This Indiana Pacers team is a paragon of unselfish basketball

While role players usually resort to ball-dominant play when their contract is almost out, the opposite is true for this unselfish Indiana Pacers squad.

It may sound a bit extreme at first, but when you think about it, there isn’t anything more refreshing than the unselfish play and subsequent success of this Indiana Pacers squad in 2018-19.

Despite the six-game win streak being bookended by two challenging losses to the Toronto Raptors (a likely second round playoff matchup talking point), the bottom line is the Pacers are continuing to build off last season’s success, and they’re doing it in the most unlikely of fashions: sharing the ball and quality play from key role players who are on expiring contracts.

But before we even crack into that, it is so important to understand how the business element affects NBA basketball as we know it. The talented but lazy player who plays hero ball for the sake of a new contract and slumps after he gets it has become a played-out stock character we’ve seen too many times.

That’s why what’s happening in Indiana is particularly impressive. Not one, not two, not three… but a whopping five key rotation players are playing on the final year of their contracts, and each one of them has been as selfless as the next.

Thaddeus Young, who started the season in a brutal funk, has emerged with his usual efficiency from the field and reliable steals. He has passed out of bad situations on the floor, and played his game without attempting to pad his stats. Best of all, he hasn’t resorted to the 3-ball that we’re all going to grow sick of soon enough.

Bojan Bogdanovic, whose main job is actually to shoot and score, is doing so at a career-high 58.9 effective field goal percentage, and although his dimes will always be low, he is boasting another career-best in that category with 1.7 assists per game.

After a wretched start to the season, Darren Collison has found his groove too, now averaging 5.5 dimes per game — a nice step up from his career average of 4.9. His scoring is down, as are his shooting percentages, but he is still protecting the ball and with 1.5 steals per game, he is a critical part of the airtight team defense that has propelled Indiana into the elite defensive teams in the league.

Even Cory Joseph, who could just as soon spend his time on the floor stating his case for another contract, has bought into head coach Nate McMillan’s selfless and defensive mindset in his contract year. He is averaging career highs assists (3.8) and steals per game (1.3).

Finally, the Tyreke Evans project that disappointed so many does indeed have a silver lining. While he might not return to what he was last season in Memphis, there is something to be read into Evans’ seemingly pedestrian lines. He is the motor and moral leader of the second unit. Guys like Aaron Holiday, Kyle O’Quinn, Doug McDermott and even Cory Joseph get their confidence and footing to maintain what the starting unit has established with Evans’ presence.

It’s a culture to be admired, and despite the amount of expiring contracts, regardless of what happens to these guys next season, Pacers nation has to be happy with what this group has done thus far.