Now that our offseason has begun, it's time to take a look at what we have. We need to make a couple of big changes, and possibly more depending on the attitudes left in the locker room. It may not end with the players, either. A time of change is upon us, and all we can do is pray TPTB make the right calls. Below are all of the current Pacers, and where I'd like to see them head to. After them comes Rick Carlisle.
Who I want to keep:
Danny Granger
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How do you not keep this kid. Hell, not only keep, you start and let him blossom as the starting Small Forward of the future (and practically the present already). All he needs to develop is some drives to the basket, and he can do it all. I could rave about him for a looong time.
Sarunas Jasikevicius
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I think Sarunas gets too much flak. I understand why people don't like him, but I can't stand to see such venom for a 1st year player, 30 or not. I think if you put him at the 1, where he belongs, and he gets his confidence back, combined with a better understanding of the league, he still has a chance of being an OK player in the league. I still believe in him, but it won't happen if he isn't given the chance to play where he's comfortable. HE IS NOT A SHOOTING GUARD. PERIOD!
Anthony Johnson
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No, I'm not just saying this because of his 40 point game. (Damn, how nuts is it to read that? Not as much as typing it!) AJ is not a starter. Not for a serious contender. I'm happy to keep him as a backup, but I'll always take issue with how often he handles & shoots the ball instead of passing or getting the team going offensively. But you know what, it may be the coach as much as it is him.
Scot Pollard
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Scot is the closest thing left to a Warrior around here. He's tough, he boxes out, he battles, he plays defense, and he gives it his all, even when hurt. Combine that with his fun attitude and wit, and I think you have to try to re-sign him for the minimum or so. A good locker room guy too, I'd wager. I really like Scot.
Eddie Gill
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Not a pretty basketball game, but for what he does bring, plus his great attitude, who better to be the emergency PG on any team? You can't do any better for this role, so you keep him.
Who I could take or leave:
Jermaine O'Neal
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I'm done pretending he's a contender's #1 guy. Done. He is not, nor will he ever be a champion by his own merit. He will follow someone else to a title. I think he's closer to Antonio McDyess than he is Tim Duncan. A great talent, but not the guy to carry you to the promise land. THAT DOES NOT MEAN YOU FOOLISHLY TRADE HIM. The ONLY reason you do that is if you get a BETTER guy in here to be Batman, and he can't mentally handle that being taken away from him. If he can learn to be the #2 guy to a stud wingman or guard, I'm more than happy to hold onto him. He's still a good guy, he still tries to be his best, but he'll never be a superstar player.
Peja Stojakovic
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He did nothing to help himself in this series. He's a great shooter, he's not as limited at everything else as people think, and I think he'd be an asset. But I've heard through the grape vine he doesn't like Rick, and that this team's lack or professionalism really turned him off, and I don't blame him for either of those. I do blame him, however, if this had anything to do with him sitting out so many games. WE HAVE NO PROOF THAT HE DID. So let's try not to put our "conspiracy caps" too quickly on this. My guess? It's more likely he simply felt he couldn't move well enough to get open or do much of anything. I think with a diff. coach he may shine here, but then you have to think about his role with Danny Granger on the team. I'd rather have Granger start next year. Would Peja handle being a bench player? It's probably as likely as Jermaine handling being Robin in a Pacer uniform, unfortunately. At this point I just hope we find a team this summer that could really use a guy like Peja that has a player we could use, and make a deal. Nice having you Peja, but it's just not going to work.
Austin Croshere
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Austin really disappointed me in this series. Just absolutely worthless when he wasn't hot from downtown. But how much of that is Austin Croshere and how much of that is Rick Carlisle saying "You are out there to spread the floor"? I wouldn't be shocked if that's the real reason he was so 1-dimensional. Not that he was ever a multi-layered offensive player, but he wasn't even crashing the boards in this series, or moving around a whole heck of a lot. I've seen a lot more from Austin, and I'm not convinced what we saw in this series is the "new" Cro. He has an expiring contract now, and if you can get something good for him, you do it, but I would be satisfied with re-signing him next summer for a small contract. Austin Croshere being a Pacer for life wouldn't offend me at all.
