Quick Thoughts on the Pacers’ universe
By CHRIS GOFF
ISL Correspondent
Larry Bird’s being honored with a 15-foot-tall statue at Indiana State. Turns out all his years of honing a stone-faced expression made it easy on the sculptor.
I loved Saturday’s trade for multiple reasons. Not only was it a metaphoric house-cleaning of last season’s biggest mistake (Gerald Green), but they’ve risked little, and Luis Scola solves several needs. He may not be a 3-point shooter, but he is a threat on long 2s, providing additional benefits as a floor-spacing 4. He’s even bulky enough that he can steal minutes at center. All summer, the Pacers have sought out scoring and got more of it with Scola. This deal may pay great dividends.
If everyone stays healthy, and Danny Granger comes off the pine, Indiana will have one of the best second units in basketball. With the new faces added this offseason, the Pacers legitimately go 12 deep. Solomon Hill and Orlando Johnson, green but playable, will face serious competition just to see the light of day.
Look at all the options in reserve. The Pacers have an outstanding finisher (Lance Stephenson), a good post-up player (Scola), a ballhandler (C.J. Watson) and a long-range shooter (Chris Copeland). Ian Mahinmi is the glue on defense and unlikely to repeat last year’s abnormally low true shooting percentage. As a result, the Pacers should be able to match up in any way needed.
What did Miles Plumlee ever do at Duke that would convince a team he can play? At least Bird willingly cut bait on a truly bad draft choice. Financially, including Plumlee made it a break-even deal for Indiana. Green and Plumlee have contracts that pay them $9.3 million over the next two years, while Scola is scheduled to make $9.4 million.
Scola is short for a big man at 6-foot-9, and given that he’s 33, the fear might be an age-related drop in production. Nonetheless, he’s a heady player who lacks an injury history. Also, his rebound and free-throw rates have remained fairly steady over the past four seasons.
While the Pacers are set to play preseason games in Taiwan and the Philippines, they really need to lace up their sneakers at Butler’s Hinkle Fieldhouse, an Indianapolis landmark on the city’s north side. I posed the thought to George Hill, who went to high school in the nearby Broad Ripple district. It went over about as well as facial tattoos in a corporate boardroom. “I hate Butler,” Hill shot back. “They didn’t recruit me.”
Paul George said he and the team are in the rough draft stages of an extension. We won’t know the annual value until the next league year, but this contract could start around $18 million. Ignore the dollars. They’ll reach the ceiling. What matters are the amount of years and whether it has an early opt-out.
For the first time in a while, the Pacers’ roster is free of any Duke guys. When I mentioned this on Twitter, most of the responses were along the lines of, “Heck, yes!”
One of the admirable traits of Herb Simon as an owner is that he lets his basketball people make the basketball decisions. The converse has rarely turned out well for other franchises around the league.
Colts coach Chuck Pagano, on the first day of training camp, sort of proclaimed the season’s motto “unfinished business.” The suits at Bankers Life Fieldhouse, namely marketing ace and smiling face Rob Laycock, could have gone with that one. We’ll see what catchy slogan the Pacers come up with next.
The presence of an imposing center like Roy Hibbert is a shortcut to playing lockdown defense. While George actually performed at a higher level, and thus earned coach Frank Vogel’s nomination in a you-have-to-pick-one scenario, interior defense is always more important than perimeter D. It’s Hibbert who makes it all work. That said, the Pacers are very fortunate to have a locker room full of so many guys who embrace the importance of that end of the floor.
With Austin Croshere moving back to California, the Pacers are in need of a color analyst to spell Quinn Buckner on TV and Slick Leonard on radio. What’s Brad Miller up to in retirement?
