What Caris LeVert’s return means for the Indiana Pacers

Caris LeVert clearly had some rust to shake off in his debut game for the Indiana Pacers, even as he finished with a solid statline of 13 points, seven rebounds and two assists.

He shot just 5-of-14 from the field and was a minus-3, the only starter with a negative plus/minus. He laid a goose egg on four 3-point attempts. He coughed up four turnovers compared to two assists in just under 27 minutes. For comparison, Domantas Sabonis was tops on the team with five giveaways, though he also finished with 10 assists in 43 minutes.

There will come a time to critic LeVert’s somewhat underwhelming contributions on a team hoping to break through to the second round for the first time since 2014, but that day is not today or the next few that will follow.

A 122-111 road victory over a surging Phoenix Suns team that had won eight of its last nine certainly helps to distract focus from the micro. Win or lose, however, this game for both LeVert and the Pacers was simply about getting to a point where those types of conversations were even possible and being given the chance to go from there.

“It felt great. God is good,” LeVert said after appearing in his first game since Jan. 12. “It’s been a long time coming. It was good to knock some rust off, get rid of some heavy legs a little bit. I’m so glad we got the win though. It was a huge win for the team.”

With Caris LeVert back in the lineup, a struggling Indiana Pacers team should finally receive a boost from the trade they made to get exactly that.

After jumping out to an early 6-2 record, the Pacers entered a bit of a tailspin by losing 18 of their next 28 games heading into Saturday night’s contest against the Suns.

A good chunk of those struggles could be attributed to somewhat of a regression to the mean. Sabonis and Malcolm Brogdon were playing like an All-Star duo but were doing so as two of the top-15 leaders in minutes per game. Fatigue-related issues were bound to plague them as the season progressed and some of their month-to-month numbers reflect that.

Nate Bjorkgren’s newly-implemented top-10 offense in the month of December was bound to be cracked thanks to the growing amounts of footage opposing defenses accumulated to learn how to stop it. Indiana is down to 18th on offense on the season.

With seemingly every team dealing with player absences at one point or another, it’s difficult to give the Pacers a complete pass for a substantial amount of DNPs of their own. But that’s been as significant a factor as any in explaining Indy’s downfall.

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T.J. Warren hasn’t played since Dec. 29 with a stress fracture in his left foot. The Pacers were praised for their unexpected inclusion in the James Harden blockbuster that brought in LeVert while shipping out Victor Oladipo, only to watch the former require surgery to treat a renal cell carcinoma that had been discovered as part of his routine physical following the trade.

Oladipo’s stock has dropped significantly since his All-NBA season in 2018, but the 20.0 points, 5.7 rebounds, 4.2 assists and 1.7 steals per game he averaged over nine games as a Pacer aren’t easily replaceable. While a great move in the long-term considering Oladipo’s status as a pending free agent, the acquisition of LeVert created an unexpected second hole in Indiana’s starting unit.

Warren isn’t expected back anytime soon, so the Pacers must wait until it can be truly whole once again. But in just their second win in their last eight games, a team seeking validation in the upper echelon of the Eastern Conference received the type of boost that can help steer the ship back in the direction it was pointed at earlier in the season.

“We got a resilient group. We got a great group of guys on the team,” LeVert said in his postgame presser. “And they were in my ear the whole game today, even leading up to the game. And I can’t thank those guys enough. It’s gonna be a special rest of the season for sure once everybody starts clicking.”

“What I’ve been through in the past couple of months, it’s just a blessing to be out here on the court playing the game I love.”