Chicago. Their next six games are Sacramento, Philly, Washington, New York, New Orleans, and Boston’s good. I guess I shouldn’t included them in that, right? New York’s obviously a good team. All the rest totally winnable games. Philly’s decent, I guess. Winnable game, right? Yeah, they can win some of those. They could win more than half of those with somewhat ease. Like, they’re not going to be favorites all the time, but they could do it. So, that’s one reason of health, one reason of schedule. Why the heck not can this team that’s won three of five keep keep going? Now, here’s the uh the question that actually matters. Well, there’s two. One is what is actually a turnaround? Because last year’s team hit this spot at 10 and 15. And so, they were right there at 500, right? 10 and 15 right now would have you in the East. The Bucks are 10 and 15 and they’re in the plan right now. And then they obviously went 40 and 50 or 40, what I’m saying? 40 out of 57. 40 and 17 the rest of the way. That is spectacular. That would get them to a 45 win season this year. No one is expecting a 40 and 17 run. 500 the rest of the way for the Pacers right now who are five and 18, right? So 500 the rest of the way is not possible because they have an odd number of games left. But 500ish the rest of the way is 34 or 35 wins. Recall what I said before the season and reacting to some predictions about the Pacers from other people. Mid30s is a mess. You do not want to win mid-30s. You want to win 40 plus so you’re like firmly in the plan or better and you’re like actually in the playoffs and learning something about your team in the postseason or low 30s or worse. Get a top name your number pick. Everybody will say one but like reasonably high pick, right? Mid-30s is a mess. 500’s a miss. The problem is before the season I said I thought they’d be a 500 team. So even if they hit the ceiling or the reasonable outcome that I thought was possible for them, they’re hitting in the mid-30s. So, what does a turnaround get you is something that the Pacers should ask because I do believe that it’s possible for them to be close to that 500 team I thought they could be the rest of the season. But that’d be the question worth asking for what what are you getting out of it? Now, I don’t think that means that they should shut down that idea and I’ll explain why as we continue talking. But that’s the other question worth asking is where does this go? Now, thinking back to last year is everybody said, you know, the playoffs came around and everybody said, “Oh, I believe the Pays are going to win all these series because they had the best or second best or whatever it was record in the NBA from cut break on when they 40 and 17.” So, last year’s team had a couple things in their favor. One is the injury returns and the other one was practice time. I think the biggest difference last year is last year’s team was injured, but more so just playing awful and like clearly below expectations in ways that this year’s team is is tipping more towards the injuries being the problem than awful play. Like last year, I said this and I think I was wrong, but like they were they kind of happened in tandem, but I said after they lost in Brooklyn, that game that Johnny Fury started second half, I said even with their injured guys playing, they would not be winning games. This year, I think a lot of the times they would be winning if their injured guys were playing, but they’re just so so so banged up. That’s a huge huge difference, right? Once they started playing more and they got guys back, they started winning. The other key difference from last year to this year is they were buyers. The second December 15th hit, that was during the cut break. They traded for Thomas Bryant with that pick swap. They had practice time to integrate him and they ran. I don’t expect them to do that this year. There’s not an obvious need or a reason for them to send out assets. So this year it’s just way more because of injuries than playing awful. There’s no I mean okay there’s not no way there’s an extremely extremely extremely extremely small probability that their peak finish would be a 40 and 17 or equivalent given how many games they have left. Some people thought last year’s team could be a 5055 whatever win team and that 40 and 17 record is like about that for a full season. It’s a little more than that. Nobody thought this year’s team could be at that level, right? No. Very Some people said that this team without Halbertton could be a 51 team. I I think most people thought that was unreasonable. So, can this Pacers team turn it around? Yeah, maybe. Should they want to? What is that actually going to take? Is that even possible given what’s made them bad to this point, especially already going through it? A couple people considered some soft spots their schedule, including one right now. We’ll see. But should they want to, let’s talk about another part of that. What has history said about teams that start five and 18 or worse? Did any of them do anything important? Should that data point matter to the Pacers? We’ll get to all that coming up here on Locked on Pacers. But first, everybody, I need to tell you about Robin Hood. Nobody knows your money goals better than you. Robin Hood puts you in control of your money with tools that work as hard as you do. Locking in on every opening, beating your PR, beating it again. Channel that drive into whatever you do into your money. Robin Hood puts you in control of your money. You can trade stocks and ETFs and options and