Jarace Walker gave the Pacers exactly the kind of preseason jolt they were looking for on Wednesday night, and he did it in a way that looked a lot bigger than the box score. Indiana opened preseason with a 123-112 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves, but the night belonged to the former Pacers top-10 pick.
Walker led the team in assists, plus-minus, and minutes, and the playmaking was impossible to miss. He finished with 10 assists and just one turnover, highlighted by an off-the-backboard dump-off to Jay Huff that turned heads in a hurry. For a player who didn’t get a serious extension offer from the Pacers last year, it was a sharp reminder of the version of Walker Indiana thought it was drafting out of Houston.
That version matters for this roster. The Pacers’ three biggest needs are rebounding, shooting, and playmaking, ideally from the forward spot. Walker isn’t a good shooter, but if Wednesday was a real sign of what’s coming, he could cover two of those three areas with his passing and his work on the glass.
That would be a major swing for Indiana, especially with the way the rest of the frontcourt is built. Obi Toppin, the assumed backup power forward, brings real value on offense, but his rebounding remains a problem.
Too often, he needs a true center next to him to keep extra possessions from slipping away. That has forced him into more limited stretches and created a tricky minutes puzzle, since his best lineups have to include either Zubac or Huff.
Walker’s emergence as a rebounder would ease that squeeze. The small-ball groups used in this game handled Minnesota’s unusual mix of size and shooting with ease, and the Timberwolves did not have a second oversized forward to bother Indiana. Walker’s blend of rebounding and creation is what made him such an intriguing pick in the first place, even if the early years have been uneven.
Maybe Wednesday was a one-night flash. Maybe it was something more.
But after last season, Indiana needs depth that can actually stay on the floor, and Walker looked like a player who can do that. He may not climb much higher than ninth on the Pacers’ depth chart, but if he can give them usable minutes in short bursts, that would be a real boost for the team - and a chance for Walker to rescue a career that had started to look uncertain.
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Haliburton still looked like the center of attention the moment he checked in, and he even scored Indianas first points of the night. The Pacers are taking a careful approach as he rebuilds strength and gets his rhythm back, so the bigger storyline now is not just that he returned, but how the team handles his minutes from here with opening night drawing closer. [Read more 🡒]