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Pacers rookie Bennedict Mathurin rages inside: ‘I have no choice but to be great’
Bob Kravitz
Dec 14, 2022
There is an unshakeable confidence, a necessary arrogance, almost a defiance in Bennedict Mathurin’s bearing. The Pacers’ rising rookie doesn’t merely think he’s going to be a star. He knows it. He knows it deep in his soul. There are no palatable alternatives: There are too many people to inspire. Too many people whose lives he can change, including his mother, Elvie Jeune, and his older sister, Jennifer, who played basketball collegiately and internationally and is now living with Bennedict in Indianapolis.
“I feel like I have no choice but to be great,” he said matter-of-factly after a recent practice.
“A lot of people play a sport because they have a talent, but I play for a different reason. I want to be one of the greatest players ever. I want to influence the kids (back in Montreal) to believe in themselves. Where I grew up (in the impoverished Montreal-Nord, Quebec, neighborhood), a lot of kids make bad decisions because they never got the chance to be around people who want the best for them. I want to give them motivation.
“And I want to take care of my family. I made that promise to myself when I was very young. I have no choice. That’s the way it is.”
In just under one-third of the season, Mathurin has opened eyes, establishing himself as the league’s second-leading rookie scorer (17.6 points per game), behind only Orlando’s Paolo Banchero (21.8). He has come off the bench in all but one of Indiana’s 28 games and posted 11 games of 20 points or more. His 104 points in his first five games were the highest five-game total to begin an NBA career in Indiana franchise history. He’s also lived at the free-throw line, having taken 161 attempts, the most on the team by a margin of almost 60. Already, he is a crowd favorite at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, a superstar in the making.
“He takes a lot of pride in responsibility and excelling at what he does because he’s been given so much,” said Jennifer. “He’s been given a lot of opportunities, and he’s very grateful, and he doesn’t want to waste those opportunities. Like, it would be dishonest, it would be a disgrace for him not to do great things with all that he’s been given.”
To understand where this unshakeable confidence comes from, consider his upbringing. An absentee father who passed away in 2013, a mom working multiple job to make ends meet, a childhood spent in an impoverished neighborhood and, as a 12-year-old, experiencing the tragic loss of his 15-year-old brother, Dominique, who was hit by a car while riding his bike. Bennedict has a tattoo on his left forearm with his Dominique’s name and the dates of his birth and death.
GO DEEPER
The remarkable rise of Arizona’s Bennedict Mathurin: ‘Believe is a big word for me’
When Mathurin was 16, he took on the challenge of leaving the world he knew behind to go to Mexico City to attend the NBA Academy. There, he grew his game and grew up as a young man. He embraced the challenges of learning a new culture and a new language. He now speaks four languages — French, Creole, English and Spanish, and is working on Portuguese.
“Growing up wasn’t easy,” the 20-year-old Mathurin said. “… I told myself as a kid, especially after my brother died, ‘When I grow up, I’m going to provide for my family.’
“I always knew since I was a young kid what I wanted. Most of my friends, they liked to party, have fun, do some bad things and honestly, I was around them, but I always knew I was supposed to be doing something else. And then when my brother passed, I knew: I have no choice but to make it.”
Bennedict Mathurin (pictured here hugging his sister, Jennifer, at the NBA Draft): “I told myself as a kid, especially after my brother died, ‘When I grow up, I’m going to provide for my family.'” (Arturo Holmes / Getty Images)
The siblings (Jennifer, Dominique and Bennedict) used to go over to Parc Le Carignan in Montreal-Nord to play hoops as often as the weather allowed. Benn (the name he goes by to family and friends) was a little guy, nine years younger than Jennifer, three years younger than Dominique. They were bigger, faster and stronger than their little brother, naturally, and they beat young Benn with regularity. So did the other kids, most of them older than Benn, until the little brother came of age.
