NBA Halloween: Playing trick-or-treat with each team’s early season trend

Indiana Pacers

The Pacers and their new frontcourt are in trouble: Trick

Despite reaching new contract extensions for both Myles Turner and Domantas Sabonis before the start of the regular season, the Indiana Pacers‘ commitment to playing those two together in the frontcourt has been met with quite a bit of trepidation. The early returns haven’t been good either, as the Pacers are 1-3 overall, losing twice to the ho-hum Pistons and once to the lowly Cavs. It wasn’t lost on anyone that in their first win of the season, Turner went down with an ankle injury 10 minutes in, allowing Sabonis to feast in his more natural position at the 5.

However, a deeper dive shows lineups with Turner and D-Mo on the floor together are still working. Per NBA.com, lineups with those two on the court have posted a Net Rating of +3.9 in 89 minutes together, boasting an impressive defensive rating of 102.2. This represents progress from last year, when that two-man lineup posted a +2.8 Net Rating in 429 minutes together.

The bigger issue for the Pacers right now should be blatantly obvious: They’re incorporating several new pieces after losing Bojan Bogdanovic and Thaddeus Young over the summer, and they still don’t have Victor Oladipo. These next few weeks without Dipo will be rough, and losing Turner for a week or two really hurts, but if Indiana can weather the storm, it should still find a way to sneak into the postseason as guys like Malcolm Brogdon and T.J. Warren get more comfortable.