futures and crypto all right on one platform. You can now build and execute your own trades from a desktop with Robin Hood’s Legends Advanced tools or take advantage of the new Robin Hood strategies with a tailored portfolio managed by a team of experts. You expect more from yourself, expect more from your money. Get started today at robinhood.com/yyoumoney. Again, that’s robinhood.com/youmoney, your money, your move. We are back here on Lockdown Pacers. Thanks for making us first listen today and every single day. Our second listen, lockdown hooers, of course, for obvious reasons. Uh the obvious reason being the basketball team crisis after two losses last week. Just kidding. Big 10 football champions. And if you’re sick of the IU talk, just just laugh at the fact that Indiana and Duke are won their football conferences this year. The playoffs is hilarious and stupid. Notre Dame should be and Alabama should not. That’s my take on that that no one asked for. If you’re a Notre Dame fan listening, I’m very sorry. That’s very stupid. Uh that team is clearly very good and did not make it. And turns out losing two games should be better than losing three games. Uh and I could go on about that all day, but I’m not a college football expert, nor does anyone here really care about my college football thoughts. Let’s keep going here. Uh on lockdown Pacers, Pacers are eight, excuse me, five and 18. I almost said eight and 15 just there. So, the should they want to turn the cut break into a launching point conversation is also obviously worth noting. And I mentioned earlier that I’m not going to tell you how to think. I’m not going to try to change your opinion. I’m just going to lay facts on the table and then explain how that might influence what the Pacers could or could not do. Right? So, right now, the Pacers obviously have won five of their first 23 games. In NBA history, 134 teams have been in that position with five or fewer wins through 23 games. And it’s going to be 135 when the Wizards because they only three wins and they’ve played 22 times. So, it’s about to be 35 teams in NBA history that get that point. Three of those 135 are this season. This year, Pacers, Pelicans, and Wizards are going to be among that group. The Nets avoided it. The Brooklyn Nets are six and 17 and are out of this discussion. That’s just incredible. Um, so keep that in mind. 134 teams, four four of them made the playoffs. That’s it. And that is that is true. Like the register that in your head. Four of them made the playoffs. But that that’s not even the entire discussion because making the playoffs used to be not like comically easier but in some cases significantly so like back in the first team to do it was the 1952 53 Baltimore Bullets who uh lost the first round of the Knicks 0 to2. They went 16 and 54 and made the playoffs by finishing fourth in the Eastern Division. Like it was just different what the standards were to make the playoffs. The another one of those four teams that actually made the postseason was the 1967-68 Bulls who went 29 and 53 and lost to the Lakers in the first round 1 to4. They finished fourth in the NBA’s western division. You get the gist. Those two you can kind of just throw out immediately. That was pre merger. The playoff brackets and getting in and qualifying were different. They’re playing a different number of games. It’s just not important. The third team I would like to bring up is the 198485 Cavs. If you listened when I talked about teams that rebounded from where the Pacers were before they played the Wizards because them and the Wizards had the same record. I think they were both two and 14 entering that game. I said, “Who’s breaking out of this?” This team is one of them. A rare one in the somewhat modern era post merger NBA played 82 games that started as bad or worse than the Pacers and made the playoffs. The 198586 Cavs led by George Carl. They started 2 and19. They won their next two games to be 4-9 at where the Pacers are right now. So, they were actually worse than the Pacers through 23 games. That team went 36 and 46 to make the playoffs as the eight seed and they lost in four games in the best of five to the Boston Celtics 1 to3. Okay, so not good. So, so far we’re combined uh I can’t do math very quickly. That’d be 1 and five plus one and three. that’d be 2 and eight in playoff games for the three teams that actually survived the Pacers start. Uh the other team of note here that I’m bringing into this discussion, even though they don’t technically qualify, is the 202122 New Orleans Pelicans, who actually started too good to qualify for this, so this might just be irrelevant. They were 6 and16 or excuse me, they were six and 17 through 23 games. If the Pacers win their next game, the the Pelicans lost their their game after that, which is noteworthy. So, the Pelicans were in fact 6 and 18 through 24 games. If the Pacers beat the Kings tonight, they will also be 6 and 18. The 2021 22 Pelicans, that’s the modern era of the NBA. That is the post merger playin era of the NBA. That team finished 36 and 46, ninth in the West, made it through the plan, winning twice, and then lost in six games to the Suns in the first round. That Suns team uh went to the finals. I can’t remember if that’s the one that lost in the second round. That team lost in the second round, but still. Uh so, a combined 4 and 12 in playoff games. No series wins for any of those teams. So, there’s two ways to look at this. The very optimistic fan, by the way, Alise Johnson, a Pacers legend, was on uh that that