Indiana Pacers: The Tyreke Evans signing is underappreciated
Early in July, the Indiana Pacers and free agent Tyreke Evans agreed to a one-year, $12 million deal in a move that certainly went under the radar.
The Indiana Pacers were arguably the biggest surprise of the NBA last season. After trading franchise star Paul George last summer, the team had no expectations and was an afterthought to make the playoffs.
The Pacers then proceeded to prove all of the experts wrong by winning 48 games and securing the fifth seed in the Eastern Conference. Indy also had an extremely impressive playoff run, taking LeBron James and the conference champion Cleveland Cavaliers to seven games in the first round.
Even before the Tyreke Evans signing, the Pacers were still seen as one of the better teams in the East at the end of last season. Victor Oladipo emerged as a potential future superstar in this league, and he balled out during the playoffs.
Unlike some NBA stars, Oladipo showed no fear and did not back down to the challenge of playing LeBron James in a playoff series. He averaged an excellent 22.7 points per game for the series on 40.4 percent shooting from beyond the arc. Along with Oladipo, the Pacers have some other great young players in Myles Turner and Domantas Sabonis, both bigs who are just 22 years old and showed great potential last year.
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The Tyreke acquisition is so under-appreciated because people forget that the Pacers were a very good basketball team last year that was on the brink of eliminating LeBron James. Adding a 20 points per game scorer to this group will do wonders for the entire Pacers team and it puts them in the conversation with some of the best teams in the East.
Indy certainly won’t favorited to beat teams like the Boston Celtics or Toronto Raptors in a seven-game series, but it has the talent to be competitive with these contenders. Evans will take so much pressure off of Oladipo, as he is another player that can create his own shot or create for others.
This was a glaring weakness of this team during the playoffs, as they only scored over 100 points as a team three times in the series against Cleveland. There was simply too much pressure on Oladipo to score for Indiana, and it ultimately led to them losing the series. The Cavaliers focused on trying to limit him, and for the most part, nobody else picked up the slack.
Myles Turner was arguably the most disappointing Pacer during last year’s playoffs, as he averaged just 12.4 points on 7.7 field goal attempts per game. If Indiana wants to reach its ceiling and advance deep into the playoffs, he needs to be more aggressive. Last season, most people expected him to take the leap and become a star player, but he failed to do so.
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The Indiana Pacers are the dark horse team of the East. With the phenomenal backcourt of Tyreke Evans and Victor Oladipo, along with solid core players like Darren Collison, Turner and Sabonis, Indiana is equipped to make a deep playoff run next spring. Do not be surprised if the acquisition of Tyreke Evans leads to the Pacers making their first trip to the Eastern Conference Finals since 2014.