Replacement Player Options For The Indiana Pacers When The NBA Restarts

The NBA has a potential restart plan in place, and because of the unique circumstances surrounding the remainder of the season, it will be unlike anything the league has ever done before.

One of the distinctive rules being discussed for the association when it’s in the Orlando bubble involves replacement players. The idea is simple — if a player tests positive for coronavirus or deals with a serious injury between the start of summer training camp and the start of the playoffs, his team would be able to replace him with a temporary fill-in player until the ailing player heals. Once the playoffs begin, injuries are no longer allowed to be replaced, but if a players tests positive for COVID-19, he can be temporarily replaced by another player.

Teams can’t sign anybody, though. There are limitations in place surrounding the eligible pool of players who can be chosen as a replacement player. According to Adrian Wojnarowski and Bobby Marks of ESPN, “Eligible replacement players probably will have had to be signed in the NBA or G League or be on training camp contracts this season, sources said.”

As described, this rule would prohibit squads from signing guys like J.R. Smith and Jamal Crawford since they were not on a roster at any point this season. Despite being two of the better players currently unemployed by an NBA team, those two (among many others) would not be eligible to be replacement players.

Those two could be signed, however, a month or so prior to the season restart. According to Marks, “There will be a one-week transaction window (likely to start before July 1) that will allow teams to waive or sign a player.” During that timeframe, teams would be allowed to sign Smith or Crawford (or any free agent) until the transaction period ends.

Once the transaction window ends, however, those players go back to being ineligible to join rosters since they cannot be replacement players. One player who hasn’t been on a roster this season but has a vested interest in this set of rules is Lance Stephenson.

The Indiana Pacers were rumored to be interested in Stephenson just before the league shut down. But after the association suspended play, the blue and gold never inked Lance to a deal, meaning he never was on an NBA roster this past season.

If the Pacers interest in Stephenson carries into the summer months when the NBA is restarting, then the team would be legally permitted to sign him during the transaction window but not as a replacement player according to the rules laid out by ESPN. However, According to Shams Charania of The Athletic, Stephenson could be added as a replacement player, because according to Charania, “Players who have signed an NBA/G League deal this year or a previous year are expected to be available to sign in restarted season.” This will become more clear once the rules are officially finalized.

Because the Pacers don’t have an open roster spot, they would have to cut a player to add Stephenson before training camp in the transaction window. Doing so would allow Lance to be playoff eligible, which is something that isn’t the case for injury replacement players.

A big part of Indiana’s interest in Stephenson back in March was due to the long injury report that impacted the team at the time. Malcolm Brogdon, Doug McDermott, JaKarr Sampson, and Victor Oladipo were all banged up and missing games, so Lance would have been a needed healthy body. That won’t be the case if the league comes back next month, meaning that he is less likely to join Indiana.

Outside of Lance, there aren’t any free agent players that the Pacers have been linked to this season, so the transaction window may come and go with no new members of the blue and gold.

But once the summer training camp starts and replacement players become available, Indiana may look to the pool of eligible guys (whoever that may be) and make a move. In fact, if the reported rules are accurate, they will be able to bring in a replacement player for training camp and the rest of the regular season.

That is because of this part of the directive about replacement players, according to Marks: “A player who is out because of an injury — such as Kevin Durant of the Brooklyn Nets — can be replaced with an injury replacement player.” Pacers guard Jeremy Lamb is out for the remainder of this season with various knee injuries, so Indiana would be permitted to replace Lamb for the eight regular season games with someone who was signed to a G League or NBA deal this season.

Ideally for the Pacers, the player they bring in will already know some of the team’s offensive sets. Sure, anyone they bring in is unlikely to play any meaningful minutes, but knowing the plays makes any acquisition that much more valuable since things will be moving quickly at Disney. That gives a boost to some of the players on Indiana’s G League affiliate, the Fort Wayne Mad Ants.

Five members of the Mad Ants have Pacers experience: JaKeenan Gant, Ben Moore, Stephan Hicks, Walter Lemon, and C.J. Wilcox.

