Derek Kramer

Pascal Siakam has found his voice with the Indiana Pacers

Pascal Siakam offered a unique look into the Indiana Pacers players-only minicamp at his house in Orlando. The glimpses behind the curtain from NBA players we usually get at this point in the off-season have become somewhat of a running joke over the years. Whether it’s a center like Mitchell Robinson making off-the-dribble pull-up 3-pointers in a pickup game or the annual Ben Simmons jump shot clips, it’s rare to see anything of substance. Instead of seeing the typical workout clips, Siakam’s shared videos have been more like behind-the-scenes footage or a mini-documentary about the Pacers preparation for a new season.

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“You saw some of the video of what they did in Orlando this past week at Pascal’s place,” Chad Buchanan, Pacers general manager, said of Siakam. “He’s at the point in his career where it’s just about winning. He’s secured his contract, he’s established himself as a player, and winning is all that matters to him. His leadership is showing with some of our younger guys. You see it in the video clips, we see it every day; he’s taking young guys under his wing and passing on information that can help that player.”

With Siakam’s posts on both Instagram and Twitter, we immediately see how much he’s embraced his role as a leader. The videos shared haven’t just been highlights from their 5-on-5 scrimmages–though that Bennedict Mathurin dunk over Myles Turner certainly stood out. Instead, it’s mostly been Siakam speaking to the group, offering advice, sharing wisdom about what needs to be done to get back to the conference finals and beyond.

“We gotta be dogs,” Siakam told the team. “We got talent but we gotta be dogs. This is our superpower right here like the fact that we’re all together. We gotta use that shit. Stay together, stay locked in, and compete every fucking day … I’m not the most talented. I didn’t start playing basketball when I was a little kid but one thing I know you ain’t beating me on is fucking working. I’m going to be here every fucking day putting that work in.”

Combine the speeches over the scrimmage highlights, now that’s good content.

Despite being a mid-season addition and a pending free agent, Siakam’s vocal leadership really started to grow during last season according to both Rick Carlisle and Buchanan.

“He did that during the playoffs,” Carlisle said of Siakam. “Organically his voice just became louder and louder and more present.”

While leading with his voice wasn’t something that he did often with the Raptors, the Pacers young group needed it from him as one of the only players that could speak from a place of both playoff experience and playoff success as one of the stars from Toronto’s championship run. Now he’s opened up his home to get the team extra time together before training camp.

“His leadership has really taken another step and we’ve encouraged that,” Buchanan told reporters Tuesday. “When we traded for Pascal, he’s a guy coming in with a championship ring, an established player, a multi-All-Star, we encouraged him, ‘We need your voice. This is a young group for the most part. They need to hear from you. Pass on your knowledge, deliver messages at the right moment.’ He started doing that last year but I feel like this summer he’s really taken it to another level.”

Both Haliburton and Andrew Nembhard discussed how they viewed Siakam as a leader from the jump last season once he was with the team even before he became more vocal and especially once they got to the playoffs.

Siakam believes part of his growth as a leader is possible because of the type of guys the Pacers have in the locker room where he can tell they want to learn, want to listen, and respect where he’s coming from when he’s delivering a message to the group.

“How they embraced me as a player and just being able to listen to my voice, it’s something for me as a player that I’ve never really had,” Siakam said of his teammates during the press conference after agreeing to a 4-year, $189 million deal. “Just having that opportunity to have people really look at you for guidance and look at you for leadership, it was definitely refreshing to see that.”

Siakam discussing leadership styles and why he’s been able to be more vocal in Indiana.

All 19 players under contract showed up for the Pacers players-only minicamp. Everyone from the players with 2-way contracts, the two players likely fighting for the 15th roster spot in Kendall Brown and Cole Swider, locker room presence and team security James Johnson, all the way up to Olympic gold-medalist Tyrese Haliburton and the longest-tenured member of the Pacers Myles Turner. With the videos, we aren’t limited to hearing about Siakam being a good leader for his teammates but we can see it. These kind of moments aren’t typically recorded and shared.

“This makes me happy being here,” Siakam told his teammates in one video. “I’m not the type to really talk a lot. It took me a while to get out of my shell. You guys made it so easy and I appreciate it for sure. When I say something, I look at the eyes and I know. I’ve been around, I know when guys aren’t listening. It means the world to me that everyone is so locked in.”

The week prior to the everybody coming for the mini-camp, Siakam, who averaged 21.3 points and 7.8 rebounds per game with Indiana last season, hosted a lot of the young guys and offered advice on things like how to treat getting sent to the G-League or getting an opportunity for a few minutes of garbage time.

If there’s anyone young players could listen to about trips to the G-League, it’s Siakam, who as a rookie led the Raptors then D-League affiliate to a title and won finals MVP. A couple years later, he’s the NBA’s Most-Improved Player and winning an NBA Championship.

In one video, he went in depth with Jarace Walker on what makes his patented spin move so effective and showing him how to utilize it in the post. Telling Walker that because he also has a good first step, the spin should be an effective tool for him.

Siakam hosting the team and posting the videos also gave us glimpses at the progress of Bennedict Mathurin as he returns from his shoulder injury, we learned that Myles Turner hosted the bigs on the roster down in Dallas the week prior, and we got to hear players speak up that you don’t normally hear from in that way like Andrew Nembhard, who spoke to young players on the roster about maximizing whatever role you have, even if it’s not the role you want.

For the Pacers organization, you couldn’t ask for anything more from a star player that you just signed to a $190 million contract this off-season. With so many guys being extended this summer, seeing how ready they are to work before training camp even begins has to be pleasing to the front office.

“I think we have a hard-working group that’s going to continue to fight for everything that they need to earn,” Pacers VP Ted Wu said of the team staying hungry with so many locking up long-term contracts.

For Siakam, he’s pleased to be with the Pacers organization after a rough breakup with the team that drafted him and where he once thought he would spend his entire career.

“I’m so grateful and happy that I came to a place where I feel so supported, where you feel like you’re needed, feel like you matter and as a player that’s really all you can ask for,” Siakam said in his exit interview after losing in the conference finals. “I’m blessed to be able to be here and to be able to have had the season that we had. To come into a group of guys where it mattered for them to be able to compete and I’m happy to be part of it. For me as a player, that’s all I really ask for. I give everything to the places where I am. For me to be here and to come here, just to see how the support has been so incredible, it warms my heart. I’m blessed. 

… I’m really appreciative of everything. Coming from where I come from, it means a lot. The support I have received here is something I was kind of missing.”

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