2025 Pacers Summer League: Sophomores

Taking a look at what to watch for from the Summer Pacers

By: Caitlin Cooper I @C2_Cooper

In the wake of Game 7, it seems as though time is both standing still and flying by. Although fans of the Pacers may still be trying to process the harsh conclusion to what was a fairy tale-like run to the NBA Finals, the league has continued to march on. Somehow, the NBA Draft already came and went, and the calendar has flipped to July, when in addition to the slow burn of free agency, rosters chock-full of young players and short on familiarity come together in the scorching heat of Las Vegas to play something vaguely resembling basketball.

For the Pacers, who project to be more focused on development as they enter a new Tyrese Haliburton-less reality with Myles Turner also leaving a void at center (welcome, Jay Huff), the week of exhibition play should provide an early glimpse at whether any of the players from the 24-and-under crowd (shoutout to 26-year-old Quenton Jackson) are primed to take steps forward next season with some mighty big shoes to fill, presumably, by committee.

As such, after already taking a peek at the rookies, what follows is an attempt to provide a guide of one micro-skill and/or macro-concept to watch for from all of the second-year players and veterans who have direct connections to the team either via standard contract, two-way deal, or qualifying offer.

Enrique Freeman - Positioning & Position

There's no questioning Enrique Freeman's motor. When the Pacers rallied for a 126-118 double overtime victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers in the final game of the regular season after trailing by as many as 27 points, Freeman entered with 9:09 to play in the third quarter and never came out. He played 31 consecutive minutes!

And he did stuff like this.

Boxing out. Diving on the floor for loose balls. That's all part of the Enrique Freeman experience. Also part of the Enrique Freeman experience? Notice that he's still on the floor there when four players for the Cavs are already headed the other way.

And yet, look at who still manages to sprint from behind into a deep seal at the rim.

Enrique Freeman! That's how his skill of playing hard fits how the Pacers aim to play, at least in transition. What's less clear is how his overall game translates to the half-court, not only with regard to his positioning but also what position he should be playing. On the one hand, he's everywhere, all at once -- creating chaos. On the other hand, he's everywhere, all at once -- creating chaos. For example, there is no reason for him to be diving to the block, here, where Pascal Siakam is already standing.

When Jarace Walker sets the push screen for T.J. McConnell to attack baseline, Freeman is supposed to stay at the top of the key. That way, the spacing isn't spoiled when McConnell turns the corner, triggering Johnny Furphy's 45-cut from the opposite wing to the basket. And that was with him pinch-hitting at the five position. Things get more complicated when he attempts to share the floor with another big.

As a four, it isn't exactly natural for him to rise and fire off a flare screen after setting a step-up screen for the ball, but that doesn't mean he can't stay at the top of the key and flow into a second side hand-off as a connector. Instead, he's a magnet for the block again, which creates a hitch in the offense.

Look at the difference with Quenton Jackson in that same role. See how he stays high as a release valve after slipping out into space?

Freeman is the player in the corner, and Quenton Jackson is Quenton Jackson, which means the ball is getting turned downhill rather than transitioning into the second-side hand-off, but that type of fluidity and attention to detail with regard to positioning is what allows the Pacers to play with tempo, stacking actions in the half-court. Also, they don't normally play with a four who doesn't space the floor, with "spacing" referring not only to the positioning of the four-man but also the degree to which they are guarded when they aren't shooting.

Cleveland switches up the line against him on this stagger, and Walker does well to knock down the tough, self-created three, but the intention of this action is to remove the low-man and occupy the help for a downhill drive.

Freeman shot 1-of-6 on spot-up threes with the Pacers, and 7-of-24 on spot-up threes in the G League. So, he barely takes them, and doesn't often make them. It's possible that could change. After all, Obi Toppin and Pascal Siakam have both seen a significant boost in their overall conversion rates from deep since being traded to Indiana. Here's the splits, including the playoffs.

• Siakam: 32.7% with Toronto, 38.6% with Indiana

• Toppin: 32.5% with New York, 37.3% with Indiana

Of course, not all of that is just environmental. Siakam also made a tweak to his shot last summer, but the point still stands that the Pacers have a track record of mining shooting development at the four spot. For now, though, Freeman is a bit undersized as a five at the NBA-level (i.e. he had as many blocked field-goal attempts as he had blocks), but he also doesn't quite profile as a four. Still, the Pacers have a two-way qualifying offer on the table for Freeman, and it appears as though there are going to be plenty of minutes up for grabs at the center spot. Even so, he'll make himself more viable at either position, if he can become more pristine with his positioning. Again, there's no questioning his motor, but there's a lot left unanswered as to what spot in the lineup he can fill and what spots he occasionally wanders to on the floor.

Quenton Jackson - Off-ball defensive restraint

The same can apply to Quenton Jackson at the other end of the floor. He is a combative defender at the point of attack who throws himself into drawing moving screen violations, but his hyper-aggression can boil over when he's defending away from the ball. He just has a tendency to seep into areas where he doesn't belong.

For example, when Pascal Siakam ran into contact on this hand-off for Deni Avdija, Jackson attempted to "next" onto the ball, despite the fact that he was guarding Anfernee Simons as the shallow cutter. As a result, with Siakam continuing to pursue the ball, Turner has no choice but to switch out to Simons on the perimeter. Not great!

A few minutes later, Jackson attempted to smash down on a drive from Toumani Camara, even with Simons one pass away.

And, a few minutes after that, he attempted to jump-switch on a baseline attack from Avdija, leaving Simons alone at the top of the key, even though Turner was available under the basket to protect the rim.