Jeff Foster
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It seems Jeff is starting to physically break down. That doesn't mean he still can't play effective basketball for years to come, but he's not what he used to be. I find him to be worthless in the playoffs against any team with size, and he's always been a 0 offensively, which is a big liability whenever he's expected to be a starter. We need to find somebody that puts him on the bench. I could really take him or leave him. No, let me put it this way: As a backup, I'll take him. As a starter, I'll leave him.
David Harrison
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David is struggling. I don't know if he will ever "get it" or not. I agree with those that have said it's time to let him sink or swim. Give him the starting spot, give him 25+ minutes, and let him foul out with 6 fouls instead of 4. That's the only way to absolutley know for sure if he's what we're looking for, or if it's time to cut bait. I love the way he takes up space, which helps us out on both sides of the floor, but he must become more disciplined defensively, and he must learn to drop his issues with the refs. Only then will he conquer his foul issues, by improving his reputation as he gains more experience in his 3rd year.
Who I want to see gone:
Jamaal Tinsley
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First of all, forget the speculation on his attitude, though I've seen enough smoke that I think there's some truth to it. My issues with Tinsley are first and foremost his health, which he rarely has, and his game. He can be brilliant, absolutley brilliant. Then he turns the intelligent half of his brain off and his skill doesn't know what to do with itself as he turns the ball over, gets lazy fouls, goes one-on-one too much, and gets technical fouls and pisses off the other team. In the end he is simply too unreliable to stay. He needs to go.
Stephen Jackson
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I've come so far with Stephen. I was high on him when we traded for him, and as the 2004-05 season started. But ever since he came back from the 30-game suspension from the brawl, he's never quite been the same. His dark side has shown, far too often, and it is ugly. As much as it's said he gets along with everybody, I think he just as often will go over-the-top pissed off on anyone and everyone in that locker room, and that's a distraction no team needs, certainly not one interested in a deep playoff run or a championship. And I haven't even talked about his game yet. For every hot shooting night, he'll have 4 bad ones. His defense is good to very good at times, but other nights he gets lazy. When he holds onto the ball for more than 3-4 seconds, something bad is almost guarunteed to happen. It's ugly. He's also a turnover waiting to happen, and he makes lazy passes and takes shots at inopportune times/places. All that adds up to someone who is never the answer as the starting 2 on a team looking for glory. Goodbye, Jack.
Fred Jones
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And we come to Freddy Jones. Honestly he doesn't deserve to be associated with the two bozos above him, but I don't want him back either. He may be OK as the backup two, and I'm very tempted to put him back in the "take or leave" section, but he's been a one-trick pony for a while now, and I doubt he ever learns to not jump to pass, or to drive left, or to know when and when not to take shots. Love his attitude, love his enthusiasm, love it when he brings the house down on the opponent with a furious stuff. Pretty good D, but he's too short to slow down the greats or even the very atheletic that have more than 2 inches on him. We could do worse for a backup 2, though. This is the part where I almost said I was going to move him back into the "take or leave" section, but then I remembered. He's gonna want to get paid bigger $$$ this off-season, and a team desperate for a SG will give it to him. He is NOT worth overpaying to keep, and thus he remains in the "I want them gone" section.
Let's talk about Rick Carlisle:
Let me get this out of the way: Rick Carlisle is a great coach. You will not find many who are flat-out better than he is.
However, he has flaws and they are serious. His offensive strategy is a joke. It's counter-productive, it's un-exciting, and practically every player he's coached, good egg or bad, has one time or another complained about it, and for good reason. It's a prevent offense, and it needs to go. He also seems to grind on his players. Maybe the offense is why, maybe it goes deeper than that. But without proof I won't go into speculation here. Defensively, he's pretty good. But I think he tries to make tempo too much of a factor, and it kills the offense. At this point, I think the players and the fans need a fresh start on the offensive side of the ball, and if Rick can't or won't do that, you either hire an assistant coach who will, or you fire Rick Carlisle. Think very hard before you cheer in agreement. Firing Rick is a dangerous move to make. There may not be anyone nearly as good out there to replace him with, so warts and all he may be the best thing we can have right now, and if that's the case you have to think very seriously about holding onto him until an opportunity presents itself.
