The first step for the Pacers this off-season will be determining when Victor Oladipo might be fully healthy.
While the Pacers continued playing hard and won more often than many expected over the final two months, the absence of their All-Star guard prevented the Pacers from retaining one of the top four seeds or reaching the conference semifinals for the first time since 2014.
"Vic has been our closer for the last couple of years. To not have him on the court is big," point guard Darren Collison following Sunday’s season-ending 110-106 loss to Boston. "Think about the playoffs he had last year and how amazing he was. Now, just imagine if we had that this year."But even before Oladipo was wheeled off the court with a ruptured quad tendon in his right knee on Jan.
The first step for the Pacers this off-season will be to determine when Oladipo might be fully healthy. He sat behind his teammates Sunday, stood under his own power and waved to the crowd. It was his first public appearance at Bankers Life Fieldhouse since he was wheeled off the court on a stretcher.Bojan Bogdanovic thrived when he was asked to play a more prominent scoring role. Thaddeus Young demonstrated his value as both an all-around contributor on the court and a vocal leader off of it.
"We very well could look different next season," McMillan said. "We’ve got some key guys, in our starting unit as well as our second unit that are free agents. Now, the work turns toward signing our guys and building this roster."The Pacers gave up the fewest points in the league and produced their highest scoring average since 1991-92. Normally, that’s a combination a team could use to make a deep playoff run.
"We did enough defensively to win this series," Turner said. "We just had times where our offence wasn’t flowing like it needs to, our execution wasn’t on point."Rookie Aaron Holiday’s minutes increased as the season went along — and not just because of Oladipo’s injury. He earned them. The former UCLA star showed promise as both a ball-handler and a shooter and probably played well enough to return next season as the Pacers’ backup point guard.
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