Pacers Roll Out G League Roster for Monday Night Matchup

The Indiana Pacers are rolling out a rotation tonight that sounds less like an NBA roster and more like a randomly generated Summer League squad.

Head coach Rick Carlisle is heading into Monday's matchup against the Atlanta Hawks with exactly seven active players who will actually see the floor. Obi Toppin is putting on a uniform just to sit on the bench, which is the professional sports equivalent of logging into a Zoom meeting with your microphone muted just to get attendance credit.

"Coach Carlisle said Obi Toppin will dress but won't play."

The official active list is a wild ride featuring Quenton Jackson, Kelly Oubre, Jarace Walker, Jay Huff, Jalen Slawson, Kobe Brown, and Braden Smith. For context, Slawson and Brown are two-way contract guys who spent the preseason fighting to avoid a G League assignment in Noblesville, and now they are the primary depth chart.

Indiana is sitting at an ugly 2-5 on the season, and their injury report currently reads like a CVS receipt. Tyrese Haliburton is out, Pascal Siakam is getting a rest day, and half the regular rotation is stuck in street clothes.

If you are looking at the betting markets for this game, you have to factor in that the Atlanta Hawks are essentially playing a glorified exhibition team. Player props for guys like Quenton Jackson, who averages just 7.7 points for his career, are going to be completely unmoored from reality with this kind of usage spike.

The Indiana Pacers just have to survive this Monday night fever dream before heading to play the Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday. Until the actual franchise cornerstones return to the floor, Indiana is just trying to field five warm bodies without having to pull a fan out of the lower bowl.