Donald Sloan

Donald Sloan - Sloan spent the whole of last season with the Pacers, having had $350,000 of his contract guaranteed for the season, but in his first full NBA season, he struggled considerably. Sloan played 48 games and finished fourth last amongst qualified players (434th out of 437) in real plus-minus, ahead of only Byron Mullens, Elliot Williams and Dennis Schroeder, and was last on the Pacers in net points by quite a long way. He played point guard exclusively, but he just cannot run an NBA offense - it was always the question about him, but now it's proven. And if he's going to possibly be a shooting guard, he needs to be able to shoot much better than that. Sloan can defend the point guard spot, but he can't play it on offense, and he doesn't defend it well enough to obscure this.

Donald Sloan

Sloan has signed a two-year minimum salary contract with the Pacers already. (You're allowed to sign both minimum salary and rookie scale deals during the moratorium - Solomon Hill has also already signed.) He spent much of last year in the NBA, mostly with Cleveland, for whom he had a reasonable role up until the contract guarantee date. Sloan's problem is his niche - he's very solid, skilled, tough and smart, and, in his pro career to date, has handled the transition from primarily a scorer to primarily a playmaker with aplomb. Without much dynamicism in the process, Sloan commits few mistakes and is a capable third string point guard. But nothing more than that.

Sloan was signed before summer league began, to a minimum salary contract with a nominal $10,000 in guaranteed compensation. However, he then played very badly in summer league, averaging only 3.0 points despite starting all 5 games, shooting 22% from the field, with a near 1:2 assist/turnover ratio. Sloan improved as a scorer in his career at Texas A&M; strong, athletic enough, efficient from all areas, crafty, and able to create for himself off the dribble, but by being neither a point guard, nor a two guard, nor an athlete, nor a defender, nor a shooter, undersized at 6'3 and a bit ball-dominant, he doesn't have an obvious role in the NBA.