“He (Benn) was always really good, and the fact he played with older siblings and older friends, it’s almost inevitable (that he improved significantly),” Jennifer said. “You know, when you’re put in a situation where you always have to challenge yourself, you have no choice but to better yourself. When he was on a team with kids his age, he had a big advantage; he was always a little bit faster; his IQ was a little bit higher; he was a little bit stronger because he was used to banging with older people with bigger bodies.”
She was asked how old Benn was when he finally beat her on the basketball court …
“Oh, I’ll never admit to that,” Jennifer said with a laugh.
A pause, then she came clean.
“When he was 12, 13, 14, he used to come to practice with me and the girls (at her first school, Champlain College Saint-Lambert, before she attended North Carolina State), I remember one time he grabbed a rebound, and I tried to grab it from his hand, and I almost lost a rib. I was like, ‘Glory times are over.’ He just looked at me, like, ‘Yeah, yeah.'”
Bennedict was good at basketball, but he was surrounded by elements — drugs, guns, violence — that can scuttle a dream in a nanosecond.
“Some people may say it’s not comparable to some of the underprivileged and dangerous neighborhoods in the U.S.,” Jennifer said, “but it’s still very present. Believe me.”
Benn, like any teen, had his moments. He would veer off the path. He could be bullheaded and difficult. He wasn’t big on school.
“I studied basketball because it was something I liked,” he said with a smile.
With no father in the picture, with his mother often working as a nurse’s assistant and doing other jobs, with his sister playing basketball at NC State, Jennifer had fears Benn was walking down some perilous roads. For years, she had taken care of both her brothers, ferrying them to school and back, doing the household chores, taking them everywhere she went, making sure they were taken care of. Now, with the passing of Dominique, it was just Benn and his mother, and his mom was working mornings, coming home for a nap, then heading back out to work in the evenings.
“It’s hard to come from a three-sibling household to one,” she said. “So for a couple of years, that was tough on him, but then he really turned to basketball and said, ‘You know what, I’m going to put all my energy into that and make something out of myself.’ That helped him stay grounded and focused. Coming from a tough neighborhood, that allowed him to be in the gym and focus on school instead of hanging out with bad crowds.
“Of course, I was worried. Actually, I wanted to quit school (NC State). I remember telling my coach I wanted to leave and come home and be near my family. But the best decision for them was actually staying in school and showing him (Benn) a good path, like, keep working and keep wanting the best out of life and things will work out — and I think they did.”
Today and always, Dominique’s enduring memory drives Mathurin.
“He’s always with me,” Benn said quietly. “He was my best friend. We were always together, always playing basketball.”
Said Jennifer: “It was Dominique’s dream to play basketball at the highest level, so I think it motivates Benn in that aspect. He wants to get to the highest level, and he has, but he wants to perform and stay there and be at the top, because that’s what our brother wanted to do as well. And I think he takes pride in just living all these experiences to the fullest, because he knows they can do it together.”
As a 16-year-old, Bennedict was discovered by Hernan Olaya, an assistant coach at the NBA’s Latin America program in Mexico City. Olaya brought Bennedict to Mexico, where he had no choice but to grow up quickly.
“It helped him a lot,” Jennifer said. “It helped him mature, helped him grow personally and emotionally as well. He was already independent, but now he had a structure that was shaped for excellence. He could access the gym any time he wanted. He had a good diet, people telling him what’s good to eat, what’s not good to eat. Tutors to help with education. It brought him more tools to perfect himself.”
His University of Arizona coach, Tommy Lloyd, saw the same fire within Mathurin when was in Tucson.
“I don’t know if I would use confidence and bravado (to describe him); I think I would put it more in the category of conviction and fuel to the fire,” he said shortly after the NBA Draft. “I think as you guys get to know Benn, he’s a great guy. He’s not gregarious. He’s not over the top, not trying to draw attention to himself, but I think internally, there’s a fire that really burns.
“That’s one of the things that really attracted (the Pacers) to Benn. They feel like there’s an inferno burning inside that kid, and I would agree with that.”
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Here’s when the Pacers knew this prospect had the right stuff: Mathurin not only conducted a pre-draft workout for the Pacers, but he asked about returning to the practice-facility gym later that night to work out with Pacers coach Rick Carlisle.
