The Indiana Pacers let Frank Vogel walk and hired Nate McMillan with the intention of speeding up one of the league’s long-time slowest offenses. Enter Al Jefferson? Apparently so.
According to Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical, the former All-NBA center has agreed to a deal with the Pacers.
Al Jefferson has agreed in principle to a three-year, $30M deal with Indiana, league source tells @TheVertical.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 1, 2016
Jefferson spent the last three seasons of his stellar 12-year career with the Charlotte Hornets. Though he garnered Third Team All-NBA honors in his first go-around with Steve Clifford’s club, the 31 year old has experienced a precipitous decline ever since. Partial justification of his diminishing impact is injury-related; Jefferson has suffered from foot and calf problems that make him even more plodding than his massive frame suggests.
Another reality of his new circumstances is the direction the league is heading with regard to defense-averse centers. Jefferson is an extremely gifted low-post scorer, but is woefully ill-equipped to deal with long-ball happy point guards and the game’s increasing reliance on downsized lineups. He couldn’t keep up a half-decade ago. Now? Big Al is barely a traffic cone on the perimeter or at the rim.
That’s not to say he doesn’t have value, of course. Jefferson will likely come off the bench with his new team, providing a sense of reserve offensive oomph it’s long lacked. Does he fit the Pacers’ uptempo ethos? Of course not, but it’s safe to say McMillan will cater bench-heavy units to getting the best out of his new low-post tactician.
It was only a matter of time until Jefferson transitioned to a non-starting role, and Indiana seems as good a place to do it as any other.