Vision of the Future:
This team needs a LOT of work. Next year, the changes must be enough that we as fans along with the team feels like it is a true fresh start. Enough so that the past two years are dead and gone, and this new season will be independent of those two seasons, for good or bad. It must feel like a new team, even if 2/3s of the players are back. TPTB need to pick a tyle and mold the team to fit it. Right now we have a cube coach and a bunch of sphere players. Something must give. I think our offense needs a ton of work, so I'd start there. We need a creator, but we could always use better shooters, too.
What do I really want:
What I really want are guard that are fast, quick, can score around the basket, and can control the ball (read: not turn it over so damn much). We have a slow backcourt and it kills us on both sides of the ball. If we get some fast guards we can ball-hawk on defense, and we can get better penetration on offense, which will open up a lot of opportunities for everyone on this team. We could always use better big men. If there's a player even resembling Dale Davis in this draft, we need to pick him. A true tough (read: not a cheap-shot, flopping, fake-tough) guy in the paint would be huge for this team. You need that or a Brad Miller type of center (who's tough enough in his own right, but he's no Dale Davis in that department by a long shot) to put next to Jermaine O'Neal for him to flourish. He must have pressure taken off of him, or he'll fail and break down. A fast/quick/finishing guard is my #1 wish, a bruiser bigman #2.
Do heads need to role in upper-management?
Some of you are going to suggest Donnie Walsh and/or Larry Bird need to go, and you'd be wrong. Especially if you want DW gone. You can hate their flaws. You can hate that people defend those flaws to epic fanboy proportions, but you can never let that blind you to the overwhelming good he brings to this franchise. The odds of us finding someone better for the Pacers is much less likely than finding a better coach than Rick, and that's not looking promising either. No, neither should go. Donnie Walsh for what he's done and can still do, Larry Bird because he's still got time to shine in the future. I think he should get a 2-3 year grace period FREE OF WALSH before he's truly considered a hot-seat GM. Right now it's an odd tandem that you don't often see, and until DW is gone you can't truly judge Larry yet. People LOVE to hate Bird because of his past as a player, as a man, and his obnoxious Indy fans in the 80's/90's, but this is a new day, and a new role. It's time to hope for the best, even in all of your doubts, because it's too soon to make a huge decision like firing the guy. He and Donnie need to stick around.
Who I want to keep:
Danny Granger
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How do you not keep this kid. Hell, not only keep, you start and let him blossom as the starting Small Forward of the future (and practically the present already). All he needs to develop is some drives to the basket, and he can do it all. I could rave about him for a looong time.
Sarunas Jasikevicius
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I think Sarunas gets too much flak. I understand why people don't like him, but I can't stand to see such venom for a 1st year player, 30 or not. I think if you put him at the 1, where he belongs, and he gets his confidence back, combined with a better understanding of the league, he still has a chance of being an OK player in the league. I still believe in him, but it won't happen if he isn't given the chance to play where he's comfortable. HE IS NOT A SHOOTING GUARD. PERIOD!
Anthony Johnson
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No, I'm not just saying this because of his 40 point game. (Damn, how nuts is it to read that? Not as much as typing it!) AJ is not a starter. Not for a serious contender. I'm happy to keep him as a backup, but I'll always take issue with how often he handles & shoots the ball instead of passing or getting the team going offensively. But you know what, it may be the coach as much as it is him.
Scot Pollard
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Scot is the closest thing left to a Warrior around here. He's tough, he boxes out, he battles, he plays defense, and he gives it his all, even when hurt. Combine that with his fun attitude and wit, and I think you have to try to re-sign him for the minimum or so. A good locker room guy too, I'd wager. I really like Scot.
Eddie Gill
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Not a pretty basketball game, but for what he does bring, plus his great attitude, who better to be the emergency PG on any team? You can't do any better for this role, so you keep him.
Who I could take or leave:
Jermaine O'Neal
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I'm done pretending he's a contender's #1 guy. Done. He is not, nor will he ever be a champion by his own merit. He will follow someone else to a title. I think he's closer to Antonio McDyess than he is Tim Duncan. A great talent, but not the guy to carry you to the promise land. THAT DOES NOT MEAN YOU FOOLISHLY TRADE HIM. The ONLY reason you do that is if you get a BETTER guy in here to be Batman, and he can't mentally handle that being taken away from him. If he can learn to be the #2 guy to a stud wingman or guard, I'm more than happy to hold onto him. He's still a good guy, he still tries to be his best, but he'll never be a superstar player.