“He’s very uniquely himself,” Carlisle said. “He loves to play, he lives in the gym, he’s in here at night all the time, he studies the game, he really has a burning internal desire to be a special player, and he knows there are no shortcuts. I have a lot of admiration for who he is as a person, the things he’s gone through in his life, the way he grew up, living in different places, all that has shaped him into being the young man he is now.”
Pacers coach Rick Carlisle on Bennedict Mathurin: “Benn’s going to be a starter when the time is right. In the meantime, I love his approach, his disposition, his love of learning. … In the near future and beyond, we all know where this is going.” (Trevor Ruszkowski / USA Today)
It was a softball question, really, kind of a mindless J-school query you lob at the end of an interview with an athlete.
I looked Mathurin in the eye and asked quite innocently, “Have you been at all surprised at what you’ve accomplished in the league in such a short time?” Just days earlier, Carlisle had said exactly that; Mathurin has exceeded expectations since arriving in Indianapolis. Seemed reasonable to wonder, no?
Mathurin let loose with a basso profundo laugh, but it wasn’t a ha-ha laugh; more like a “How can you possibly ask me that question?” expression.
“Respect … respect, man,” he said, shaking his head. “Surprised? No. I’m not surprised, not at all. No, man, I’ve put in the work. Nothing to be surprised about.”
His healthy self-regard was on display during a pre-draft interview with the Washington Post, when he was asked about the prospect of someday playing against LeBron James.
“A lot of people say he’s great,” Mathurin said. “I want to see how great he is. I don’t think anybody is better than me. He’s going to have to show me he’s better than me.”
He later walked that back a bit, paid proper deference to The King, but when the pair met in a Nov. 28 game in Los Angeles, Mathurin and his team got the best of James and his Lakers.
“He has a really strong belief in himself,” Carlisle said. “And he puts the work in to back it up.”
His teammates marvel at his single-mindedness of purpose. And that confidence, it’s almost palpable.
“His mindset, you know, there’s not many people, let alone rookies, that have his mindset on the court, and it’s one of his strengths,” said teammate T.J. McConnell. “His ability to get to his spots … then get to the rim. When he’s got his 3 rolling, it’s really tough for people to guard him. Because they press up on him so much, and he gets to the rim, and he scores from three levels. But his mindset and his confidence are something very rare.”
GO DEEPER
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The 14-14 Pacers, who hadn’t selected a single-digit draftee since 1989 (George McCloud at No. 7), have found themselves a budding star. Already, he’s a crowd favorite, the fans cheering wildly whenever the electric Mathurin comes off the bench as Indiana’s sixth man.
For now, Carlisle likes Mathurin in that role as the engine for the second unit, but the day will come, sooner rather than later, when the rookie is in the starting lineup — for good.
“Benn’s going to be a starter when the time is right. In the meantime, I love his approach, his disposition, his love of learning. … In the near future and beyond, we all know where this is going.”
For a franchise that has lacked star power since Victor Oladipo maneuvered his way out of Indy, Mathurin has emerged as a star-in-the-making, a player who will help shape the Pacers’ present and future — assuming he sticks around beyond his rookie contract, but let’s not go there just yet. (In Indiana, fans still wear the scars left by Paul George and Oladipo, who both wanted out of Indy.)
Growing up, Mathurin didn’t get to see a whole lot of NBA games on TV, but he saw some Toronto Raptors games, which is when he fell for DeMar DeRozan’s game.
“His patience and his IQ,” Mathurin said of DeRozan, now with the Bulls. “He knows exactly how to get to his spots, and how to get fouled.”
And watching the old TV hoops anthology, Hardwood Classics, he became aware of the greatness of Michael Jordan.
“That was really the moment when I fell in love with Jordan,” Mathurin said.
He also enjoys watching Washington’s Bradley Beal.
“So shifty, so many things in his bag,” he said.
In the past months, I’ve asked coaches and scouts at Pacers games who Mathurin’s comp might be.