Wilcox and Lemon have training camp experience with the blue and gold under their belt, but neither of them have ever appeared in a game for the team. They may know some sets moderately well, but neither of them have ever executed them in a game setting.

Plus, both of those guys are guards. The Pacers have a deep backcourt rotation, even with Lamb on the shelf, so it is unlikely that the front office would chose a guard to be their replacement player(s).

Hicks is an interesting 6’6” forward who received a 10-day contract with Indiana during the 2018-19 season, but he didn’t play in a single contest. This past fall, he inked a deal for a few days so that Indiana could get his G League rights, but he didn’t do anything meaningful with the pro club. Hicks only has 10 days of learning the Pacers’ system under his belt, and he doesn’t have any training camp experience, so his knowledge of the system could be fairly limited which makes him an unappealing, yet plausible, option if the Pacers pluck a player out of the G League.

The last two guys, Moore and Gant, both have participated in a training camp with the team in the past and have game experience with the Pacers.

Gant appeared in a preseason game for Indiana this past October and participated in training camp throughout the fall. His experience is limited, but he does know some of the teams playbook and could fill in should the team need a warm body in the frontcourt.

Moore is perhaps the best candidate on this list. He appeared in two games for the Pacers during the 2017-18 season and was a preseason performer during the squad’s 2018-19 campaign.

Moore is a high energy forward who can play on the wing and on the interior. He has a full training camp with the Pacers under his belt, so he knows the plays to an extent, and he has game experience under Head Coach Nate McMillan.

The 25-year old would be a solid choice as a replacement player, but the Pacers don’t have to go with a Mad Ant. They could select a more established NBA veteran who just happened to not be on a roster when the season ended.

Frontcourt players are more likely to be chosen by the Pacers since they have established, healthy guard depth. One player that makes a lot of sense is wing C.J. Miles.

Miles was waived by the Wizards after he had wrist surgery in January, which was thought to be a procedure that would keep him out for nearly the entirety of the 2019-20 season.

But then the league calendar got pushed back, which gives Miles over 100 extra days to heal and potentially be ready to play when the NBA restarts. The suspension of play may have helped the veteran wing land a spot on a roster.

What makes the Miles-Pacers fit so perfect is that Miles played for the blue and gold recently. The 6’6” forward played under McMillan in the 2016-17 season after a three-year stint with the team and has 210 appearances in a Pacers uniform.

Indiana’s playbook has certainly evolved somewhat in the time since Miles played there, but he likely knows the basics and has experience alongside both McMillan and center Myles Turner. If he is healthy, C.J. Miles could be the perfect choice to fill in for Lamb.

There is a long list of guys who are eligible to be replacement players that could fit Indiana’s needs. Browsing a list of notable basketball players who are NBA free agents turns up hundreds of names, but this list stands out as some of the better options for the blue and gold: Anthony Tolliver, Allen Crabbe, Justin Anderson, Ryan Anderson, DeMarcus Cousins, Chandler Parsons, Miles Plumlee, Alex Poythress, and Jarrod Uthoff. Plumlee, Poythress, and Uthoff all have some level of experience with the Pacers, but all three would only be eligible under the set of rules described by Charania.

Cousins is clearly the appealing choice here, but his services will be in high demand if he has recovered from his torn ACL. Indiana already has healthy centers who are more talented that Boogie, but he could be a great injury replacement if need be.

The rest of the guys on the list provide something valuable — basketball IQ, veteran leadership, organizational knowledge, or talent — that could make them attractive options for the Pacers front office. It is unclear what Indiana’s goals are for their injury replacement slot, or if they will even use it, but any of those names could help out the team.

Perhaps Indiana just does nothing and just relies on internal candidates to step up during the regular season. That’s a solid strategy since the team is deep. But the unique circumstances and rules surrounding the leagues return gives the Pacers an opportunity to alter the squad for summer training camp and the rest of the regular season, and they have a ton of options to make that happen if they are interested.