Dakota Mathias and Lance Jones didn't overlap at Purdue, but their shared college will help them both on their summer league journey with the Indiana Pacers.
INDIANAPOLIS — A one hour drive typically separates West Lafayette, Indiana from the state's capital. But during NBA summer league play, basketball will make that distance nonexistent.
Jones just finished his college career in April. He performed a pre-draft workout for the Pacers just a few weeks ago, andat the time. He's now remaining in the state for his first step into pro basketball. Mathias, meanwhile, is one of the elders of the summer league squad. He's played professionally for a half-decade now, and his three-point shooting is impressive. His fit with Indiana has come easy: in 2019, the wing/guard signed with the Dallas Mavericks for training camp. At the time, now-Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle was in charge in Dallas, and his staff came with him from the Mavericks. Mathias knows them well.
Mathias has averaged 3.9 points per game in 14 NBA appearances. He scored a career-high 14 points in a game against the Atlanta Hawks in 2021 and has reached double figures on two occasions. Jones shared that his defensive mindset translated from Purdue, and Mathias is a fan of head coach Matt Painter. While the two now-Pacers weren't too familiar with each other before this experience, they are now.
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