Pelicans team. I do not think any current Pacers were on this group as I really quickly double checked the roster to make sure. Regardless, it has happened. So, if you’re the most optimistic fan ever, there you go. There’s that should be your first team to look at. What did the Pelicans do four years ago to flip their season and get get to a still bad 36 and 46 and then not make the playoffs or make the playoffs but lose in the first round, right? And then the Cavs, obviously there’s other teams that have done it, but it’s so rare. Four out of 134, like a 2% thing. Even if the Pacers go the again 500 the rest of the way, they would not get to 36 wins. Also relevant as the as that is the record that the Pelicans had. So all this data to say if you’re the smileiest fan of all time, you’re cheering every game. Great. There you go. There’s your precedent. It’s happened before. Uh, also should be noted that the Pelicans did not have their draft pick that year, by the way. Uh, they sent it to I can’t remember who. I want to say Charlotte. It might have been Atlanta. Um, they didn’t have it. So, they had all the incentive in the world to keep pushing and make it. The Pacers do in fact have their draft pick for the first round next year. Also, very much noteworthy. So, the history of this record, which is a perfect time to talk about it, it’s a clean break. Maybe they win their next game and this Pelicans team is the absolute perfect team to discuss. Maybe. Yeah, maybe they could turn it around. Should they want to four out of 134 teams, maybe even three if the Pacers lose their next game. It’s all this is to say it is really, really, really, really hard to get out of the spot the Pacers are in and actually like win something noteworthy. Not making the playoffs is something, right? There is value in learning who can pop in a hallelbertless playoff setting, but is it value more valuable than the alternative? That’s for you to decide. Like they have to learn something. I still believe that. And that’s where I land to end this discussion. And probably my my last time I’ll talk about what the Pacers direction should be until they make it clear what their direction is going to be. But there is still value in learning about your players in the best possible set. That was what I thought and what the Aussie discussion was the hope was for this season is like, okay, when the best guys are playing, what’s Jarus Walker’s role? How does he look in that role? Can he leaprog from that role into a bigger role and Hallebertton’s back? Same questions for Ben Shepard. What centers work with what players? Because not only does that matter for this year’s team, that’s going to matter for these guys sticking around at all. When Hallebertton returns for the Pacers, are any of these recent second round picks any good? Is Johnny Furphy good? Is Cam Jones good? And you can’t know that if they’re playing in just awful contexts. And like this is something we know. I talked about it this summer. I’ve talked about it when I talk about injuries throughout the season. But then Ben Shepard’s in the locker room after Pacers Nuggets. And Ben Shepard’s game that night was his best game of the season. He played great. And we’re talking about confidence and what led to his big night and how he’s feeling. And he’s like, it it’s it’s harder to get rhythm. He didn’t say this. I’m paraphrasing. It’s harder to get rhythm when you don’t know where your shots are coming from every night or it’s it’s different. And it’s like it’s it’s one of those things. It’s like he says it and you go, “Duh.” Like you should know that if someone said it to me who wasn’t a player on the Pacers, I’d have been like, “Yeah, that makes sense. That’s a logical thing.” When a player says it, it just hits you as this like, “Oh yeah, of course that matters a lot.” It’s like when Nemhard back in Cleveland a few weeks ago was like, “Yeah, of course our offense stinks. Like half these guys have been here for two days and don’t know the plays.” And he wasn’t saying that to insult those players. That’s just true. That’s how it is, right? And so Shep said that and it was one of those things I was like, “Duh.” And that is why the where they go from here and what this cup break does for them discussion lands on this. How much do they want to still learn especially when Aaron Nith is back and they presumably you know they’ll be knocking on wood have five of their top six and can at least say okay McConnell’s playing Siak’s playing Nith’s playing. Maybe one of these guys gets hurt by then. McConnell’s playing, Seak’s playing, Nith’s playing, Nathan’s playing, Nehart’s playing. Great. Let’s get our guys around them and see what we can learn just for a little bit. just just for a couple of weeks cuz you can’t have a totally lost season where you lose a lot and learn nothing. Yeah, you get a great draft pick, great, but a lost season sucks. The teams that have had it of late, Memphis, disaster right now. New Orleans disaster right now. I’m not saying the pages are headed down that path. I’m just saying when you lose a season, it gets really hard to kind of find your footing. So, I do think there is still a lot of value in learning as much as you can. I also understand what history says the Pacers should do. Uh what the past cut breaks at is possible, but it’s probably not as possible for this team because of their different ceilings and different reasons for struggles to this point. And that is my 22ish minutes on where the Pacers are, what I believe to be possible for them, what