Doyel: Obi Toppin could be Pacers' next Oladipo, Sabonis, Haliburton – star who needed a chance
INDIANAPOLIS – Obi Toppin, the latest intriguing young veteran to cycle through our NBA city, is cycling through the photo portion of Indiana Pacers’ media day. This is Monday morning at the Ascension St. Vincent Center, and it’s Toppin’s turn in front of the white backdrop. He’s jumping skyward and cocking the ball way, way back – down to his waist, almost – in a pose he’ll recreate more than a few times in real life this season. Toppin’s a dunker, see. Won the 2022 NBA Slam Dunk Contest.
But he’s more than that, a mobile power forward in an NBA game geared toward players exactly like him, and he’s on the move right now. He’s in front of a sky-blue backdrop, standing still, smiling. Turn to the left – the Pacers need a profile shot. Turn to the right. No, don’t smile. Look grim.
Toppin, 25, tries to look grim. Not easy for a guy like this, a sweetheart of a young man, the kind of person who’s walking through this basketball palace as reporters follow him, and stops when he sees a little girl. She’s a kid from a local elementary school, a contest winner at her school, and her prize is to visit media day and ask questions. She’s maybe 3½ feet tall and she’s terrified, as you can imagine, and Obi sees her and walks over and bends way, way down to give her a fist to pound.
More pictures. Obi’s in front of a white backdrop again, facing the camera. Someone hands him a basketball and tells him to smile. No need for that.
Toppin's in a new city with a new coaching staff, new playing style, new point guard. It’s a new opportunity for the former college player of the year at Dayton who was drafted No. 8 overall in 2020 by the New York Knicks, who already had a star at power forward in Julius Randle. Toppin didn’t play much in New York, and when he did, he didn’t get the ball often. It was a different roster there.
Now he’s here, playing for one of the fastest teams in the NBA, alongside the most unselfish point guard in the league. And whoever’s holding the camera thinks Obi Toppin needs to be told to smile?
He has the ball in his hands. He’s smiling.
Oladipo, Sabonis, Haliburton ... Toppin?
The Pacers do this. Well, Kevin Pritchard does. Pritchard and Chad Buchanan, the leaders of a Pacers front office with a knack for finding good young players in one city, bringing them here, and watching them become something more.
Something great, oftentimes.
You know the list. Victor Oladipo was a nice player in Orlando and Oklahoma City before coming to the Pacers in 2018 and becoming an All-Star. Same for Domantas Sabonis, acquired with Oladipo in that Paul George trade, and Tyrese Haliburton – who arrived late in the 2021-22 season in exchange for Sabonis and emerged as a world-class point guard.
It happens on a smaller scale, too. Jordan Nwora was a 6.8-ppg scorer in Milwaukee who averaged 13 ppg here last season. Phoenix thought Jalen Smith was expendable in 2022, and practically gave him and his career 4.1-ppg scoring average to the Pacers, where he averaged 13.4 ppg the rest of that season. Aaron Nesmith, like Smith the year before, went from possible lottery bust in one city (Boston) to double-figure scorer here.
Which brings us to Obi Toppin, acquired this offseason from New York for the piddling sum of two second-round draft picks.
The Knicks saw someone expendable. The Pacer saw something more. What happens next? Bet the house on this: Toppin will produce a lot more here than the seven points and three rebounds he averaged with the Knicks from 2020-23. How much more? That’s one of the biggest questions in a 2023-24 NBA season full of them for the Pacers.
Who starts on the wing alongside Haliburton and Bruce Brown – Buddy Hield or Bennedict Mathurin? And how does Hield handle the inevitable demotion? How much better will the defense play, with coach Rick Carlisle demanding more from everyone? What kind of NBA player do the Pacers have in 2023 lottery pick Jarace Walker?
Doyel: Is Pacers' great chemistry at risk if Bennedict Mathurin starts ahead of Buddy Hield?
Important questions, all of them, but if Toppin is close to the Oladipo-Sabonis-Haliburton end of the spectrum – good young players in one city who become stars here – the Pacers rebuild will be only a step or two from completion.
You can see how Toppin could flourish with Indiana. Advanced NBA stats place Toppin among the league’s elite in transition offense, which means he was wasted in New York, where coach Tom Thibodeau’s grinding system – while undoubtedly effective – didn’t capitalize on Toppin’s finishing ability at the rim. The Knicks were 25th in the league in pace last season, while the Pacers were fourth.
New York’s top two point guards, Jalen Brunson and Immanuel Quickley – again, while effective – aren’t as compatible with Toppin as Haliburton will be.
Brunson last season: 6.4 assists per 36 minutes.
Quickley: 4.3 assists per 36 minutes.
Haliburton: 11.2 assists per 36 minutes.
See why Toppin is smiling?
More: 'I love family environments': Why Obi Toppin is so excited to join the Pacers
'The opportunity is just different here'
Haliburton is about to talk, which means everyone in the Indianapolis media is about to listen. He takes his place in front of the Pacers’ preferred backdrop, and immediately 10-15 reporters surround him. Toppin is walking past, toward the second backdrop, and he’s taken aback.
“Damn Ty!” Obi’s shouting. “Everyone’s running to you!”
Obi continues.
“Can I get a question?”
Reporters go silent as Toppin leans in and asks the most legit question I heard all day, honestly:
“How excited,” he’s asking Haliburton, “are you to throw lobs to Mr. Obi Toppin?”
Obi walks off with a smile, where I follow him and point out the obvious: You seem happy here.
“New start, great staff, amazing staff, amazing players, everybody’s willing to help each other get better out here,” he says.
I’m mentioning what you’ve read already, how Pritchard has a track record of finding players like Toppin – whose statistical profile suggests they are a B- or C-level pro – and turning them into A-listers.
“I definitely know the history of the guys KP’s brought in,” Toppin says. “Nothing bad about New York, where those guys started my grind – being in the gym every day, multiple times every day – but the opportunity is just different here.”
Training camp will be competitive – Jarace Walker will get a long look at power forward – but Toppin figures to start after making just 15 starts in three seasons in New York. Toppin spent the summer in Los Angeles, training with renowned skills trainer Chris Johnson and his assistant, Cory Smith, and says he came back a different player: Better range, better ballhandling, just … better.
“He’s shooting the ball so much better – he’ll be able to space the floor and clear some things up on the inside,” center Myles Turner says of Toppin, a career 32.5% shooter on 3-pointers. “He opens the game up, someone who can get out and run. Runs like a deer, man. See him get out in transition.”
We’ll see it here. We’ll see all of it, the shooting and the smiling and Toppin getting the ball in transition and jumping skyward and cocking the ball way, way back – down to his waist, almost – as he joins a system and teammates more conducive to his skill set. Will we see from Toppin, the new guy, the same stardom we once saw from new guys named Oladipo, Sabonis and Haliburton?
Can’t answer that. Toppin's on the move to the next photograph station – sitting in a chair, a basketball in one hand and his chin in the other. He’s looking off into the distance, deep in thought, perhaps wondering the same thing.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Knicks castoff Obi Toppin could be the Indiana Pacers' next great find
