Hollinger: What's wrong with Indiana Pacers?

[PG-24]

Re: Hollinger: What's wrong with Indiana Pacers?

The only thing I don't agree with in this article is Roy Hibbert as our best player. I'm not even sure he is our best defensive player. Especially with his contributions as of late.

I think trading DC for the rights to sign Mahinmi, was a huge mistake. Just by the fact that you don't willingly give up an asset for a back up center to play 15 minutes a game who you could easily sign out right. But what we dont' know is if DC asked for a trade at the end of the year or not.

What is clear though is that DC would not be producing here like he is in Dallas. The system does not allow for it.

I think Vogel can fix this if he changes up the offense a bit. Do alittle more drive and kick style instead of always dumping into the post.

pritchard in an interview after the trade said something about making players happy. think it was a direct quote about Collison. he wanted to be a starter, we were obviously better with Hill starting, so we traded him rather than have an unhappy player.

[McKeyFan]

Re: Hollinger: What's wrong with Indiana Pacers?

Pendergraph's deal isn't a project player contract. I'd have to look it up but it's probably 250% of his minimum money and it was fully guaranteed coming off an ACL tear (right? major knee injury I know) for a guy that had shown nothing. An unguaranteed 1 year minimum for Pendergraph, more than fine with. But it was far more than that. Lance at ~800k a year while being 19 and completely healthy and showing, while basically nothing else and plenty of character concerns, quality off the dribble skills is at least an investment I can understand.

I'm not saying Jeff Pendergraph's deal sabotaged our offseason, but it absolutely hampered us. It's 1.5 mil, which may've been the difference between outright signing Mahinmi instead of trading for him, that should never have been on the books.

I don't mean to dog on Pendergraph, seems like a good dude, but his contract sucks.

Also might have made the difference in going after Scola or Brand.

[Heisenberg]

Re: Hollinger: What's wrong with Indiana Pacers?

Pendergraph's deal isn't a project player contract. I'd have to look it up but it's probably 250% of his minimum money and it was fully guaranteed coming off an ACL tear (right? major knee injury I know) for a guy that had shown nothing. An unguaranteed 1 year minimum for Pendergraph, more than fine with. But it was far more than that. Lance at ~800k a year while being 19 and completely healthy and showing, while basically nothing else and plenty of character concerns, quality off the dribble skills is at least an investment I can understand.

I'm not saying Jeff Pendergraph's deal sabotaged our offseason, but it absolutely hampered us. It's 1.5 mil, which may've been the difference between outright signing Mahinmi instead of trading for him, that should never have been on the books.

I don't mean to dog on Pendergraph, seems like a good dude, but his contract sucks.

[wintermute]

Re: Hollinger: What's wrong with Indiana Pacers?

Also, giving Pritchard's pet project Pendergraph a guaranteed 2/$3 deal hurt us. It's what, a million or so of capspace wasted instead of just giving him, or anyone equally as useful (read: friggin ME), a minimum deal? A million sounds like nothing but when you were working under what's looking more and more like a self imposed cap it's clearly not. That tiny little deal is awful.

That's just the nature of project players though. Some pan out and some don't. This time last year, Lance looked like a worse investment. IMO, GM's shouldn't be judged on minor signings like this. If they pan out, great. If not, move on.

Mahinmi's 4 yr/$16m is a lot more worrying. That's an albatross contract for a guy averaging 15 min a game. Sure hope he turns it around.

As to Mayo - IMO he'll cool down from his hot start. He's shooting over 60% from 3 right now. Anyone else remember Ben Gordon having a similar hot start I think a couple of seasons ago? Yeah, law of averages caught up with him. Mayo still looks much like the same player.

DC looks fantastic though. I think Carlisle is doing a really good job maximizing his strengths (his quickness, especially).

[Heisenberg]

Re: Hollinger: What's wrong with Indiana Pacers?

Also, giving Pritchard's pet project Pendergraph a guaranteed 2/$3 deal hurt us. It's what, a million or so of capspace wasted instead of just giving him, or anyone equally as useful (read: friggin ME), a minimum deal? A million sounds like nothing but when you were working under what's looking more and more like a self imposed cap it's clearly not. That tiny little deal is awful.

[Heisenberg]

Re: Hollinger: What's wrong with Indiana Pacers?

OJ Mayo is off to an outstanding start in Dallas. Would sure look great in a Pacer uniform this season

OJ Mayo turned down more money from unnamed teams. What teams isn't known, but it's been reported he turned down more money, and it's easy to assume we were one of them, specifically on a one year + team option deal like he got. Start for Dallas with Dirk as a clear #1 or come off the bench in Indy, both for a year, and then try and get a big deal.

Carlisle could coach a rock at this point, Mavs are winning with DC, Mayo, and bunch of waiver-wire signings.

No they aren't. Mayo and an amnestied Brand aren't waiver wire signings unless we want to play semantics. They didn't sign Jamario Moon and Ryan Hollins. But yes, Carlisle's one of the 2 or 3 best coaches in the world.

[notque]

Re: Hollinger: What's wrong with Indiana Pacers?

We need to go to this lineup.

PG: Augustine / Stephensen (Green Light to attack often)
SG: Hill / Johnson (Yellow)
SF: George / Green (Green Light)
PF: West / Hans (Green Light)
C: Hibbert / Mahimi (Yellow)

With the same offense we have now, except we remove all plays where we dribble at the top of the key wasting time away. We immediately go into offense, or screens or a post play, no dribble dribble dribble dribble...

The only exception is to get the last shot, or to waste time at the end of the game with the lead.

That's what I'd do.

[immortality]

Re: Hollinger: What's wrong with Indiana Pacers?

This. DC didn't look like anything special while he was here, nd now all of a sudden he looks pretty good in DAL. It'll be interesting to see if he can keep it up, but to suggest he looked like a great option here after averaging 10 and 5 is somewhat foolish

Carlisle could coach a rock at this point, Mavs are winning with DC, Mayo, and bunch of waiver-wire signings.

[Ace E.Anderson]

Re: Hollinger: What's wrong with Indiana Pacers?

The people talking about how great DC and Mayo would be on the Pacers are missing the vast difference between having Rick Carlisle as your head coach versus Frank Vogel.

This. DC didn't look like anything special while he was here, nd now all of a sudden he looks pretty good in DAL. It'll be interesting to see if he can keep it up, but to suggest he looked like a great option here after averaging 10 and 5 is somewhat foolish

[Naptown_Seth]

Re: Hollinger: What's wrong with Indiana Pacers?

With Gerald Green waiting in the wings and Paul George seeming primed for a breakout, Granger seemed the one player whose loss Indy could absorb most easily.

...said NaptownSeth, which Vnzla then took totally out of context.




And I stand by the following: the 4 main bench additions are definitely better than we've seen so far. All of them have done better than this in the past, including Mahinmi. In fact Ian's progression is classic in it's development, typical of a guy that gets much better than his initial draft spot.

So suddenly out of nowhere these guys all suck? I call BS on that.

Things aren't working, guys aren't getting how the plays are supposed to work or how to share the ball well. They TRY to pass and share, but they just don't have a gut instinct for where the other guys want to go or when they are going to move. They should have been more dialed in, no debate there, but I just don't buy that what we see is all we should have expected.

DC in Dallas shows you just what circumstances, playbooks and style can do for your numbers. Maybe Vogel needs to figure out some adjustments, maybe the guys just needed more time than we realized. But all 4 new guys have shown passion and effort and given us no reason to think they are just here to phone it in and get paid.

They'll probably screw with our heads by putting it together just when the schedule gets harder and just when we've all given up hope.

[Sollozzo]

Re: Hollinger: What's wrong with Indiana Pacers?

5 games in and we are flipping out? Come on man. We might be struggling but giving out grades after five games?

5 games is indeed an extremely short sample size, but it's all we have to go on right now. Everything will obviously re-evaluated after 10 games, 15, 20, etc. But right now, our bench is crap and I have a feeling that we will be regretting the Collison trade all season.

[Eleazar]

Re: Hollinger: What's wrong with Indiana Pacers?

But what we dont' know is if DC asked for a trade at the end of the year or not.

Just speculation, but I think it is highly likely, so much so I would be more surprised if he didn't than if he did.

[graphic-er]

Re: Hollinger: What's wrong with Indiana Pacers?

The only thing I don't agree with in this article is Roy Hibbert as our best player. I'm not even sure he is our best defensive player. Especially with his contributions as of late.

I think trading DC for the rights to sign Mahinmi, was a huge mistake. Just by the fact that you don't willingly give up an asset for a back up center to play 15 minutes a game who you could easily sign out right. But what we dont' know is if DC asked for a trade at the end of the year or not.

What is clear though is that DC would not be producing here like he is in Dallas. The system does not allow for it.

I think Vogel can fix this if he changes up the offense a bit. Do alittle more drive and kick style instead of always dumping into the post.

[Speed]

Re: Hollinger: What's wrong with Indiana Pacers?

long for a day where there is ball movement and penetration?

Yes

[Dukins]

Re: Hollinger: What's wrong with Indiana Pacers?

Hit the nail on the head with this article. Others have mentioned some of the same things and were called pessimistic. Truuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuue!