Aaron Nesmith (left hamstring strain) and T.J. McConnell (right hamstring strain) were both ruled out of Wednesday’s season opener in New Orleans, along with Johnny Furphy, on the injury report the Pacers posted Tuesday. Kelly Oubre Jr. is the player who has to cover for Nesmith. He started three of the four preseason games, twice in Nesmith’s place.
My view: the two-year deal Oubre signed in July is the best value in the rotation, with one condition. He has to keep playing like the version Philadelphia had last season, a low-usage wing who takes threes and defends. If he does, Indiana found a starter-quality wing for less than it pays its backup point guard. The 20-point scorer he was in Charlotte in 2022-23 isn’t what Indiana needs.
What $8 million buys
Oubre signed a two-year, $16.5 million contract on July 7, fully guaranteed. He makes $8,050,000 this season and $8,450,000 next. That’s the ninth-biggest salary on the team, behind McConnell’s $11 million and Jarace Walker’s $8.48 million. Nesmith also makes $11 million this season, and his salary jumps to $19,418,000 in 2027-28.
Here’s what Indiana got for it. Last season with the 76ers, Oubre averaged 14.1 points, 5.0 rebounds and 1.4 steals in 31.5 minutes over 50 games, 41 of them starts, per Basketball Reference. He made 36.0% of his threes on 4.8 attempts a game. That’s the best three-point percentage of his 11 seasons.
The number I care about most is his true shooting: .580, also a career best, on a usage rate of 18.2%. That’s the lowest usage he has posted since 2016-17, his second year in the league. He took fewer shots and got more out of each one. In 2022-23 in Charlotte he averaged 20.3 points with a 26.5% usage rate and a .534 true shooting percentage. The 2025-26 version is the one that fits next to Tyrese Haliburton, Pascal Siakam and Ivica Zubac.
The shot profile changed
The change shows up in where he shot from. Threes made up 43.9% of Oubre’s field goal attempts last season, up from 32.7% in 2024-25, per Basketball Reference’s shooting splits. A third of those threes came from the corners, and he made 46.3% of his corner attempts. Almost all of his made threes, 95.3%, were assisted.
That’s a finisher, which is the job on a team that runs its offense through Haliburton. The preseason looked like a continuation. Oubre scored 34 points in 66 minutes across four exhibition games, shooting 12-of-23 from the field, 6-of-13 from three and 4-of-4 at the line, per the ESPN box scores. His best game came in the home preseason opener against Atlanta on Oct. 10, a start with Haliburton out: 13 points on 5-of-8 shooting and 3-of-5 from three in 20 minutes.
Siakam described what he has seen after that Atlanta game, in the team’s game rewind: “He’s a wing defender, can knock down the three. I think he has good energy about him. He’s bought into playing the way we play.”
The risk is the career line
Oubre is a 32.7% three-point shooter over 705 career games. He shot 29.3% from three the year before last season’s 36.0%, and 239 attempts is not enough for me to call that the new normal.
Then there’s ball security. Oubre turned it over seven times in those 66 preseason minutes, at least once in every game. A wing whose job is to catch and shoot shouldn’t be giving it away almost twice a game.
So here’s my line for him: if Oubre is taking four or five threes a night, most of them assisted, and he’s making 35% or better, he’s worth more than he’s paid. If he starts hunting his own shot to fill the scoring gap left by Nesmith, the efficiency goes with it.
Why Nesmith’s health makes this deal matter
Nesmith played 45 games in each of the last two seasons, per Basketball Reference. He rested in Oklahoma City, then sat out the preseason finale against Milwaukee with the left hamstring strain, according to the team’s game rewind, and the same injury keeps him out of the opener.
A team that expects its starting small forward to miss time needs a fill-in who doesn’t wreck the starting group, and the starters were good with Oubre in that spot. Indiana led Oklahoma City 61-59 and Milwaukee 71-56 at halftime in the two games he started for Nesmith, with the regulars playing only the first half, as I wrote in our look at Haliburton’s preseason and the bench.
The flip side is the second unit. With McConnell out too, the bench is thinner on opening night than Indiana planned, and that matters more on the nights Indiana rests Haliburton in his first season back from the Achilles tear. Ben Sheppard, who went without an extension at Monday’s deadline, shot 0-for-7 over the last two preseason games. When Nesmith is healthy, Oubre slides back to the bench, and that’s where I think the signing pays off most: a wing who can score next to Obi Toppin and Walker. The injury report page and our Pacers depth chart track who is available.
For Wednesday and however long Nesmith is out, I’ll be watching two numbers in Oubre’s box score: three-point attempts and turnovers. Lots of the first and few of the second, and Indiana is getting a starting wing for $8 million.