https://youtu.be/A57-EPD__9M
This is Edmond Sumner’s fourth year in the league. That’s crazy because, as of this writing, Sumner has not played a full season’s worth of games in the NBA. This game was appearance #75 for him. Usually, a player who is that deep on the bench is not going to last for four years. That must mean that Sumner is doing something right, or at least he’s doing things less wrong than the other scrubs that have come and gone through the Pacers’ roster (RIP Alize Johnson).
Maybe they’re trying to turn Sumner into the guard version of Jeff Foster, or something. Foster was one of those early-00’s big white guys who sucked, but he played his entire thirteen-year career for the Pacers. Foster, like Sumner, got off to a slow start, but he was never quite bad enough to get completely discarded, and he managed to work himself into an adequate NBA player. Maybe Sumner can do the same. Certainly, games like this one make it seem like Sumner can find some success in the league.
Loyalty doesn’t mean anything in today’s NBA, as Pacers fans found out via their experiences with Paul George and Victor Oladipo, so there’s something romantic about turning Sumner into a low-usage team mascot, like the Mavs did with J.J. Barea. Honestly, I’m guessing the Pacers don’t have any kind of grand plan in place for Sumner, but wouldn’t be crazy if I was right, and a decade from now Sumner was still averaging 3 PPG for them? That would be the craziest thing ever. I’m going to set a reminder on my phone for ten years from now so I can check.