After leaving Tuesday night’s game against the Phoenix Suns with a right foot injury, the Indiana Pacers’ Rodney Stuckey is now set to miss at least two weeks due to a bone bruise and a sprain in that foot. This is the second time Stuckey has dealt with injury issues in his right leg this season, as he also missed five games in November after spraining his right ankle. The Pacers said he will be re-evaluated after these next two weeks.
Until then, Indiana will be forced to play without its sixth man, and although Stuckey hasn’t played as well as he did last season, he’s still been an integral part of this Pacers team. He’s fifth on the team in both points and minutes per game, and he’s been the third member of a thin three-man backcourt rotation with Monta Ellis and George Hill.
Stuckey was a bargain on a one-year deal for Indiana last year, posting 12.6 points per game and a 44/39/82 percent shooting line as a part-time starter/sixth man. During the offseason, the Pacers decided to re-sign Stuckey in a similar role despite having spent $44M to ink Ellis, a similar type of guard, earlier in the summer. He hasn’t been as productive this season, though, and while Ellis’s presence has certainly contributed to that, the fact that Stuckey’s latest injury issue has apparently been a lingering one suggests that his foot might have been hampering him as well.
So far this season, Stuckey is averaging 9.8 points in 25 minutes per game but shooting just 20 percent from three and 41 percent overall. The biggest difference has come on his jumper, which has completely forsaken him after his career-best season shooting the ball last year. Look at these shot charts:
While Stuckey is still driving and finishing effectively, his penchant for getting into the lane and getting to the line has clashed directly with Ellis’s game, which is also predicated on penetration and having the ball in his hands. He’s largely been relegated to off-the-ball duties when he shares the court with Ellis, which are obviously not Stuckey’s strong suit, especially considering the currently poor health of his jump shot. I wrote about this trend recently, finding that when the Ellis-Stuckey pairing mans the backcourt, “[Stuckey’s] numbers suffer accordingly: just 10.2 points per 36 minutes on 35 percent shooting, nine percent from three with Ellis, compared to 17.6 points per 36 minutes on 45/30 percent shooting splits when Ellis doesn’t play with him.”
That’s a brutal drop-off, and it certainly suggests that the overlap in skills is really hurting lineups that feature that pair in the backcourt. Hill has been a far better option slotted alongside each of them, but obviously, he can’t handle 48 minutes per night, which leaves coach Frank Vogel trying to find ways to help Stuckey find his offense in the flow of the team’s normal rotation.
Stuckey’s field goal attempts have dropped by nearly two full shots per game and his usage rate has dropped more than three percentage points. Those aren’t insignificant numbers during the course of an 82-game season, especially for a guy who’s used to having the ball in his hands to create his own shot attempts. As a catch-and-shoot guy off the ball, Stuckey has been abysmal in his career, so there’s no obvious way to integrate him into the offense with Ellis. It’s not necessarily surprising, then, that Vogel has cut back on that two-man lineup and tried to find more opportunities for Hill, whose versatility allows him to effectively handle many of the same responsibilities as Ellis and Stuckey, plus a few more.
With Stuckey out, Hill will have an opportunity to step up and assert himself as a larger part of the offense, both with the first and second units. Although he’s had fewer opportunities, he’s mostly been a more efficient player than Ellis or Stuckey in pick-and-roll and iso situations this season, and after his career year on a depleted Pacers team last season, increased chances for Hill could wind up being a good thing.
According to the Indy Star’s Candace Buckner, Vogel also said that Chase Budinger, Glenn Robinson III and perhaps even rookie Joe Young should see increased run in the backcourt. All of those guys bring something a little bit different, and with the exception of Young, each of them works better away from the ball than Stuckey, so dealing with his absence could be a good exercise for Indiana’s bench units. They’ll miss his handles and inside scoring, but it’s a good opportunity for some of the Pacers’ younger players to step up and potentially discover a new role.
As mentioned, considering the severity of Stuckey’s injury, it’s possible that the hard-playing guard has been affected by these issues all season, so in that regard, him taking some serious time off to rest could wind up being a good thing, despite the fact that Indiana’s upcoming schedule takes a difficult turn. He hasn’t been a great fit this season, so this team was going to have to address that at some point anyway, and if the rest can help him regain the touch on his jump shot, that would be a huge break for him and the Pacers.
Indiana will miss Stuckey in his absence, but that also offers a chance to try alternative solutions for the wonky way he fits into the lineup. He’s going to be an important piece of this team regardless, so seeing what the Pacers need without Stuckey and where his skills can be best utilized could be beneficial for their rotations later in the season.