'This is his job to lose.' Rick Carlisle says Bennedict Mathurin will be Pacers starter next season

Indianapolis Star

7 hours ago

The biggest question surrounding Bennedict Mathurin this offseason was whether or not the Pacers would offer him a new deal as the fourth-year guard is eligible for contact extension this offseason.
While that question hasn't been answered yet, another one has.
Mathurin will be a starter this upcoming season. Pacers coach Rick Carlisle confirmed the news on Caitlin Cooper's podcast, which was released Tuesday. That decision seemed the likeliest scenario following Tyrese Haliburton's Achilles tendon tear that will keep him out for the 2025-26 season.
In his first three seasons, Mathurin has proven to be every bit the gifted wing scorer the Pacers believed they were getting when they took him out of Arizona with the No. 6 pick in the 2022 draft. He's averaged 15.9 points per game across his first three seasons and he's the third-leading scorer in terms of total points in the the 2022 draft class behind only Orlando's Paolo Banchero and Oklahoma City's Jalen Williams, both All-Stars who are likely to earn max contract extensions.
"He's a guy that's just a natural scorer," Carlisle told Cooper. "You put him in a rat game with a bunch of switching and a bunch of physical stuff, he's going to find 18 points and he's going to shoot seven free throws, at least. But the pure elements of the passing and the quick decisions and stuff like that are things that he is gradually getting, and he's going to get there. And I think, this year, right now, I'll break the news right here, I'm projecting him as our starter at the 2 this year on Day 1. I told him this, I was on the phone with him and his agent four days ago, and I said, 'You're going to be with the starters on Day 1. It's your job to lose. But here's what we need from you: We need you to keep working on the running and simply running to the corners and stretching out the defense.'"
But Mathurin is the equivalent of a square peg the Pacers have been trying to fit into a round hole as his comfort in isolation and 1-on-1 basketball doesn't always jive in a system based on constant ball movement. Mathurin has had a hard time sticking in the Pacers' starting lineup and was replaced in the lineup when Aaron Nesmith returned from injury in February. The Pacers have pushed him to make quicker decisions with the ball to either shoot, pass or drive so that the ball doesn't stick.
"Like you look at Ben Sheppard's game, I mean, Ben Sheppard probably gets more open corner 3s than anybody on our team simply because he's a soldier about getting to the corners," Carlisle said. "And so that's one thing that's gotten him on the floor, along with the fact that system-wise, he's a soldier in our system. He does everything we asked him to do defensively and offensively. And if he has a flaw, it's probably that he's not quite aggressive enough offensively looking to score. But in Benn's case we need him to be a great runner, a great decision-maker, as a movement guy, he's come light years, and he really understands and so this year with him as a starter on Day 1 and again, this is his job to lose.
"And it's important to him to be a starter, he played very well as a starter last (year), but we got to a point where adjusting him out of the starting lineup became the best decision for our team as Aaron Nesmith became healthy. And Aaron Nesmith was a guy that at Vanderbilt, he was a guy that Jerry Stackhouse ran all kind of set plays for him. He can catch and shoot, and with our system in Indiana, he learned very quickly how he needed to adapt. You know, Lloyd Pierce works with him on a day-to-day basis. Works with him on running, footwork, blur screening, chase screening, doing all the random things, spacing the floor wider than probably intuitive than a lot of people would think, and so these are the adjustments that Benn is going to have to make as well.
"I think one of things that's a challenge for Benn is he saw a path to being a great player in the NBA that was probably a little dated now. If you're looking at guys like Kobe and other guys that were more ball-centric during that period. The game has just changed a lot, and so you know, to be a great player now in a system like ours, and Pascal (Siakam) is living proof, and he give him all the credit in the world, he's a great leader on our team. He made tough adjustments where a lot of vet players would have come in and just said, 'Hey, I've been an All-Star twice, I've been all-league twice, you guys gotta get more with me.' But he's a great example of sacrifices that are made for our group to have a run like we did this year. But Benn Mathurin is going to get there, he's just, he has such great gifts as a scorer and our job as coaches is to meld guys like him that aren't necessarily seamless fits into a style that is effective for the rest of the guys and bring both forces hopefully closer together as time goes on.'
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