Scott Agnes

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53 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Dec 2024 last heard Dec 2024

Scott Agnes’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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The Athletic NBA Daily · Who is Defensive Player of the Year? + Pacers up to speed? · 21 Dec 2024 podcast

Not in particular. To me, it's just a running joke that whoever you play that is probably a 6'8 wing is going to go off. So, you know, it's Scotty Barnes one night and Kevin Durant the other night. I mean, he's obviously taller, but at least 6'8". Hmm. Those guys have tremendous success.

So also, that's why they struggle with the more quote-unquote modern teams like Toronto, Orlando, who has just full of size and athleticism and length. They give the Pacers all kinds of fits for that reason. So filling in that gap at the three spot would be their number one focus.

Yeah, I would say offensively come along better than I thought to this point, especially his three-point shot. So last year, the challenge in all this is he was drafted to fill a need. And then one month later, they acquired Obi Toppin. And six months later, they acquired Pascal Siakam. Those two guys obviously fill in the four spot.

So here's this 19-year-old rookie who has a lot to learn, who played in a very different system under Kelvin Sampson at Houston that year. required much different things of him.

And he acknowledged there was a steep learning curve in trying to break old habits, especially what he could do defensively at Houston versus what the Pacers are trying to impress upon him and force them to do and all those sorts of things. So defensively, I think I expected more and I've gotten less. And offensively, conversely, I think that's where he really benefited in particular from his

significant time last year in the G League is he didn't hesitate from three, and now he's shooting, I think, about 40% from distance. But you would like to see more from him, demand more from him. And the hope coming into this season, guys, was, okay, we know there's not many minutes at the four spot.

Starting at Summer League, they tried him at the three spot and said going into this season, for you to get on the floor, you're probably going to have to play more at the three because that's the spot of need, right? So that was one of his emphasis for the last year. first couple of months leading into training camp.

Not specifically, no. I would say there's right points, but as many of those there are, there's also some questionable, like, what are you doing? You're in the wrong spot, or you didn't follow your man, and little things like that. So I don't think there's anything convincing one way or another, which probably speaks to his lack of experience and his age a little bit.

And again, like Matherin, he benefited from these early minutes that were made available due to injury. I will mention, too, here, Going into any season here in the last probably decade, the one position the Pacers had not had to worry about was center. And so it's notable that this season that's probably been their biggest issue because of the injuries. But here's why it's even more notable.

Isaiah Jackson, who suffered that Achilles injury, he's in a contract year. They didn't have an agreement coming off his rookie extension. Secondly, Miles Turner, they could not, by CBA rules, negotiate at all. So that window has to wait till free agency after he did a renegotiation and extend over a year and a half ago.

So the Pacers will enter free agency without a center on their roster, which is different from when Pacer fans were like, do we really want to see Turner and Sabonis and... Because of that, several years ago, neither player was really able to maximize their effort. So that's something I'm significantly watching here in the next six months as well.

Because also, if you're in this position and you don't want to bring back miles or maybe you can't afford them because the luxury taxes may be something else we need to get into, then you would trade off that player. But right now, they don't have that benefit right now just due to health and youth.

Well, here's the challenge in that. They are right up against the luxury tax. Now, that's where, if anything, I could see them making moves is to offload a contract or two because the Pacers' front office essentially chose to run it back this season. They liked what they saw last year. Obviously, the team had success. I call it a little bit of fool's gold, though, given the injuries.

They definitely outperformed anybody's expectation. The goal was to get to the playoffs again for the first time in about a half dozen years, and they reached the conference finals. But in terms of Miles, I think this is probably that last significant contract for him. And if you're him, you're probably pushing for $25 million, $27 million.

I think you look at a guy like Isaiah Hartenstein, who just got that four example, and they faced him. in the playoffs. But if you're the Pacers, you have to have significant reservations giving that much, given your current status, how you're not a contending team right now, how you have two max contracts already with Tyrese and Siakam.

And on top of that, Halliburton's contract is a super max, which takes another $10 million or so, roughly, from the availability. So there's no simple equation here. And I'm curious how far the Pacers will be willing to go.

I hesitated with them to be clear just because they took a while to get going here, so I figured that number wasn't quite there yet.

I have no idea why they come to mind. Sitting on the brain, maybe because they're such a disruptor for the Pacers, but I say Charlotte.

Malcolm Brogdon would be my guess.

My original inclination was New Orleans just because everybody's been in and out of that roster. Has anyone played enough to do 20 points per game? So I'll lean into that. It's a good guess.

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