For the sake of emphasis, that all happened in the same quarter over a span of less than six minutes. Tellingly, although Tyrese Haliburton and Bennedict Mathurin certainly aren't always watertight defenders, the Pacers gave up 119.7 points per 100 possessions in 314 minutes with Haliburton, Mathurin, Siakam, and Turner on the floor without Nembhard, compared to just 105.6 in 435 minutes with Nembhard. That's a massive swing! As in, the difference between a top-rated defense and the worst-ranked defense. To be fair, that isn't just about the presence/absence of Nembhard, as there were also several other concurrent factors that led to the team's turnaround on that end of the floor, but Quenton Jackson's lack of off-ball restraint certainly compounded some of the early season struggles with cohesiveness.

Like Freeman, the Pacers also have a qualifying offer on the table for Jackson, with plenty of unexpected opportunity at his position. For a player who can't always resist the urge to put his hand to a hot stove on defense, he is relentless when it comes to attacking the paint, driving as though every bridge behind him has burned. In fact, among the 12 players on the roster who recorded at least 700 touches during the regular season, the only players who reached the paint more frequently than Jackson (23.2 percent) were Pascal Siakam (29.3) and T.J. McConnell (26.3). As was the case in Vegas last summer, he's more of a dynamic slasher than primary initiator, as his aggressiveness can be both a virtue and a vice, but there's rarely a question of whether he'll get to the rim or try to help; it's just a matter of what he might've missed along the way or whether the help was actually needed.

Ray J Dennis - the rundown on runners

Ray J Dennis, who played last season on a two-way contract for the Pacers after Tristen Newton was waived, attempted more runners in the G League (85) than any non-Tyrese Haliburton guard put up for the Pacers. That may not come as much of a surprise. After all, T.J. McConnell takes his floaters as jump-shots, and Andrew Nembhard, although he has a quirky, exaggerated release on his floater, prefers to mosey to his spots as a pull-up shooter from mid-range. As such, the only non-Haliburton guard who comes close to "touching" that type of volume on runners is Bennedict Mathurin (75), with his jump-stop floater off two feet.

In fact, among G League players, Dennis ranked in the 99th percentile in terms of the percentage of his shots he attempted as runners, nearly hoisting more runners (85) than layups (93). As a smaller guard, that's somewhat of a necessity. The only problem is... at the NBA-level, he also isn't the quickest guard.

Remember that possession when Enrique Freeman outran the Cleveland defense to sprint into a deep seal under the rim? This is how it ended.

Freeman never touched the ball, and Dennis also never got to his touch shot. Notably, that block didn't even require a weak-hand contest from Nae'Qwan Tomlin. He got to the shot reaching across his body with his right. The fact that he converted over 40 percent of his pull-up threes in the G League will help him get downhill into the thicket of the paint, but he still has to finish and make plays around the trees once he gets there. In that regard, second-round draft pick Kam Jones has obviously yet to play a single minute of action, but his combination of footwork and touch already projects to give him a leg up, just by virtue of his Lance Stephenson-like size.

Johnny Furphy - Leveraging gravity

The most memorable moment of the season for Johnny Furphy was his poster dunk over old friend Goga Bitadze. The most telling moment of the season, however, arguably came from the ugly loss to the Charlotte Hornets, just before the four-day layover during the NBA Cup.

At the start of the second quarter, Jarace Walker lost connection with Brandon Miller on an off-ball screening action, resulting in a corner three. On the next possession, T.J. McConnell was guarding Miller, despite the fact that he's six inches shorter. Meanwhile, Walker took on the assignment against Vasilije Micić at the point of attack. Eventually, after Walker gave up dribble penetration attempting to navigate over the top of consecutive ball-screens, he then got shifted onto Cody Martin. The new player guarding the ball was Johnny Furphy, and the same thing had already happened a few games earlier in Brooklyn, when he also found himself opposite from Dennis Schroeder. And, when he did this against old friend Malcolm Brogdon.

Granted, none of those teams were exactly formidable opponents last season, and Walker made a tantalizing, late-season surge on the defensive end, but the fact that Furphy was drawing those types of assignments, as a 6-foot-9 forward, during non-garbage time was meaningful nonetheless. In that way, while Walker's physicality doesn't always match his physique, Furphy's physique as a rookie wasn't quite ready to match his physicality. Where Walker is more of an event-creator on defense, with his hand-eye coordination and ability to contest at the rim, whether rotating there as a secondary helper or out of necessity when trailing from behind, Furphy is generally more apt to play in contain, cutting off drives with his length while also poking his nose in the action to come up with and retrieve loose balls.

When Furphy was drafted and even in the aftermath of Summer League, most of the conversation centered around his fit for the team's play-style as a shooter and in transition. The fact that the defense is what popped for him as a rookie is also sort of the inverse of Walker's trajectory, when his shooting progression is more so what captured attention during his first-season, despite being pigeonholed more so as a toolsy, defensive wing stalwart. That said, the shooting is still going to need to come along for Furphy at some point, particularly above the break.

Unlike Freeman, it's reasonable to think that the 20-year-old Aussie should be able to rise-and-fire out of that same previously discussed action, especially with his defender actually trailing over the stagger. And yet, his footwork coming off the screens is wonky, and he doesn't even consider curling into the catch to put the ball on the deck for one or two dribbles.

Of course, that would require doing so with his left hand, which he still hasn't quite mastered at speed, at least not while also keeping his eyes up. Oh hey, Enrique!

Needless to say, these shoot-or-drive decisions have to be quicker.

On the season, he shot 7-of-28 on above the break threes and recorded a total of 15 drives from above the break. In contrast to Freeman, the defense responds to him in closeout situations and when he's moving off screens, but he still has some growing to do, both literally and with regard to his frame, to make the most of that gravity. Right now, his own defense suggests that he can be more than just a floor spacer. The question at Summer League should be whether he can space the floor to such a degree that the defense also has to guard when he has the ball -- and not just when he doesn't.