history says is possible for them, what I would be doing is them. And maybe they lose to the Kings tonight and it’s pathetic. And maybe they get through this stretch of games and they lose to Sacramento and Philly and they sneak by the Wizards and they lose the Pelicans in New Orleans and it’s like, okay, what are we even doing? We’ll see. The results in the next two weeks will tell us a lot about this team. I want to talk about some transactions. I want to talk about Garrison Matthews and his immediate future. I want to talk about I can’t believe I’m saying this, Ryan Nemhard. I want to talk about uh and lots of other stuff that people keep talking about that some of it is interesting to me and some of it is not. That’s all coming up here to close out today’s lockdown Pacers. Before we talk about any of that, let me very quickly talk to you guys about FanDuel. NFL Sundays move fast. Unless you’re the Colts. Yikes. One big play, suddenly everything feels different. That is what makes live betting with FanDuel so exciting. You are not just watching the game. You are reacting to it in real time. With FanDuel, you can place bets as the action unfolds. Every drive, every momentum swing, every highlight moment. Live betting is best when the game starts to shift. The receiver gets hot, a defense tightens up, or the momentum flips after a turnover. Banual lets you jump into the moment. Live spreads and money lines adjust instantly. Player props update as guys heat up. You can bet the next touchdown scores, drive results, totals, much more. Keeps you locked in every snap, every drive, every possibility. So, if you want to be right in the middle of the action this season, visit fandol.com and place your NFL live bets all season long. FanDuel, the game moves fast and so can you. We are back here on locked on Pacers. Thanks for making us your first listen today and every single day. If you’re an indie person listening, your second listen should be locked on Colts. Yikes. That sucks. I was so excited for Colts fans that they were good and exciting and the second they make an exciting huge trade, it just all seems to be falling apart. Locked on Colts have way more on what’s going on there. Who should be starting a quarterback? Can they still do this thing? They have a really tough opponent coming up. Uh if you’re an NBA person and you’re here, thank you for being here. Your second listen. Lots of fun games on Sunday night in the NBA, but LeBron was hooping and his streak just ended of 10 straight or of 10 point games dating back to when I was 12. Locked on Lakers. We’ll have a lot on the Los Angeles Lakers. Okay. Lot of things I want to run through really quick transactionally or player-wise. One is tomorrow the Pacers play the Kings. That is December 8th or today. Today the Pacers play the Kings. It’s December 8th. That is Garrison Matthews last game he can be active on a 10day for the Pacers. He signed a 10day on December 1st, so technically it goes through the 10th, but there’s no more games after Monday. Obviously, I actually think this game matters for his future legitimately. I mean, what we’ve seen in recent games is Rick Carile turned to Matthews for real chances. He started twice twice once. Am I being dumb? He started in Chicago and did not do anything. He got in foul trouble and Ethan Thompson outplayed him and that’s fine. But he also played pretty well against Denver and pretty well against the Cavs and he was not good at all in his first 10 day. But shooting is super valuable. I think Carlile would like to be able to turn to a shooter often, especially because some of the guys he thought would be shooters for this team are hurt right now and some of the guys he thought would be shooters for this team haven’t been shooters for this team. So having one of them is valuable and spacing is valuable for the rest of your team. Even if you’re playing young guys trying to develop them, they want spacing. I I I would understand why they’d want to keep Garrison Matthews. E, you know, beyond this, they had to cut somebody to do it. You can only sign two 10 days. He’s already done that. It would almost presumably be Jeremiah Robinson Earl, who he’s playing instead of that’s the other noteworthy part is Robinson Earl was out of the rotation against Denver and literally did not play against Chicago. I think Robinson Earl has been good. I’m actually like I think if you ask me to straight up who’s better, I would say Robinson Earl. I don’t know that I would be waving Garrison Matthews for Jeremiah Robinson, but the signs we’ve seen from the Pacers are just that. That’s something that’s possible for them. And let’s pretend that Matthews plays well tonight against the Kings. Well, great. He’d have three good games on this 10day, three obvious games where he says, “Here’s what I’m good at. Here’s how I can help this team.” And if his skills are deemed to be more valuable than other guys, I would at least get it. I could explain it to you and talk about it. So, I think how he plays tonight against Sacramento is going to matter. Uh, and we’ll see where things go from there for the Pacers because getting out of their hardship is fascinating to them. I don’t know if they’re going to. Ben Shepard won’t have missed three games after the Kings game. He won’t miss his third game till they play the Sixers on Friday, which is noteworthy because that is more time toward recovery for other players. Quinton Jackson doesn’t even contribute towards a hardship. So, if he’s close to returning, then they’d be obviously Tophen’s