Well, the experiment is over. On Tuesday, the Indiana Pacers announced that Kendall Brown had been waived after two seasons and only 21 games played with the team.

This surprised relatively nobody, as Brown was not a rotation player at any point in his Pacers tenure. He was mostly used for garbage time, not even being called upon for injury insurance as he started none of the 21 games he played. Since being drafted in the second round, 48th overall by the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2022 and traded to Indiana for a future second-round pick, Brown has not played more than 18 minutes or scored more than eight points in a game.

Brown’s departure as well as the recent departure of Oscar Tshiebwe following Summer League 2024 brings up the question of how long a prospect should be given to prove themselves before they are either called upon to become a core piece of a team or let go for other, more established talent. In Tshiebwe’s case, it only took one year for the Pacers to realize that his rebound-heavy, bully-ball approach to the game would not work in the league, especially for a slow-footed 6-foot-9 center who played like the big men of yesteryear, such as Danny Fortson or Reggie Evans.

Brown, on the other hand, is a more complicated story. Standing 6-foot-8 and weighing in at 205 pounds with a 6-foot-11 wingspan and astounding 41-inch vertical leap, Brown seems like the perfect forward for today’s game. Coming out of Baylor in 2022, Brown was considered the most explosive player in the draft and an elite-level athlete whose crafty finishes and knack for punishing defenders made him a surefire hit for any team with a later selection. Fitting with Indiana, he was at his best in transition and was always looking to push the pace. With all that said, we have reached a point where Brown is not only not a priority for the Pacers’ young core anymore but may end up out of the league if another team does not claim him off waivers. What happened? Was Brown not given a chance, or did he not show improvement?

Unfortunately for Kendall Brown, the answer is more towards the latter, mostly because of one reason: shooting. According to Caitlin Cooper over at Basketball She Wrote (subscribe to the Patreon) over the last five years, only three role players on NBA Finals rosters have attempted fewer than 4.0 three-pointers per 36 minutes while shooting below 30%. Despite showing some promise as a shooter at Baylor at 34% on 1.2 attempts a game, Brown has not translated that growing ability to the NBA level in the slightest. In his 21 games in the league, Brown has attempted three 3-pointers, missing all of them, and has not made a shot from past 16 feet out in his NBA career yet.

Additionally, despite being given ample time to improve his jumper and strengthen his game in the Summer League, Brown did not do so despite playing for the Pacers in Vegas for his third year recently. You’d think for a 21-year-old fighting to stay in the league you would get better than 0.4 made threes a game on 20% shooting, but the improvement just wasn’t there.

In today’s NBA, raw, non-shooting wings who have not harnessed their talent are an archetype that usually does not fare well in the league, and we have seen that take shape with Brown. Fans were puzzled by how far he dropped on draft boards in 2022, but that reason is quite clear now. Once seen as a diamond-in-the-rough prospect who could be a steal for whichever team took a chance on him, Brown finds himself out of the league as he hopes to enter his third year, showing little improvement from the raw prospect Pacers fans saw in 2022.

The Pacers are far from the young, inexperienced playoff hopefuls they were in 2022 when Kendall Brown got drafted. Since then, the team has had a complete makeover as they watched Tyrese Haliburton ascend into one of the best point guards in the league as well and supplemented him by trading for Pascal Siakam in an unquestionable win-now move that landed them in the Eastern Conference Finals. Because of this, the Pacers have no time for a 21-year-old still-raw project entering his third year in the league. Outside of athleticism and a high motor, Brown does not provide a valuable skillset for a contending team, which led to him being replaced by Cole Swider, who impressed Pacers brass by shooting a scorching-hot 49% from deep in Summer League, leading to the team picking him up from Miami.

With Brown being replaced by Swider, Indiana has their full 15-man roster ready for the regular season. One more preseason game against Charlotte on Thursday awaits them before the season opener on Wednesday, October 23 against the Detroit Pistons.