The Indiana Pacers have appointed Nate Bjorkgren as their new head coach, announced the team on Tuesday. According to ESPN, Bjorkgren signed a multi-year deal with the Pacers.

Bjorkgren, 45, was the assistant under Nick Nurse, named the NBA Coach of the Year last season in the Toronto Raptors. He also had years of experience coach NBA D-League teams.

"We are very pleased and excited to have Nate as our new coach. This was an extensive and thorough search, and when we reached the conclusion, we felt strongly Nate is the right coach for us at the right time. He comes from a winning background, has experienced championship success, is innovative, and his communication skills, along with his positivity, are tremendous. We all look forward to a long, successful partnership in helping the Pacers move forward," said Kevin Pritchard, president of basketball operations of the Pacers, in a statement.

"I am honored to take on the role as head coach of the Indiana Pacers. This is something I have prepared for during my career. I want to thank Kevin, Chad (Buchanan), Kelly (Krauskopf), Larry Bird, Donnie Walsh, and Herb and Steve Simon for this opportunity. I also want to thank Nick Nurse for giving me my first professional coaching job 14 years ago. I'm looking forward to working with this great team to achieve our goal as NBA Champions."

Bjorkgren's creative thinking began to draw attention after he suggested Nurse use "Box-1 defense" on Stephen Curry in Game 2 of the NBA Finals between the Raptors and the Golden State Warriors last year. The ingenious move worked as Curry failed to even take one attempt in the last quarter of G2. In the end, the Raptors defeated the Warriors 4-2 to win their first NBA Championship in franchise history.

Of course, that does not mean Bjokgren's new job will be easy at the Bankers Life Fieldhouse. The Pacers made the NBA playoffs for the fifth straight time in the past 2019-20 season and were eliminated for the fifth time in a row. Moreover, they were swept out in both 2019 and 2020.

The Pacers wanted breakthroughs, and they were capable of getting it if they were healthy – injuries had been haunting the team for years. Meanwhile, Bjorkgren may have a better chance of leading the Pacers to achieve a breakthrough if he can help Victor Oladipo find the best himself back. The 28-year-old two-time All-Star guard still has one year left of his contract with the deal, and he already rejected the four-year, 80-million-U.S.-dollar contract extension offer by the Pacers. If he can fully recover from injury and reproduces his incredible performance two years ago in the new season, it will benefit both himself and the Pacers.