Remember the first three games of this Pacers season?

I wouldn’t blame you if you have them blocked out from your memory. They were rough. Indiana scored under 100 twice, hit 24 of their 70 threes, and just genuinely looked out of sorts. At the time, most thought the bench was putrid and certain players were useless.

Clearly, most of those opinions (including my own!) were wrong. The second unit was able to figure it out and the entire roster was able to build up the required chemistry to be a great team.

But those games have climbed back into my brain again.

Watching the team integrate Oladipo reminds me of that early-season stretch. Currently, they are experimenting with new lineups in a similar manner to the way they were partnering up five new signings at the beginning of the season. The coaching staff is toying with things to see who fits with who. They have a player who has a playing time cap, which limits the lineup options. The team is clearly having growing pains as each player learns the tendencies of a new group.

After the early-season span of struggles, the blue and gold rattled off seven wins in eight tries. That may be a hard success rate to match given the coming opponents for the Pacers, but that turnaround happened quickly.

Greener pastures are all but a guarantee right now. It might take a while; Oladipo is locked into his current sub-30 minute restriction for the next five games. And then the rotation will change slightly again. But all of these new players will learn how to play alongside the two-time All-Star. The inverse is true as well, Oladipo will figure out how to play with his many new teammates.

Other lineups, sans-Oladipo, will get better, too. Jeremy Lamb plus the bench characters are still figuring each other out, for example, and they’ve already been a potent offensive unit. Lamb is still able to effectively act as a tertiary or quaternary option while Domantas Sabonis, Doug McDermott, and T.J. McConnell do whatever dynamic thing they are doing:

Don’t let Jeremy Lamb go left.

That group is humming, which should continue to some extent. Lamb is just another threat for Sabonis to screen for, for McConnell to toss the rock to, and for McDermott to run around. When they all get each other’s timing down, they will be a well-oiled machine. That’s hard to believe since they already have an offensive rating over 130 (that won’t maintain, but the early returns are crazy).

That lineup was one that received the most direct ripple effects from Oladipo’s reinstatement. Aaron Holiday lost his rotation spot (though he regained it when T.J. Warren entered the concussion protocol) and Lamb moved to the bench, which changed the Pacers elite second unit. So far, so good with the new group, though.

All of the other growing pains that exist right now are present in lineups that have Victor. He’s played alongside various combinations of dudes, but each group has had issues; Indiana has been outscored by 19 points with Oladipo on the floor since he joined the team. They have been outscored by 16 points in regulation over that span.

The defense with Oladipo on the court hasn’t been too bad, conceding just under 107 points per 100 possessions. It’s the offense that has been bad. Caitlin Cooper of Indy Cornrows supplied a terrific example displaying some of the troubles:

More than 13% of IND's shot attempts have come late in the shot-clock (7-4 seconds) over the last 3 games, by far the highest mark in the league. They were at 9% over the 47 games prior (13th).



Spacing like this is happening after they run their initial actions. Give it time. pic.twitter.com/b1ZLluRLEJ — Caitlin Cooper (@C2_Cooper) February 4, 2020 Keywords here: Give it time.

That’s the perfect encapsulation of what growing pains look like. The initial set is a bit out of sync, it doesn’t work, then the spacing is out of whack and the shot clock becomes a sixth defender. Suddenly, buckets are harder to come by.

Multiple lineups featuring Oladipo have struggled. The starters with Oladipo instead of Warren have been outscored by 10 points in eight minutes. With Oladipo instead of Lamb, they’ve been outscored by six points in five minutes. Vic has played five or more minutes with six unique groups. Those half-dozen combos have united to be outscored by eight points. It’s been rough around the edges.

There are some VERY flukey numbers involved here, though. Of those six lineups, only two of them are shooting better than 14.3% (!) from deep. That is impossibly bad. Those two lineups are, coincidentally, two of the Oladipo-infused lineups that have actually outscored the opponents.

That’s where reasons for optimism exist. Since Vic returned, he and Malcolm Brogdon are a combined 6/37 from deep. Doug McDermott and Justin Holiday are a combined 6/20 in the same stretch. That’s unsustainable. All of those guys have mountains of evidence in their favor suggesting they can shoot better than they are; even within new, meshing lineups.

12/57, the joint percentage of those four players, amounts to 21.1%. If that group hits a still-below-average 1/3 of those 57 attempts, they hit 19 of them. That’s an extra 21 points. The Pacers have lost by 16 combined points in regulation since Oladipo returned, for reference. The shooting is perhaps the biggest factor in their struggles.

The poor precision from deep and the new lineups are related. That’s obvious. But as this team figures each other out and peels off the rust that comes from a major rotation shakeup, they should get much better at finishing from deep and simply scoring in general.

Vic has looked good in the pick-and-roll, especially with his pocket passing:

The Oladipo-Sabonis two-man game is already solid.

The altered lineups without him on the court have treaded water even at their worst. Most have been solid. Those groups don’t have growing pains to endure, they have had to just make subtle adjustments to succeed.

Oladipo has been deft in the PnR and the non-Vic players have been good together. But it’s all limited by putrid shooting. Accuracy will come in due time. The results will come with it.