Quenton Jackson’s path to meaningful NBA minutes in Indiana looks a lot less crowded than it first appears.
The Pacers have spent the last few years trying to uncover usable players in the margins, and Jackson has emerged as one of the better examples of that approach. Since Myles Turner was drafted in 2015, you could make the case that only one of Indiana’s draft picks has grown into a real NBA player. Andrew Nembhard belongs in that conversation too, but the larger point is hard to miss: the Pacers have done some of their best work with players other teams had already pushed aside.
That’s the lane Jackson came through, along with Jalen Slawson. Indiana has been chasing two-way wings who can fill different jobs, and both players arrived after being cut by multiple teams and left in the G-League.
Jackson, though, was the one who stood out during a lost season that turned into a 19-win finish for the Pacers. Injuries ripped through the roster until the year finally ran out, and Jackson ended up as maybe the only true bright spot.
Nembhard did not make the leap. Pascal Siakam missed time.
Aaron Nesmith appeared in only a little more than half the team’s games. Even the Ivica Zubac trade, which keeps looking like a steal, only produced five games of shown talent.
So the question now is simple: with the rotation tightened up, how does Jackson get back on the floor?
The answer starts with the way teams actually use third-string guards. They don’t sit there collecting dust.
Backup centers are the ones who tend to live in short, situational bursts. Jay Huff is a good example - a very serviceable second-string center who is not expected to be part of the rotation beyond quick two- to three-minute spells between Zubac’s minutes and the small-ball lineups that will feature Pascal Siakam at the five.
Guards are different. They get used.
They get mixed in constantly. Even loaded teams find room for them.
The peak Warriors dynasty already had more playmaking than most teams could handle and still used both Shaun Livingston and Leandro Barbosa. Last year’s champion New York Knicks got real minutes from Jalen Brunson, Jose Alvarado, and Landry Shamet in the Finals.
That’s the kind of opening Jackson can carve out for himself.
Indiana’s guard group is already set at the top, with Tyrese Haliburton and TJ McConnell taking most of the point guard minutes and Andrew Nembhard likely holding down the starting two spot. Jackson’s advantage is that he doesn’t need a single lane to work. He can fit next to all three.
When he’s with Haliburton, he has to do the Aaron Nesmith type of work on the perimeter. When he’s paired with McConnell, he can bother ball handlers, fight through screens, and hand defenders off to the little firecracker. Next to Nembhard, the job changes again: attack the rim in drive-and-kick actions.
That’s the real selling point. Jackson’s value isn’t tied to one signature skill. It comes from being able to become what the lineup needs in the moment.
And if injuries strike again, that versatility makes him a ready-made patch.
On a better team, that kind of flexibility matters. After a season in which Jackson spent time around a patchwork roster and showed exactly that, it’s easy to see why Indiana gave him a standard deal.
In Other News...
Tyrese Haliburton Gave Pacers Fans Another Reason To Love Him
Over two weeks after storms knocked out power for thousands in Gary, the recovery effort still has a long way to go, and help has started to arrive from familiar faces with Indiana ties. Tyrese Haliburton and food influencer Keith Lee announced a joint donation of nearly $30,000 to support relief efforts in the area, a boost aimed at residents still dealing with the fallout from the outages.
Lee began the drive with a $15,000 pledge, and Haliburton matched it with another $15,000, giving the effort some real momentum. For Pacers fans, it is another reminder that Haliburtons connection to the state runs beyond what he does on the court, and in a moment when Gary families are still waiting for normalcy, that kind of support carries extra weight. [Read more 🡒]
Bennedict Mathurin Is About To Reopen A Painful Pacers Debate
Bennedict Mathurins latest move has him on the verge of a bigger runway in New Orleans, where the Pelicans are planning to lean on his scoring and give him a larger offensive role. For Pacers fans, it is the kind of development that naturally stirs up the old what-if conversation around a player whose path has already taken a sharp turn since his time with Indiana and then Los Angeles.
Mathurin landed with the Pelicans after requesting to rescind his qualifying offer from the Clippers, which opened the door for unrestricted free agency and ultimately led to a two-year contract. For Indiana, the intrigue is familiar: a gifted scorer finding a situation built to feature him more prominently, and a reminder that the debate over how his talent should have fit in blue and gold is not going away anytime soon. [Read more 🡒]
Pacers Are Changing One Key Thing To Help Tyrese Haliburton
When Tyrese Haliburton returns from injury, the Pacers want his workload to look a little different than it did before. Indiana is leaning harder into a paint-first approach, one built around getting downhill, living at the rim and easing some of the creation pressure off its point guard. The move is already showing up in personnel choices, with Kelly Oubre Jr. brought in to add another slashing threat, while Jalen Slawson was re-signed as part of the reshaped group.
Obi Toppin is expected to have a bigger hand in making that style work, giving Indiana another athlete who can pressure the rim and keep defenses from loading up on Haliburton. It is a subtle but important shift for a team that knows how much its offense changes when Haliburton is healthy, and the Pacers are clearly trying to make sure he has more support once he is back in the lineup. The question now is how quickly all of those pieces can settle into place. [Read more 🡒]