With their second-year point guard Aaron Holiday on a tear, J. Michael of the Indianapolis Star notes that the Pacers will be sure to field plenty of trade offers this season.
Nine months ago, team adviser Larry Bird reportedly cautioned Indiana against including Holiday in a potential trade deal with the Grizzlies for Mike Conley. Bird was confident in the potential of Holiday, picked 23rd in the 2018 NBA Draft. The Magic and Suns apparently also expressed interest in Holiday around last year's trade deadline.
Following a hiccup at the start of the season, Holiday has picked up his play of late. Though he will return to the bench after starting in the absence of injured Malcolm Brogdon, Michael speculates that Holiday has displayed enough flashes to tantalize teams as a potential trade chip once again.
There’s more to report from Indianapolis:
- Speaking of Malcolm Brogdon, The Athletic’s Scott Agness tweets that the point guard will return to the floor tomorrow against the Grizzlies for the first time since injuring his back on Nov. 15 against the Rockets. “I think I stepped wrong and my back reacted strongly to it,” Brogdon told Agness. “They said I strained a muscle and possibly a joint. But now the inflammation has gone away, my movement is all the way back, I have no pain and I feel great on the court.”
- Two-way player Naz Mitrou-Long spoke with Mark Montieth of Pacers.com about his unlikely path to Indiana. A five-year college player for Iowa State, Mitrou-Long toiled in the 2017 Summer League and saw 15 games of NBA action as a two-way player for the Utah Jazz in 2017-18 and 2018-19. He joined the Pacers on Nov. 17 for emergency spot rotation minutes in a game against the Bucks before making the most out of the team’s next outing, a win against the Nets in which he scored 12 points in 25 minutes. “I know guys who have been in the league for three, four, five years who are looking to put a stretch together to reassure themselves,” Mitrou-Long said. “Playing a game like Brooklyn and getting my feet wet against Milwaukee, feeling the comfortability, it reassures me that I am an NBA player.”
- According to Ennio Terrasi Borghesan of Sportando, Pacers center/power forward Domantas Sabonis confirmed he will appear for Lithuania in the FIBA Qualifying Tournament for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. “It’s what we have to go through to qualify for the next Olympics,” Sabonis observed. “We’re going to battle for the tournament and get a ticket for Japan.”
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