out for a long time. Halbert’s out for the season. Would any three of N Smith, Shepard, and Jones be out through basically the end of December, just shy of that, like between Christmas end of the year? If two of the three are, they’d be eligible for a hardship again. If not, which it sounds like, you know, Carlson maybe on N Smith this month and Cam Jones is doing some stuff and not everything and things of that nature. And we don’t really know Shepard’s timeline very well, but he doesn’t even count yet. Maybe not. Maybe they would literally not be eligible for another hardship. Do they, you know, we don’t we don’t know. And if Jackson is back, what position would they even need? Probably a wing, right? Probably another wing, but Matthews would literally not be available to them. So, keep an eye on this as usual. Well, the way the best way to find out Pacers uh feels for what they need and their timelines for their players is to keep an eye on this stuff uh when it comes to their hardship contracts, which they have just had to do a million of. The other reason to keep an eye on it is they wouldn’t sign a player to a 10day until a game day. They probably wouldn’t do it until Friday, but maybe they wouldn’t even do that because after they play Friday and Sunday, they don’t play after that till Thursday. So, a 10day deal would only get you three games. And if you wait, you might even be closer to your guys healing. So this time of the year of the season and the frequency of their games makes me think they probably are not getting another hardship, which really means Garrison Matthews is playing for his contractual future, I believe, against Sacramento. Uh Quinton Jackson nearing a return. Does that influence this at all? Maybe. I mean, if he’s playing, do you really need a guy? Especially if you feel like Ethan Thompson can be your wing reserve. I mean, who knows how comfortable they feel with him after one game. Cam Jones is still far away. Do they feel like they need any ball handling? Who knows? Uh, but I don’t I don’t think their injury recovery timelines would have any influence on this. And in fact, it’s only a good thing that they would potentially get Quinton Jackson back and then not even necessarily need their hardship player to actually play minutes and instead could go a different route there. Quinton Jackson’s a good player. He was a big part of their first win this season. Okay, I’m 28 minutes into this. I get this question a million times and so I want to talk about Ryan Nemhard who who I’m gonna say a lot of statements in a row that I believe are true that are all relevant to this that all kind of like run into each other and meet at one focal point. Ryan Nemhard is balling ballin for the Dallas Mavericks. If you are trying to diminish that, you’re just lying. He’s been playing awesome, right? is shooting 56% from the field, nine points a game, five assists, making a crap ton of threes, a crap ton of threes, five assists a game in 18 and a half minutes. 53.6% from deep. He’s obviously playing awesome. I did not scout anybody in this draft. Like literally anybody. The Pacers played games until the Monday before the draft. Like I didn’t have time to do it. So I have no opinion of what Ryan Mhard was in college, what the Pacers should have done. I can’t tell you what I would have done. I’m not trying to relitigate the draft. In fact, can we stop I’m kindly asking you to stop doing that right now. We can get to we can get there. We can get there. All right. I promise. But just just hear me out for a second. I get so annoyed by the whole idea that the goal of the draft is to get the player who’s going going to be the best in December of the first season. last year. Do you remember how freaking buzzy Daltton Connect was after a month and everybody was like, “How did this guy fall to 17th? Everybody’s so dumb.” And I’m like, the goal of the draft is not to get the guy who’s the best the first month. Dan Connect’s not good. He doesn’t play anymore at all. Like he Yeah, he was great early and then at at Deceas game of the season was December 6th of that year. I’m not even saying that I think Ryan Nemhard’s going to fall off. I just first of all chill. Okay, chill. He He is hooping. We’ll see if it keeps up. And if it does, that’s great for the Mavs and we’ll see what it means for Endard. I did no scouting. I can’t say. But so many people are asking about scouting staffs. And how’d they miss this guy? They have his brother in the building. That’s all very true. The brother in the building part makes this different. But every single team passed on Ryan Nemhard. He did not get drafted at all. A lot of teams decided he was not worth picking. This is not a clear and cut thing about the draft. There there every year there’s reports about this guy didn’t want to get drafted. He told teams not to pick him. And that’s where we’re going to get to in a second. But I I I’m bringing all this up to say criticizing picks a guy that a team picked that stinks is fair, right? The job of the drafts is to pick players who are good. TJ Lee was not very good, right? That that is was not very good. He was not good. That pick should be criticized. The pitchers picking him should be criticized. Non-picks is way different to me. If you’re criticizing like like Joic went in the second round and people are like, “Oh, they should have picked Joic.” Like nobody was talking about Joic number one. He would have gone number one in a reddraft. That is less fair to me and it always is. I get why this is different. Ryan Nehard’s