Pacers Notebook: T.J. McConnell is indispensable, should be considered for Sixth Man of the Year
Standings watch. Timeout for the eclipse. Haliburton remains eligible for supermax. UConn played together, was a blast to watch. Plus more thoughts.
Hello, friends. Happy Masters Week.
More than that, it’s also the final week of the regular season and plenty of questions remain. With teams, seeding and player availability.
With the NFL and college basketball season over, the NBA now has the full attention of sports fans. This is where it starts to get really interesting.
As always, I’ll have you covered right here on Fieldhouse Files. Make sure you’ve listened to my latest podcast.
And here’s my weekly column with many thoughts and notes.
You can tell T.J. McConnell is a coach’s son.
He’s smart, relentless, plays hard, picks his spots, and does exactly what his team asks of him — and more. Coaching is the family business and it’s what he intends to pursue once his playing days are over.
For the Pacers, it turned out to be a blessing that they did not elect to move him in the offseason after they added more guards to the roster. His role was in question and he was unsure where exactly he fit in. Other teams wanted him, but the Pacers held off.
We’ve seen things year just how important depth is at point guard. Andrew Nembhard was slow out of the gates because of a sudden kidney stone, then a few other nagging injuries. Then Haliburton suffered a hamstring strain in January. Bennedict Mathurin was lost for the season and Doug McDermott missed several weeks.
Through it all, McConnell has been available and ready to provide whatever is needed from him on a given night.
As we’ve become accustom to seeing, most of the time that’s being the energizer off the bench who pushes the pace and gets others involved.
However, since the roster was shuffled and injuries have impacted the team, McConnell has still been there. He’s their most consistent player the past two months and he’s elevated his offense.