I’ve heard Dwyane Wade, with his fearlessness. I’ve heard Jaylen Brown. I’ve heard Jimmy Butler. One coach, who shall remain unnamed, even said, “some Michael Jordan, but don’t quote me on that.”
Pacers coach Rick Carlisle on Bennedict Mathurin: “He knows he’s an important part of our offense, and the ball finds the best players.” (Trevor Ruszkowski / USA Today)
He treats the rim like it owes him something. There’s a violence to it, a suddenness. As the result, he spends a lot of time at the free-throw line.
“Some rookies are better than others (getting to the free-throw line) but he’s special in that way,” Carlisle said. “He has a real explosive burst and a way to attack and seek contact so that he’s at the line a lot. One of the things he’s done a good job with is finding opportunities to attack within our flow game, where we’re not calling many plays for him but our guys know his strengths. He knows he’s an important part of our offense, and the ball finds the best players. After those first 10, 11 games, he’s been getting a lot of attention.
“He’s come a long way since June in the reading of the game, his vision, and he’s only going to get better and better. He’s a special young man and a special player.”
What you’ve got in Indiana is a lot of young guys who love the game, who live the game. And it’s shown.
“One of my favorite parts about Benn and the way we’re building the culture here, I just want to be around guys who love basketball, who want to be great,” said Tyrese Haliburton. “It’s not just showing up for a game and that’s it. We watch games, text about games, talk about games when we get to the arena.”
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Said teammate and fellow rookie Andrew Nembhard: “You think about his unwavering confidence to come out as a 20-year-old and get buckets like that, (it’s) unreal. His pace, change of direction and powerfulness to the rim, he gets to the line a lot, and he’s a shot-maker at all three levels. And I think he’s a better 3-point shooter than people thought (he’s shooting 35 percent).”
None of this is really any kind of surprise, as Mathurin would be quick to tell you. That’s not faux bravado or empty posturing. Mathurin’s confidence is marrow deep because he has already overcome so much; now, he has to be special, has to establish himself as a star in this league: Because there’s really no other choice.
Bob Kravitz
Dec 14, 2022
There is an unshakeable confidence, a necessary arrogance, almost a defiance in Bennedict Mathurin’s bearing. The Pacers’ rising rookie doesn’t merely think he’s going to be a star. He knows it. He knows it deep in his soul. There are no palatable alternatives: There are too many people to inspire. Too many people whose lives he can change, including his mother, Elvie Jeune, and his older sister, Jennifer, who played basketball collegiately and internationally and is now living with Bennedict in Indianapolis.
“I feel like I have no choice but to be great,” he said matter-of-factly after a recent practice.
“A lot of people play a sport because they have a talent, but I play for a different reason. I want to be one of the greatest players ever. I want to influence the kids (back in Montreal) to believe in themselves. Where I grew up (in the impoverished Montreal-Nord, Quebec, neighborhood), a lot of kids make bad decisions because they never got the chance to be around people who want the best for them. I want to give them motivation.
“And I want to take care of my family. I made that promise to myself when I was very young. I have no choice. That’s the way it is.”
In just under one-third of the season, Mathurin has opened eyes, establishing himself as the league’s second-leading rookie scorer (17.6 points per game), behind only Orlando’s Paolo Banchero (21.8). He has come off the bench in all but one of Indiana’s 28 games and posted 11 games of 20 points or more. His 104 points in his first five games were the highest five-game total to begin an NBA career in Indiana franchise history. He’s also lived at the free-throw line, having taken 161 attempts, the most on the team by a margin of almost 60. Already, he is a crowd favorite at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, a superstar in the making.
“He takes a lot of pride in responsibility and excelling at what he does because he’s been given so much,” said Jennifer. “He’s been given a lot of opportunities, and he’s very grateful, and he doesn’t want to waste those opportunities. Like, it would be dishonest, it would be a disgrace for him not to do great things with all that he’s been given.”
