Indiana is the fifth team in three years for Doug McDermott. Normally a journeyman like that doesn’t get a long contract, but the Pacers apparently liked him enough to give him a 3-year deal for 22 million dollars. 7,333,334 dollars the first two years, and a significant downgrade to 7,333,333 dollars the last year. Kind of the opposite of a “poison pill” contract.
That kind of contract makes sense: McBuckets is a shooter, and every team always needs more shooters. He also, uh, energizes the Indiana fanbase because of… attributes that he has relating to how he looks. No, I’m not talking about that combover thing he’s got going on. And North Dakota and Indiana are similar culturally, I’m pretty sure. Gotta put butts in seats somehow.
Early returns were good, as he hit double figures in 4 of his first 5 games with his new team, but since then it’s been a whole lot of 1’s and 0’s in the field-goals made department. I don’t think McBuckets is the problem here; his nickname clearly indicates that buckets are not a problem for him. I’m going to blame coaching. Again. No space for a three-point shooter when your coach would rather shoot a long two.
Maybe that’s changing. Maybe my intelligence is out of date and needs to be updated. Maybe this game is evidence that the tides are turning for McBuckets and he will be scoring in double figures regularly from now on. Or maybe this is just a flash in the pan against a bad team (sorry Jazzbros) in a blowout.