Indiana Pacers Player Reviews: Wings

Breaking down the seasons of Aaron Nesmith, Jarace Walker, and Doug McDermott 

By: Caitlin Cooper I @C2_Cooper 

'Tis the season for end-of-season coverage. As such, Basketball, She Wrote is teaming up once again with Tony East over at Locked on Pacers for what has now become our annual player review series. Altogether, there's going to be five episodes in the format of what we're calling "The One" series, selecting one play, one number, and one over/under for every rotation player that best summarizes or encapsulates their season and/or future. For the first installment, we're diving into the season that was for the wings, looking back at how things played out for Aaron Nesmith, Doug McDermott, and Jarace Walker.

To make it easier to follow along, the clips, numbers, and lines will be included below, albeit with some spoilers for those who may prefer having something to read while they watch. Enjoy!

Aaron Nesmith 

One Play: attacking long closeout situations with a lateral dribble

On offense, Aaron Nesmith is predominantly a spot-up shooting wing, generating nearly 40 percent of his usage off the catch. During the regular season, his 42.7 percent conversion rate on catch-and-shoot threes ranked 12th among the 60 players with at least 4.0 attempts per game. In the playoffs, however, when he was charged with guarding top assignments ranging from Jalen Brunson to Khris Middleton and Jayson Tatum, that number dropped to just 30.4 percent, as he shot 24.1 percent on guarded threes and also saw a higher rate of flyby closeouts as a result of scrambling defenses. Meanwhile, his drive frequency changed only minimally, inching up to 8.0 drives per 100 possessions compared to 7.6 during the regular season, and of his 70 field-goal attempts that came from spot-up situations, only 14 (20 percent) came at the basket.

To his credit, as he demonstrated in Game 7 against the Knicks, when he went 8-of-8 from the field and drilled a pair of pull-ups twos, he nearly made as many shots off-the-dribble from inside the arc during the postseason (10) as he did in 72 regular-season games (14). Still, that's a tiny part of his game, and while there can certainly be value in taking what the defense is willing to give, especially when opponents jump-switch in front of the ball, he could also stand to turn some of his guarded threes into unguarded threes by being less tethered to standing still and countering with a lateral dribble. In the clips shown above, he either gets off the ball rather than creating a new attempt or he struggles to recapture his rhythm.

Although he can occasionally be overtaxed, there's no denying the way in which Nesmith lays everything on the line on defense. For someone who generates most of his value on offense as a spot-up shooter, the same needs to apply to the three-point line at the other end of the floor.

One Number: 360 - the number of his 412 three-point attempts that were taken without a dribble

One Over/Under: 47.5 - games as a starter for the Pacers next season

Jarace Walker 

One Play: Possessions as the bring-up ball-handler in transition

As a quick heads up, Walker was Tony's assignment for this episode, but I'm still going to offer some commentary in this space even though I didn't select the clips. Ok, here's my blurb:

Jarace Walker is a utility player, which means there is a lot of different ways to envision his development path. With the Mad Ants, on a team that oftentimes started him alongside Isaiah Wong, Ben Sheppard, Kendall Brown, and Oscar Tshiebwe, Walker would routinely be tasked with bringing the ball up the floor and initiating offense as a playmaking wing. At times, when playing in makeshift lineups during garbage time, the same was also the case with the Pacers. Walker played some point guard in high school, so this isn't a completely foreign concept to him. As such, there are moments when he oozes casual dominance, throwing a one-handed, pinpoint dart to the opposite corner from 3/4 court, but he can also be a little too cavalier and get ahead of himself when leading the break.

To be frank, from pass accuracy to the type of passes he's choosing to throw and when, there is some brutal decision-making in that clip package. If he's going to maintain his point guard privileges, he can't be trying to force the ball through traffic to the rim runner when there are shooters flanking him, let alone when he could simply advance the ball to Andrew Nembhard.

Or, T.J. McConnell.

And, there's the thing: What was necessary with the Mad Ants isn't exactly essential with a Pacers team that arguably has more depth than any other at the point guard position, unless those point guards are being face-guarded and need him to handle some of the pressure. Then, it's a luxury.

By the numbers, Walker committed 17 turnovers with the Pacers. Of those, seven came in the open floor, where he posted a turnover rate of 18.9 percent on 37 possessions. According to Second Spectrum, the Pacers scored 0.809 points per chance on Walker's 133 touches as the bring-up ball-handler. Of course, some of that can be attributed to rookie mistakes, and he certainly has some special plays (like the dart from 3/4 court) that breed confidence in his ability to do a little bit of everything. But, some of the everything was barely visible as a result of roster constraints, and it seems as though that might also be the case moving forward. For instance, he can be a canny short-roll passer, and he occasionally flashed a nifty keeper at Houston and in Summer League, but neither skill manifested more than a handful of times with the Pacers, as he didn't often play as a big. Meanwhile, he nearly attempted more runners (15) than shots at the rim in the half-court (16). After being drafted as a backup four, his progression as a spot-up shooter bodes well for his ability to potentially earn minutes at the three as part of bigger lineups; but again, that's somewhat tellingly reflective of tailoring his short-term development to a roster spot rather than tailoring a roster spot to the long-term view of his development.

Overall, the Pacers don't need to know exactly what type of player Jarace Walker will be right now. He can reveal that with time and opportunity. That said, just as he needs to rein in some of his excesses with the ball in his hands, the Pacers may inversely need to be open to widening the scope of the player he could later become.

One Number: 1.16 - passes per minute, which ranked fifth on the team

One Over/Under: 30.5 - games in which Walker plays more than 10 minutes nest season

Doug McDermott

One play: Moving left vs. right as a shooter

Not all movement shooters are created the same. During the 2020-21 season, when Doug McDermott last played for the Indiana Pacers under then-head coach Nate Bjorkgren, he only generated 19.8 percent of his possessions coming off screens moving to his left. Back then, the majority of McDermott's plays started with him in the left corner, either feathering the brakes around staggered pindowns or rising and firing out of hand-offs as part of the wavelength he shared with lefty big man and fulcrum Domantas Sabonis, who would naturally create space for McDermott with contact by dribbling to that spot on the floor with his strong hand. In that regard, the two of them accentuated each other's comfort zones and finished the season as the No. 1 assist combination on the Pacers.

In the reverse, the same was oftentimes the case over the last two-and-a-half seasons for Buddy Hield and Tyrese Haliburton. Unlike McDermott, Hield more typically moves to his left as a shooter, which complements Haliburton's right-hand dominance. Think of it this way: If Hield is darting around screens under the basket and sprints to the right side of the floor, he can blur to his left in front of Haliburton, opening a gap for a driving angle, or he can toy with a fake hand-off and put the ball on the deck with his left for one of his lefty reach-outs or a push-shot. By comparison, as can be seen in the clip package, those same plays didn't often result in shots for McDermott, and the effect isn't the same for Haliburton or McConnell if McDermott comes up out of his preferred left corner to set a screen. After all, just as Haliburton is stronger finishing with his right, McConnell also prefers to attack baseline and Nash under the basket to his right, as well.

That means, for a player who gets targeted defensively and generally requires help from the defenders behind him to load up in the gaps to try and slow down any driving attacks, McDermott's top strength doesn't exactly mesh with the strengths of the team and vice versa -- especially when considering that Ben Sheppard, while not yet proficient as a dynamic shooter, tends to move in the same direction as Hield without the same defensive complications as Hield.

One Number: 42.9 - the percentage of McDermott's off screens possessions that came with him moving to his left, marking his highest frequency in that direction since his 2016-17 season (51%)

One Over/Under: 0.5 - games played for the Pacers next season