To understand where this unshakeable confidence comes from, consider his upbringing. An absentee father who passed away in 2013, a mom working multiple job to make ends meet, a childhood spent in an impoverished neighborhood and, as a 12-year-old, experiencing the tragic loss of his 15-year-old brother, Dominique, who was hit by a car while riding his bike. Bennedict has a tattoo on his left forearm with his Dominique’s name and the dates of his birth and death.
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When Mathurin was 16, he took on the challenge of leaving the world he knew behind to go to Mexico City to attend the NBA Academy. There, he grew his game and grew up as a young man. He embraced the challenges of learning a new culture and a new language. He now speaks four languages — French, Creole, English and Spanish, and is working on Portuguese.
“Growing up wasn’t easy,” the 20-year-old Mathurin said. “… I told myself as a kid, especially after my brother died, ‘When I grow up, I’m going to provide for my family.’
“I always knew since I was a young kid what I wanted. Most of my friends, they liked to party, have fun, do some bad things and honestly, I was around them, but I always knew I was supposed to be doing something else. And then when my brother passed, I knew: I have no choice but to make it.”
Bennedict Mathurin (pictured here hugging his sister, Jennifer, at the NBA Draft): “I told myself as a kid, especially after my brother died, ‘When I grow up, I’m going to provide for my family.'” (Arturo Holmes / Getty Images)
The siblings (Jennifer, Dominique and Bennedict) used to go over to Parc Le Carignan in Montreal-Nord to play hoops as often as the weather allowed. Benn (the name he goes by to family and friends) was a little guy, nine years younger than Jennifer, three years younger than Dominique. They were bigger, faster and stronger than their little brother, naturally, and they beat young Benn with regularity. So did the other kids, most of them older than Benn, until the little brother came of age.
“He (Benn) was always really good, and the fact he played with older siblings and older friends, it’s almost inevitable (that he improved significantly),” Jennifer said. “You know, when you’re put in a situation where you always have to challenge yourself, you have no choice but to better yourself. When he was on a team with kids his age, he had a big advantage; he was always a little bit faster; his IQ was a little bit higher; he was a little bit stronger because he was used to banging with older people with bigger bodies.”
She was asked how old Benn was when he finally beat her on the basketball court …
“Oh, I’ll never admit to that,” Jennifer said with a laugh.
A pause, then she came clean.
“When he was 12, 13, 14, he used to come to practice with me and the girls (at her first school, Champlain College Saint-Lambert, before she attended North Carolina State), I remember one time he grabbed a rebound, and I tried to grab it from his hand, and I almost lost a rib. I was like, ‘Glory times are over.’ He just looked at me, like, ‘Yeah, yeah.'”
Bennedict was good at basketball, but he was surrounded by elements — drugs, guns, violence — that can scuttle a dream in a nanosecond.
“Some people may say it’s not comparable to some of the underprivileged and dangerous neighborhoods in the U.S.,” Jennifer said, “but it’s still very present. Believe me.”
Benn, like any teen, had his moments. He would veer off the path. He could be bullheaded and difficult. He wasn’t big on school.
“I studied basketball because it was something I liked,” he said with a smile.
With no father in the picture, with his mother often working as a nurse’s assistant and doing other jobs, with his sister playing basketball at NC State, Jennifer had fears Benn was walking down some perilous roads. For years, she had taken care of both her brothers, ferrying them to school and back, doing the household chores, taking them everywhere she went, making sure they were taken care of. Now, with the passing of Dominique, it was just Benn and his mother, and his mom was working mornings, coming home for a nap, then heading back out to work in the evenings.
“It’s hard to come from a three-sibling household to one,” she said. “So for a couple of years, that was tough on him, but then he really turned to basketball and said, ‘You know what, I’m going to put all my energy into that and make something out of myself.’ That helped him stay grounded and focused. Coming from a tough neighborhood, that allowed him to be in the gym and focus on school instead of hanging out with bad crowds.
“Of course, I was worried. Actually, I wanted to quit school (NC State). I remember telling my coach I wanted to leave and come home and be near my family. But the best decision for them was actually staying in school and showing him (Benn) a good path, like, keep working and keep wanting the best out of life and things will work out — and I think they did.”
