Baby, there’s a shark in the water.
T.J. McConnell has always been an apex predator of lazily thrown inbound passes and sneaking into passing lanes at least once a game, but the fact he offers no quarter to his opponents when he comes off the bench is what makes him the stereotypically gritty white guy.
I suppose that’s what makes him THE White Boy.
It’s OK, mildly liberal white fans, lighten up. You may not want to admit that’s part of T.J.’s charm, but obviously, it’s fun to celebrate white folks in these spaces, even if it isn’t filled with the same fraught politics that a person of color experiences when roles are reversed.
But I digress.
It makes perfect sense that the Pacers are working to extend his contract because it isn’t all grit and grind and whatever filler words you want to use for him being a pain in the ass if you aren’t on the same team as him.
“He’s been such a huge fiber of who we are; it would be hard to imagine our team without him,” Pacers GM Chad Buchanan told Setting the Pace in a recent interview. “You can’t guarantee that he’s going to be here for the rest of his career … but I can guarantee you we really value and love having him on our team.”
He gave the bench a needed bite it didn’t have, especially on defense. Those 72 steals produced 105 points for the Pacers last year and were even more troublesome for opposing teams when he could find an open teammate to hand the ball off to.
That’s the pressure he puts on the other team to speed themselves up on offense.
One thing he didn’t do, however, was scare defenses with his 3-point shooting. Most close-out attempts looked half-hearted and T.J.’s shooting motion said “Are you guys sure you want me to shoot this?” That made the ones that did find the net their own form of comedy.
T.J. DNP to T.J. MVP
This all is a bit of a surprise if you remember he had to accept a lesser role when asked at the start of the season, but he proved by February he didn’t need to register any more DNPs. He averaged 8 points in the first 49 games while being on the wrong side of the +/- and occasionally not seeing the floor but would average 12 points a game and be a positive for the Pacers the rest of the regular season.
“It would be lovely if he would have kept a journal from day one this season until the end,” Buchanan told Setting the Pace in a recent interview. “That would have been some great reading to go from being out of the rotation and maybe not being able to play to having somebody compare him to Michael Jordan in the Eastern Conference Finals. That’s quite the run of a year for him.”
It was the playoffs where he went from simply a beloved Pacers bench player to a Madison Square Garden villain. But it was Game 4 at home where TJMC showed off the reasons why you want him coming off the bench in your playoff rotation. As Buchanan mentioned, he played so well against the Celtics, Jaylen Brown felt like they were trying to stop the GOAT.
“On the court to see him have success at the highest level in the playoffs was one of the coolest things,” Buchanan said, “because he’s paid his dues, obviously. He’s been overlooked his entire life and to have success at that level and to have people recognizing his play and what he’s about was awesome.”
McConnell is no Tyrese Haliburton, but he puts pressure on opponents by always turning the pace up to 11. He gets going downhill and is just as happy to drive to the basket for a layup as he is to throw an ally-oop for a dunk. Of course, he did make mistakes too when he bit off more than he could chew with overly ambitious passes or simply found himself swarmed by the defense, but the tempo he set on both ends of the floor was something the Pacers needed from their reserve point guard.
And that’s why they want to bring him back.
T.J. McConnell has limitations, of course, but what we see every playoff is the teams with the best players win, and while you need stars like Tyrese Haliburton and Pascal Siakam to step up, you also need to be able to let them leave the floor without giving up a lead. McConnell gives Indiana’s bench needed bite and can serve as an on-ball defender against smaller guards like Jalen Brunson, even if his main goal is to just be an annoying little shit.
He’s a good teammate and understands his role. And with that, he looks to make life hell for whoever is across from him.
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