Cory Joseph will forego testing the financially crunched free agent market this summer to finish the final season of his four-year, $30 million contract with the Pacers, reports ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
“If you watch what he does to help you win games — dive on loose balls and tap balls away from the opponent and getting (into) guys defensively, it’s hard to quantify his value,” Kevin Pritchard said of the scrappy guard’s tenacity at his team’s end-of-season press conference, “But we know what it is.”
Whether stripping the ball from Kyle Anderson on a key late-game possession in San Antonio, baiting Kyrie Irving into committing a turnover by forcing the side pick-and-roll action to the sideline in Boston, holding his position and forcing a bad shot when switched onto Harrison Barnes in Dallas, or staying attached on screens for Eric Bledsoe to prevent Thaddeus Young from getting stuck in 2-on-1 situations when assigned to Giannis Antetokounmpo in Milwaukee, Joseph was quietly the man behind the man of Indiana’s second-half defensive improvement.