Peja Stojakovic
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He did nothing to help himself in this series. He's a great shooter, he's not as limited at everything else as people think, and I think he'd be an asset. But I've heard through the grape vine he doesn't like Rick, and that this team's lack or professionalism really turned him off, and I don't blame him for either of those. I do blame him, however, if this had anything to do with him sitting out so many games. WE HAVE NO PROOF THAT HE DID. So let's try not to put our "conspiracy caps" too quickly on this. My guess? It's more likely he simply felt he couldn't move well enough to get open or do much of anything. I think with a diff. coach he may shine here, but then you have to think about his role with Danny Granger on the team. I'd rather have Granger start next year. Would Peja handle being a bench player? It's probably as likely as Jermaine handling being Robin in a Pacer uniform, unfortunately. At this point I just hope we find a team this summer that could really use a guy like Peja that has a player we could use, and make a deal. Nice having you Peja, but it's just not going to work.
Austin Croshere
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Austin really disappointed me in this series. Just absolutely worthless when he wasn't hot from downtown. But how much of that is Austin Croshere and how much of that is Rick Carlisle saying "You are out there to spread the floor"? I wouldn't be shocked if that's the real reason he was so 1-dimensional. Not that he was ever a multi-layered offensive player, but he wasn't even crashing the boards in this series, or moving around a whole heck of a lot. I've seen a lot more from Austin, and I'm not convinced what we saw in this series is the "new" Cro. He has an expiring contract now, and if you can get something good for him, you do it, but I would be satisfied with re-signing him next summer for a small contract. Austin Croshere being a Pacer for life wouldn't offend me at all.
Jeff Foster
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It seems Jeff is starting to physically break down. That doesn't mean he still can't play effective basketball for years to come, but he's not what he used to be. I find him to be worthless in the playoffs against any team with size, and he's always been a 0 offensively, which is a big liability whenever he's expected to be a starter. We need to find somebody that puts him on the bench. I could really take him or leave him. No, let me put it this way: As a backup, I'll take him. As a starter, I'll leave him.
David Harrison
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David is struggling. I don't know if he will ever "get it" or not. I agree with those that have said it's time to let him sink or swim. Give him the starting spot, give him 25+ minutes, and let him foul out with 6 fouls instead of 4. That's the only way to absolutley know for sure if he's what we're looking for, or if it's time to cut bait. I love the way he takes up space, which helps us out on both sides of the floor, but he must become more disciplined defensively, and he must learn to drop his issues with the refs. Only then will he conquer his foul issues, by improving his reputation as he gains more experience in his 3rd year.
Who I want to see gone:
Jamaal Tinsley
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First of all, forget the speculation on his attitude, though I've seen enough smoke that I think there's some truth to it. My issues with Tinsley are first and foremost his health, which he rarely has, and his game. He can be brilliant, absolutley brilliant. Then he turns the intelligent half of his brain off and his skill doesn't know what to do with itself as he turns the ball over, gets lazy fouls, goes one-on-one too much, and gets technical fouls and pisses off the other team. In the end he is simply too unreliable to stay. He needs to go.
Stephen Jackson
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I've come so far with Stephen. I was high on him when we traded for him, and as the 2004-05 season started. But ever since he came back from the 30-game suspension from the brawl, he's never quite been the same. His dark side has shown, far too often, and it is ugly. As much as it's said he gets along with everybody, I think he just as often will go over-the-top pissed off on anyone and everyone in that locker room, and that's a distraction no team needs, certainly not one interested in a deep playoff run or a championship. And I haven't even talked about his game yet. For every hot shooting night, he'll have 4 bad ones. His defense is good to very good at times, but other nights he gets lazy. When he holds onto the ball for more than 3-4 seconds, something bad is almost guarunteed to happen. It's ugly. He's also a turnover waiting to happen, and he makes lazy passes and takes shots at inopportune times/places. All that adds up to someone who is never the answer as the starting 2 on a team looking for glory. Goodbye, Jack.
