Predicting the Indiana Pacers 1st round NBA draft pick
With the 11th pick in the 2015 NBA Draft, the Indiana Pacers select…
It’s that time a year again folks. The Pacers will be on the clock sometime Thursday night June 25th in the Barclays Center. Indiana is in the lottery for the first time since 2010, when they selected Paul George with the 10th overall pick (I’d say that worked out pretty well).
Not many knew of Paul George coming out of Fresno State, and there was maybe one mock draft that had him landing with the Pacers. Most mocks had the Pacers drafting the likes of Ekpe Udoh (6th overall to the Warriors), Gordon Hayward (9th overall and hometown darling to the Jazz), Xavier Henry (12th overall to the Grizzlies), or Ed Davis (13th overall to Raptors).
The following year in 2011, the Pacers selected Kawhi Leonard with the 15th overall pick, and traded him to the San Antonio Spurs, in return for George Hill. Hindsight is always 20/20 on trades like that, but I think those two drafts bring up a good point….the Pacers are hard to predict.
The same holds true for 2012 when the Pacers selected Miles Plumlee at 26th overall. I remember quite a few curse words popping up on Twitter and Facebook from upset Pacers fans after that selection. Most (including myself), were thrilled that Perry Jones III fell to the Pacers, so when the Pacers passed on whom many thought would be a lottery pick…it caused a slight uproar. Thankfully Jones (who was selected immediately after the Pacers pick by the Thunder) hasn’t amounted to much either, but another guy the Pacers passed on was Draymond Green (doh!).
The 2013 draft had a similar feeling for me. For the 23rd pick I had pegged Tim Hardaway Jr out of Michigan. I’m an IU guy, so I watch a lot of Big 10 basketball. The Pacers were on the clock and Tim Hardaway Jr was still on the board…yes….NO! The Pacers instead selected Solomon Hill out of Arizona.
Hill had a decent year this past season, playing starters minutes due to a variety of injuries (mostly the Paul George one), but I still felt/feel Hardaway is the better player.
Now on to predicting Thursday night. One pattern most diehard Pacers fans realize, is that the Pacers only seem to draft players they bring in for a workout. Some say “duh” to this statement, but what I’m getting to is that the Pacers don’t seem to draft players that may “fall to them”….at least to keep.
I mentioned Perry Jones III earlier, but another example was back in 2008 when most mocks had Jerryd Bayless going as high as 4th overall to the Supersonics. They were smart though, and selected Russell Westbrook, while Bayless slid down the draft board to the Pacers at…..you guessed it, number 11. Indiana selected Bayless, but for Portland, as they traded him for a package built around Brandon Rush.