Indiana’s youth

Yes, the big-picture reason the Indiana Pacers are so bad is that Tyrese Haliburton tore his Achilles and Myles Turner left in free agency. But another low-key issue has been how underwhelming their recent first-round picks have been. Players such as Bennedict Mathurin, Jarace Walker and Ben Sheppard were supposed to give this team a floor, but instead, the bottom has dropped out.

Mathurin’s output in the Pacers’ 2025 NBA Finals run conjured images of a breakout scoring year in his fourth season; instead, if anything, he’s slightly regressed. He can still draw fouls and has shot well from 3, but he misses too many open teammates and has too many wild forays to the cup when he can’t get a whistle. A 12.9 PER on 57.7 percent true shooting is fine, but it’s the profile of a backup, especially with Mathurin’s defensive issues. Entering a contract year on a team with luxury tax issues, this may be his last hurrah in Indy.

Mathurin, however, has been miles better than Walker and Sheppard. The Pacers’ two first-rounders in 2023 looked set to take solid steps forward this year, but neither can find the basket. Sheppard is mired at 27.3 percent from 3, 35.4 percent overall and a 7.3 PER; Walker, meanwhile, has had arguably an even more staggering shooting regression, hitting 31.3 percent from 3, 38.5 percent on 2s and sporting a 7.4 PER. Among players with at least 500 minutes played, only two have a worse PER than Sheppard and Walker; Walker’s BPM is also the worst of any player with at least 600 minutes.

13 comments

  2. Walker is the only disappointment really to me.

    And even then I only hoped for him to be a spot up 3pt shooter next to Haliburton who takes easy 3s and is a big body on defense.

    Its kinda funny this guy thought Ben Sheppard was going to give the Pacers a high floor. He seems like he underrated Haliburton, and still underrates him, like most people do.

  3. Sheppard looked decent last game but I think he’s always going to be an energy short term guy. Jarace is a disappointment and honestly presents as immature. Mathurin is probably more injured than we know as prior to the injury he was good. I also think his confidence is bigger than it should be as it doesn’t correlate.

  6. Spot on unfortunately. I do wonder if mathurin would look better if not for his toe injury, but we don’t really have sample size to figure this out.

  7. It’s still all about vision and read for Benn. It should be showing more life. Its been killing me. I’ve seen it for years now and it’s just not changing. Rick has been in his ear about it. I’ve been pulling my hair out. He has the hard part down. The talent and scoring is so much harder than making the read. It’s a major bummer.

    Jarace…… hurts. If he unlocks somewhere else, i WILL BE SALTY

    Shep is what he is and it’s useful and cheap. More valuable to us than others. Plus I love him.

    Furphy is still a baby and gets at least 2 more years of teaching and testing from us.

  8. I’m not too worried about the team’s play and development for this year. With Hali out it was destined to be a lost season (championship wise).

    So I have been happy with the tank and likelihood of a top pick.

    I believe once next season starts all of our young guys will be dominating. Pacers win the Larry O’Brien in 2027.

  9. I didn’t expect anything out of Sheppard. I did expect Mathurin to be an MIP candidate and Walker to look like an NBA player, and both have not lived up to my expectations thus far.

  10. Anyone who feels this is accurate should be all for the Pacers trading the pick for an NBA starter.

  11. Not only did these guys directly hurt their stock by not individually stepping up, they hurt it even further by not collectively stepping up. 
    This year pretty much proved that a healthy Hali makes mid guys look great… so why do we need to pay Benn $20M or Shep $3M when Hali is going to uplift the play of guys making a quarter of that. 

  12. Read the original article and this is surprisingly mostly right as The Athletic misses on a lot of their Pacers takes.

    Benn is likely playing himself off this team as someone else will pay him more. Good for him? And then casuals will come out of nowhere calling the team cheap as he averages 23 at some mid team.

    Shepp is only a mild disappointment as I never saw him being more than what he was during the run last season. High energy guy with some good-to-occassionally-great defense who should be able to hit shots. The second part is where he needs to be better and clearly can be, regardless of Tyrese’s status. I think he’s around long term.

    Walker is a big disappointment this season. He shows flashes, but can’t put it all together for more than 2 games in a row. The guy has the skills, but it isn’t clicking for some reason. With so many injuries, he’s been given the chance. As someone else alluded to, I fear he may need a change of scenery to figure it out

  13. I thought it was kind of weird that the author was using PER so much until I realized Hollinger wrote this lol.

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