Fred Jones
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And we come to Freddy Jones. Honestly he doesn't deserve to be associated with the two bozos above him, but I don't want him back either. He may be OK as the backup two, and I'm very tempted to put him back in the "take or leave" section, but he's been a one-trick pony for a while now, and I doubt he ever learns to not jump to pass, or to drive left, or to know when and when not to take shots. Love his attitude, love his enthusiasm, love it when he brings the house down on the opponent with a furious stuff. Pretty good D, but he's too short to slow down the greats or even the very atheletic that have more than 2 inches on him. We could do worse for a backup 2, though. This is the part where I almost said I was going to move him back into the "take or leave" section, but then I remembered. He's gonna want to get paid bigger $$$ this off-season, and a team desperate for a SG will give it to him. He is NOT worth overpaying to keep, and thus he remains in the "I want them gone" section.
Let's talk about Rick Carlisle:
Let me get this out of the way: Rick Carlisle is a great coach. You will not find many who are flat-out better than he is.
However, he has flaws and they are serious. His offensive strategy is a joke. It's counter-productive, it's un-exciting, and practically every player he's coached, good egg or bad, has one time or another complained about it, and for good reason. It's a prevent offense, and it needs to go. He also seems to grind on his players. Maybe the offense is why, maybe it goes deeper than that. But without proof I won't go into speculation here. Defensively, he's pretty good. But I think he tries to make tempo too much of a factor, and it kills the offense. At this point, I think the players and the fans need a fresh start on the offensive side of the ball, and if Rick can't or won't do that, you either hire an assistant coach who will, or you fire Rick Carlisle. Think very hard before you cheer in agreement. Firing Rick is a dangerous move to make. There may not be anyone nearly as good out there to replace him with, so warts and all he may be the best thing we can have right now, and if that's the case you have to think very seriously about holding onto him until an opportunity presents itself.
Vision of the Future:
This team needs a LOT of work. Next year, the changes must be enough that we as fans along with the team feels like it is a true fresh start. Enough so that the past two years are dead and gone, and this new season will be independent of those two seasons, for good or bad. It must feel like a new team, even if 2/3s of the players are back. TPTB need to pick a tyle and mold the team to fit it. Right now we have a cube coach and a bunch of sphere players. Something must give. I think our offense needs a ton of work, so I'd start there. We need a creator, but we could always use better shooters, too.
What do I really want:
What I really want are guard that are fast, quick, can score around the basket, and can control the ball (read: not turn it over so damn much). We have a slow backcourt and it kills us on both sides of the ball. If we get some fast guards we can ball-hawk on defense, and we can get better penetration on offense, which will open up a lot of opportunities for everyone on this team. We could always use better big men. If there's a player even resembling Dale Davis in this draft, we need to pick him. A true tough (read: not a cheap-shot, flopping, fake-tough) guy in the paint would be huge for this team. You need that or a Brad Miller type of center (who's tough enough in his own right, but he's no Dale Davis in that department by a long shot) to put next to Jermaine O'Neal for him to flourish. He must have pressure taken off of him, or he'll fail and break down. A fast/quick/finishing guard is my #1 wish, a bruiser bigman #2.
Do heads need to role in upper-management?
Some of you are going to suggest Donnie Walsh and/or Larry Bird need to go, and you'd be wrong. Especially if you want DW gone. You can hate their flaws. You can hate that people defend those flaws to epic fanboy proportions, but you can never let that blind you to the overwhelming good he brings to this franchise. The odds of us finding someone better for the Pacers is much less likely than finding a better coach than Rick, and that's not looking promising either. No, neither should go. Donnie Walsh for what he's done and can still do, Larry Bird because he's still got time to shine in the future. I think he should get a 2-3 year grace period FREE OF WALSH before he's truly considered a hot-seat GM. Right now it's an odd tandem that you don't often see, and until DW is gone you can't truly judge Larry yet. People LOVE to hate Bird because of his past as a player, as a man, and his obnoxious Indy fans in the 80's/90's, but this is a new day, and a new role. It's time to hope for the best, even in all of your doubts, because it's too soon to make a huge decision like firing the guy. He and Donnie need to stick around.
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