Today and always, Dominique’s enduring memory drives Mathurin.
“He’s always with me,” Benn said quietly. “He was my best friend. We were always together, always playing basketball.”
Said Jennifer: “It was Dominique’s dream to play basketball at the highest level, so I think it motivates Benn in that aspect. He wants to get to the highest level, and he has, but he wants to perform and stay there and be at the top, because that’s what our brother wanted to do as well. And I think he takes pride in just living all these experiences to the fullest, because he knows they can do it together.”
As a 16-year-old, Bennedict was discovered by Hernan Olaya, an assistant coach at the NBA’s Latin America program in Mexico City. Olaya brought Bennedict to Mexico, where he had no choice but to grow up quickly.
“It helped him a lot,” Jennifer said. “It helped him mature, helped him grow personally and emotionally as well. He was already independent, but now he had a structure that was shaped for excellence. He could access the gym any time he wanted. He had a good diet, people telling him what’s good to eat, what’s not good to eat. Tutors to help with education. It brought him more tools to perfect himself.”
His University of Arizona coach, Tommy Lloyd, saw the same fire within Mathurin when was in Tucson.
“I don’t know if I would use confidence and bravado (to describe him); I think I would put it more in the category of conviction and fuel to the fire,” he said shortly after the NBA Draft. “I think as you guys get to know Benn, he’s a great guy. He’s not gregarious. He’s not over the top, not trying to draw attention to himself, but I think internally, there’s a fire that really burns.
“That’s one of the things that really attracted (the Pacers) to Benn. They feel like there’s an inferno burning inside that kid, and I would agree with that.”
GO DEEPER
From St. Elmo to the Brickyard: Pacers show new draft picks why Indy is special
Here’s when the Pacers knew this prospect had the right stuff: Mathurin not only conducted a pre-draft workout for the Pacers, but he asked about returning to the practice-facility gym later that night to work out with Pacers coach Rick Carlisle.
“He’s very uniquely himself,” Carlisle said. “He loves to play, he lives in the gym, he’s in here at night all the time, he studies the game, he really has a burning internal desire to be a special player, and he knows there are no shortcuts. I have a lot of admiration for who he is as a person, the things he’s gone through in his life, the way he grew up, living in different places, all that has shaped him into being the young man he is now.”
Pacers coach Rick Carlisle on Bennedict Mathurin: “Benn’s going to be a starter when the time is right. In the meantime, I love his approach, his disposition, his love of learning. … In the near future and beyond, we all know where this is going.” (Trevor Ruszkowski / USA Today)
It was a softball question, really, kind of a mindless J-school query you lob at the end of an interview with an athlete.
I looked Mathurin in the eye and asked quite innocently, “Have you been at all surprised at what you’ve accomplished in the league in such a short time?” Just days earlier, Carlisle had said exactly that; Mathurin has exceeded expectations since arriving in Indianapolis. Seemed reasonable to wonder, no?
Mathurin let loose with a basso profundo laugh, but it wasn’t a ha-ha laugh; more like a “How can you possibly ask me that question?” expression.
“Respect … respect, man,” he said, shaking his head. “Surprised? No. I’m not surprised, not at all. No, man, I’ve put in the work. Nothing to be surprised about.”
His healthy self-regard was on display during a pre-draft interview with the Washington Post, when he was asked about the prospect of someday playing against LeBron James.
“A lot of people say he’s great,” Mathurin said. “I want to see how great he is. I don’t think anybody is better than me. He’s going to have to show me he’s better than me.”
He later walked that back a bit, paid proper deference to The King, but when the pair met in a Nov. 28 game in Los Angeles, Mathurin and his team got the best of James and his Lakers.
“He has a really strong belief in himself,” Carlisle said. “And he puts the work in to back it up.”
His teammates marvel at his single-mindedness of purpose. And that confidence, it’s almost palpable.
“His mindset, you know, there’s not many people, let alone rookies, that have his mindset on the court, and it’s one of his strengths,” said teammate T.J. McConnell. “His ability to get to his spots … then get to the rim. When he’s got his 3 rolling, it’s really tough for people to guard him. Because they press up on him so much, and he gets to the rim, and he scores from three levels. But his mindset and his confidence are something very rare.”
