{"id":41653,"date":"2021-08-03T11:51:53","date_gmt":"2021-08-03T15:51:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=41653"},"modified":"2021-08-03T11:51:53","modified_gmt":"2021-08-03T15:51:53","slug":"indiana-pacers-t-j-mcconnell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2021\/08\/03\/indiana-pacers-t-j-mcconnell\/","title":{"rendered":"Indiana Pacers re-sign T.J. McConnell to keep him in the Hoosier State"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>According to ESPN&#8217;s Adrian Wojnarowski, the Indiana Pacers have re-signed <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/m\/mccontj01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">T.J. McConnell<\/a><\/strong> to a three-year, $35.2-million-dollar deal.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">TJ McConnell has agreed to a four-year, $35.2M deal to stay with the Pacers, his agent Mark Bartelstein of <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PrioritySports?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@PrioritySports<\/a> tells ESPN.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/wojespn\/status\/1422324701947432965?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">August 2, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>His new contract keeps him in Indiana until the 2025-26 season.<\/p>\n<h2>Indiana Pacers re-sign T.J. McConnell to keep him in the Hoosier State<\/h2>\n<p>This is great for T.J. McConnell who really worked hard to earn his place in the NBA. Last season, the 28-year-old averaged career highs in points (8.6), rebounds (3.7), assists (6.7), and field-goal percentage (55.9). More impressively, when starting guard <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/brogdma01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Malcolm Brogdon<\/a><\/strong> was out with injury, he accounted himself very well against other starting guards. His best performance came in a loss to the Milwaukee Bucks where he posted 23 points, five rebounds, seven assists, and three steals on 10\/19 shooting.<\/p>\n<p><span data-sheets-value=\"{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Over his _-year NBA career ___ has played for the __, __ and __. He has put up _ points and _(best remaining stat) per game for his career. He was originally drafted in the _ round, _overall of the _ NBA draft by the _. Last season he scored _ points and _ (stat) for _ the (Full Former Team Name). Add any other details of the deal.&quot;}\" data-sheets-userformat=\"{&quot;2&quot;:11009,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,0],&quot;16&quot;:10}\">Over his six-year NBA career, McConnell has played for the Philadelphia 76ers and Indiana Pacers carving out a role as a playmaking point guard at 6&#8217;1 (closer to 5&#8217;11). He plays with plenty of fire, effort, hustle and despite his size, is one of the best ballhawks in the NBA. <\/span><span data-sheets-value=\"{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Over his _-year NBA career ___ has played for the __, __ and __. He has put up _ points and _(best remaining stat) per game for his career. He was originally drafted in the _ round, _overall of the _ NBA draft by the _. Last season he scored _ points and _ (stat) for _ the (Full Former Team Name). Add any other details of the deal.&quot;}\" data-sheets-userformat=\"{&quot;2&quot;:11009,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,0],&quot;16&quot;:10}\">He was undrafted back in 2015 but joined the 76ers Summer League squad where he impressed. From that point on, McConnell has held his own as an undersized guard without a shot by playing with grit and commitment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Pacers are in a weird spot where they are caught between competing for a playoff spot or for a lottery pick in the NBA draft. A lot has been made about the future of their two centers <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/s\/sabondo01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Domantas Sabonis<\/strong><\/a> and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/t\/turnemy01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Myles Turner<\/a><\/strong> but they appear to be running it back for another season. New Head Coach <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/c\/carliri01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Rick Carlisle<\/strong><\/a> is a win-now coach so it&#8217;s no surprise they will try to make it work. Indiana will look to upgrade its roster on the fringes but it&#8217;s clear their priority was bringing back McConnell.<\/p>\n<p>And he has earned every bit of it.<\/p>\n<p>Main Image: <a id=\"XpA-JtxQQK1coGxkPmtiDw\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1301806321\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'XpA-JtxQQK1coGxkPmtiDw',sig:'5dYrIJ8o1sMEB_v7DSBZ7q4zDIAwRGqIXDygWQjb2Ig=',w:'594px',h:'376px',items:'1301806321',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to ESPN&#8217;s Adrian Wojnarowski, the Indiana Pacers have re-signed T.J. McConnell to a three-year, $35.2-million-dollar deal. TJ McConnell has agreed to a four-year, $35.2M deal to stay with the Pacers, his agent Mark Bartelstein of @PrioritySports tells ESPN. &mdash; Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) August 2, 2021 His new contract keeps him in Indiana until the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3477,"featured_media":41692,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[62,1608,11],"tags":[2033,2200],"class_list":["post-41653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba","category-basketball","category-pacers","tag-2021-nba-free-agency","tag-t-j-mcconnell"],"modified_by":"Dylan Guest, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3477"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}