brother plays for the Pacers and so I would predict that there was some steering going on for Ryan Mhard to go to the Mavs who traded away Luca and Kyrie was injured and they did not have D’Angelo Russell yet. Their only point guard at the time was Brandon Williams. It’d be a perfect spot for him to go on a 2-way. He could play games like he is. He’s playing for them. And lo and behold, I don’t know if anybody read this or people just didn’t want to. Mark Stein reported in the Skyline this weekend that uh the first of all that the the Nemhard group with uh Ryan Nemhard’s agents and such met at Prime 47 in Indie on draft night and one of the people who wanted Ryan to go to the Mavs was injured Mhard. I will read you the paragraph reported by Mark Stein. Among the loudest voices at Prime 47 advocating for that route, that route being the Mets, leaks sources say was Andrew Nehard, the rising pacer fresh off helping Indiana reach the NBA finals for the second time in franchise history, told uh one of Nemhard, Ryan’s agents and his brother that he believed going undrafted to ensure he would land in Dallas was Ryan’s best NBA pathway. Andrew believed this. Andrew believed that was the move. I almost guarantee the Pacers sniffed around on adding another Nemhard and they had a two-way after the draft. Uh, remember there was all that discussion about Enrique and Taylor and all that stuff, right? They they had routes to go there, but Andrew thought this was the right thing for him to do. The Patriots knew Ryan. They knew the people around him better than literally anybody in the league. They almost certainly considered it. So, just take a deep breath, right? We don’t know if this will hold. It might. He looks good. I’m not saying it’s not going to. I’m saying we don’t know. I’m saying we don’t know if the Pacers tried and got spurned by what Ryan’s brother Andrew, who plays for the Pacers, believed was the best route for him. I don’t think it’s fair to criticize non-pick in the first place most of the time. Anyway, Kamros hasn’t played. Like, we have no idea how good he’s going to be. What if he’s awesome then? Like, okay, maybe overten Peter, sure, but what if he didn’t want to get drafted? Like, it’s just there’s so much to it that I’m like, what are we doing? You know, and and a lot of people said he was good before the draft. I I have no idea. Again, I did not watch him at all, but I just think some of this criticism is so crazy. If you pick a guy So So, if you’re picking sixth and there’s like three guys who are in that range at sixth, right? And and the guy who goes eighth ends up being better than the guy who went sixth, yeah, you should get critiqued for not picking a guy that was in your range that was better. I think that is fair. If you pick a guy sixth and then the 45th pick ends up being the MVP from that draft, no one is is like, “Yeah, they should have picked him sixth.” Yeah, duh. But like, no one was talking about that. I I kind of hate that retrospective draft analysis. It’s not fair. It’s like obviously every team would love to draft the best player, but they’re trying to I don’t know. It’s It’s all just It seems unreasonable to me. Ryan Emard’s playing awesome. The Pacers and every other team not named the Dallas Mavericks will look bad if he’s really good and nobody picked him. I don’t think that means that like there’s some horrible miscarriage of scouting and relationships because he happens to be playing well for another team. It would obviously be better for the Pacers if he was playing well for their team than not on their team, but I can’t believe how many people are talking about it and the way people are talking about it. Anyway, uh non-g guaranteed contracts are only a thing for like three more weeks. Uh then teams can sign 10 days, but every contract guarantees on January 7th. Keep that in mind because let’s pretend Garrison Matthews gets another contract. It’s basically like a three-week triyout, right? He could get cut in three weeks and then there’d be no guaranteed money on the books. Uh, and he and JRE are no longer eligible for 10 days with the Pacers after uh they have signed two each. Okay, that is every roster note and update. I forgot to get to that note the first time when I was talking about Garrison Matthews, so you get to hear me bounce around and finish my rant by talking about something else completely. Thank you guys so much for listening today. looking forward to many spirited comments about how stupid I am for saying all that about the draft. It’s very I’m not absolving anybody of anything. It’s very possible the Pacers messed up. It’s very possible Ryan Nhard is awesome. I’m just saying it’s December 8th of their first season. Uh and I hate the way that the draft gets talked about in retrospect. It’s very unfair to basically everybody involved. Thank you all so much for listening today. We’ll be back tomorrow talking Pacers Kings. Can the Pacers win their fourth out of six? Start their second win streak. The Kings just smoked the heat. Zack Lavine went crazy. It might not be as easy as the record suggests. Uh and then of course lots of guests will do a mailbag this week. They play again on Friday, but a lot of time off to really assess the Pacers to this point in the season. And next week is December 15th, the unofficial start of trade season. We will of course be talking trades and what I would be considering as the directions for the Pacers. Thank you all so much for listening today. Have a wonderful rest of your Monday. We will see you very soon.

