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Friday, March 29, 2024

Extending McMillan now makes sense

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Not too long ago, yours truly said if the Indiana Pacers won 30 games en route to a season that left them at home watching the NBA playoffs unfold, head coach Nathaniel McMillan would get my vote for Coach of the Year.

Well, they have surpassed my expectations (and yours) and appear to be on pace to win roughly 46 games and secure a playoff seed somewhere between the fourth and sixth slot. That not only proves me out to be wrong, but it also shines a well-deserved spotlight on McMillan and his staff.

As the season winds down, and regardless of how this team does in the playoffs, the off season will be of great interestĀ to all of us, but no one more than Pacers President of Basketball Operations Kevin Pritchard, who knows full well what a masterful job his coach has done in terms of taking a team with average talent and somehow producing a respectable result.

Sure, Pritchard can take some credit for the trade that jettisoned Paul George to Oklahoma City and brought Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis in return, and thatā€™s fair, even though Larry Bird was still the man behind the curtain at the time. However, it was McMillan who was given the task of molding quite a few parts that didnā€™t appear to fit on paper into something that resembled competitive play, and in return he has produced the type of results that no one expected. That, in itself, places him firmly in the discussion for the aforementioned Coach of the Year award, but more importantly, in line for both a contract extension and a raise to boot.

Now I know there are indeed some of you out there who realize where Iā€™m going with this, so here it is. The Pacers have historically done everything they can to avoid disclosing how much they pay their players and even more so, how much compensation their coaches receive. While I personally find it deplorable for a team to accept funding derived from the local tax base and not release such information, itā€™s something they have done and will continue to do. I also know theyā€™ve been incredibly tight fisted in terms of what they pay coaches, and I do believe they are currently paying their coachĀ somewhere in the neighborhoodĀ of $3 million annually, which is certainly chicken feed for someone competent and proven. With one year remaining on his three-year deal, McMillan not only needs the security of an extension ā€” heā€™s clearly earned it. Extending him now sends a message to both him and the players as to what the franchise is looking at long term, and erases any doubts that inevitably creep in to an NBA locker room when a coach is working under the final year of his contract.

Sure, there have been some lapses this year, as one would expect with a team of this nature, and their propensity to start slow and squander big leads aside, this team has performed admirably more often than the front office expected, and now theyā€™ve reached the fork in the road with a coach that should be given whatā€™s rightfully his. Some will say these matters are better suited for when the playoffs end for the Pacers, and while that may be conventional wisdom, why not break away from that and award the man in a manner commensurate with his accomplishments? If you think Iā€™m jumping the gun, tell me what is gained by waiting a couple of months and forcing a proven commodity to wonder about his future, when you can send a direct message to the players, the fan base, and most importantly, McMillan.

Clearly the expectations for next year will be even greater, and with any improvement to the roster at all over the summer, the Pacers can look to enhance their position in terms of the pecking order in the Eastern Conference. No matter what occurs in the month of April, itā€™s been an interesting run for this team, and it couldnā€™t have happened without McMillanā€™s steady hand at the helm. The solution here is simple, one that even an old scribe like myself can see clearly. Extend him and pay him fairly. The next time I have the opportunity after the game to tell McMillan I was wrong about him and his team, I will do it. His employer now needs to follow suit as well.Ā 

Ā 

Danny Bridges, who thinks it would be strategic to give McMillan a three-year extension rather than simply tacking one year on to his current deal, can be reached at (317) 370-8447 or at Bridgeshd@aol.com.

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