Indiana Pacers: 3 reasons Tyreke Evans is a good move

The Indiana Pacers fill their biggest needs with the addition of Tyreke Evans, who gets another chance to regain the star status he once had in the league.

Last season was one of surprising success for both the Indiana Pacers and for Tyreke Evans.

On Tuesday, the two sides agreed to a one-year contract that brings them together for what should be a mutually beneficial arrangement with opportunities to improve, for both team and player.

In Evans, the Pacers are adding a savvy scoring guard who can help them contend with the best teams in the Eastern Conference. With Indiana, Evans gets a chance to continue a career resurrection that got cut off abruptly last season with the Memphis Grizzlies.

After meeting with the Oklahoma City Thunder and Los Angeles Lakers, with the Charlotte Hornets also rumored as a possible destination, Evans decided on the Pacers.

Indiana wasn’t supposed to be good last season, after trading away an All-Star in Paul George and getting a non-All-Star in return in Victor Oladipo. With George, the Pacers had been swept out of the first round of the 2017 NBA Playoffs. What were they going to do without George, fielding a lineup with zero All-Stars?

What the prognosticators did not count on was Oladipo having a breakout season, averaging 23.1 points and 2.4 steals per game (leading the league), earning All-NBA and All-Star nods, and winning the league’s Most Improved Player award.

The Pacers made the playoffs as the No. 5 seed, then pushed LeBron James and the eventual conference champion Cleveland Cavaliers to seven games in the first round before being eliminated.

Evans, meanwhile, went into last season with his once-promising career trending downward. The 2009-10 NBA Rookie of the Year had yet to recapture the magic of that rookie season — when he joined Oscar Robertson, Michael Jordan and LeBron as the only rookies in league history to average at least 20 points, five rebounds and five assists.

With the Grizzlies, Evans had his own breakout campaign — or at least he started to. He averaged 19.4 points, 5.2 assists and 5.1 rebounds per game, beginning the season as a Sixth Man of the Year candidate before being promoted to the starting lineup.

But due to a combination of injuries and Memphis’ alleged tanking, Evans was held out of the lineup for all but six games beginning in February. He only played 52 games total for Memphis.

By joining Indiana, Evans can resume doing what he does best, and the Pacers can fill their biggest need. Here are three reasons why this move is a win-win.