GO DEEPER
NBA Power Rankings: Pels taking flight; first-quarter grades; prediction updates
The 14-14 Pacers, who hadn’t selected a single-digit draftee since 1989 (George McCloud at No. 7), have found themselves a budding star. Already, he’s a crowd favorite, the fans cheering wildly whenever the electric Mathurin comes off the bench as Indiana’s sixth man.
For now, Carlisle likes Mathurin in that role as the engine for the second unit, but the day will come, sooner rather than later, when the rookie is in the starting lineup — for good.
“Benn’s going to be a starter when the time is right. In the meantime, I love his approach, his disposition, his love of learning. … In the near future and beyond, we all know where this is going.”
For a franchise that has lacked star power since Victor Oladipo maneuvered his way out of Indy, Mathurin has emerged as a star-in-the-making, a player who will help shape the Pacers’ present and future — assuming he sticks around beyond his rookie contract, but let’s not go there just yet. (In Indiana, fans still wear the scars left by Paul George and Oladipo, who both wanted out of Indy.)
Growing up, Mathurin didn’t get to see a whole lot of NBA games on TV, but he saw some Toronto Raptors games, which is when he fell for DeMar DeRozan’s game.
“His patience and his IQ,” Mathurin said of DeRozan, now with the Bulls. “He knows exactly how to get to his spots, and how to get fouled.”
And watching the old TV hoops anthology, Hardwood Classics, he became aware of the greatness of Michael Jordan.
“That was really the moment when I fell in love with Jordan,” Mathurin said.
He also enjoys watching Washington’s Bradley Beal.
“So shifty, so many things in his bag,” he said.
In the past months, I’ve asked coaches and scouts at Pacers games who Mathurin’s comp might be.
I’ve heard Dwyane Wade, with his fearlessness. I’ve heard Jaylen Brown. I’ve heard Jimmy Butler. One coach, who shall remain unnamed, even said, “some Michael Jordan, but don’t quote me on that.”
Pacers coach Rick Carlisle on Bennedict Mathurin: “He knows he’s an important part of our offense, and the ball finds the best players.” (Trevor Ruszkowski / USA Today)
He treats the rim like it owes him something. There’s a violence to it, a suddenness. As the result, he spends a lot of time at the free-throw line.
“Some rookies are better than others (getting to the free-throw line) but he’s special in that way,” Carlisle said. “He has a real explosive burst and a way to attack and seek contact so that he’s at the line a lot. One of the things he’s done a good job with is finding opportunities to attack within our flow game, where we’re not calling many plays for him but our guys know his strengths. He knows he’s an important part of our offense, and the ball finds the best players. After those first 10, 11 games, he’s been getting a lot of attention.
“He’s come a long way since June in the reading of the game, his vision, and he’s only going to get better and better. He’s a special young man and a special player.”
What you’ve got in Indiana is a lot of young guys who love the game, who live the game. And it’s shown.
“One of my favorite parts about Benn and the way we’re building the culture here, I just want to be around guys who love basketball, who want to be great,” said Tyrese Haliburton. “It’s not just showing up for a game and that’s it. We watch games, text about games, talk about games when we get to the arena.”
GO DEEPER
From Celtics to Knicks, ranking every team’s shooting and why it matters
Said teammate and fellow rookie Andrew Nembhard: “You think about his unwavering confidence to come out as a 20-year-old and get buckets like that, (it’s) unreal. His pace, change of direction and powerfulness to the rim, he gets to the line a lot, and he’s a shot-maker at all three levels. And I think he’s a better 3-point shooter than people thought (he’s shooting 35 percent).”
None of this is really any kind of surprise, as Mathurin would be quick to tell you. That’s not faux bravado or empty posturing. Mathurin’s confidence is marrow deep because he has already overcome so much; now, he has to be special, has to establish himself as a star in this league: Because there’s really no other choice.
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