The NBA Cup break is approaching for the Indiana Pacers. Can they turn their season around during the break again? Plus, what moves does the team have coming up? Host Tony East breaks it all down.

Follow & Subscribe on all Podcast platforms…
🎧 https://link.chtbl.com/LOPacers?sid=YouTube

Locked On NBA League-Wide: Every Team, Fantasy, Draft, WNBA & More
🎧 https://linktr.ee/LockedOnNBA

📲 Follow Locked On Pacers on Twitter
Locked On Pacers https://twitter.com/lockedonpacers
Tony East https://twitter.com/TonyREast

#Pacers #IndianaPacers #NBA #PacersPodcast #IndianaPacersPodcast #TyreseHaliburton #BennedictMathurin #PascalSiakam
Everydayer Club
If you never miss an episode, it’s time to make it official. Join the Locked On Everydayer Club and get ad-free audio, access to our members-only Discord, and more — all built for our most loyal fans.

Click here to learn more and join your team’s community: https://lockedonpodcasts.com/everydayerclub
Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!
Mint Mobile
Turn your expensive wireless present into a huge wireless savings future by switching to Mint. Shop Mint Unlimited Plans at http://MINTMOBILE.com/LOCKEDONNBA.
Disclaimer: Limited time offer. Upfront payment of: $45 for 3-mo., $90 for 6-mo., or $180 for 12-mo. plan required ($15/mo. equivalent). Taxes & fees Initial plan term only. 35GB may slow when network is busy. Capable device required. Availability, speed, & coverage varies. See mintmobile.com.

Quo
Make this the year where no opportunity and no customer slips away.
Try Quo for free plus get 20% off your first 6 months when you go to https://www.Quo.com/lockedonnba. Quo — no missed calls, no missed customers.

Zocdoc
Stop putting off your doctor’s appointments and get the care you need.
Go to htps://Zocdoc.com/lockedonnba to find and instantly book a top-rated doctor today.

Robinhood
You expect more from yourself. Expect more from your money. Get started today at robinhood.com/yourmoney. Your money. Your move.

All investments involve risk, including loss of principal. Options, futures, and crypto trading carry significant risk and may not suit all investors. Securities offered through Robinhood Financial LLC, member SIPC. Futures trading is offered by Robinhood Derivatives, LLC and not SPIC or FDIC protected. Crypto offered through Robinhood Crypto, LLC (NMLS ID 1702840), not FDIC or SIPC protected. Portfolio management offered by Robinhood Strategies, an SEC-registered advisor.

Gametime
Today’s episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNBA for $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply.

FanDuel
Today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel. The NBA and NFL seasons are here, visit the FanDuel App today and start planning your futures bets now.

FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN)