Indiana Pacers 2009/2010

 Dernier message 
 posté par Anonyme : 
Preview ESPN Hollinger

Even with a repeat year from Granger, Indy may struggle to keep pace in the East race.




Offseason Moves

If there was a plan for the Pacers' offseason, I've yet to find out what it was. In fairness, Indiana found itself constrained by financial considerations because of the declining luxury-tax level in 2010-11. Since the Pacers are a small-market team they can't go over, and since most of their players are on long-term deals with 10.5 percent annual raises the tax situation makes things especially complicated for them. Thus, they were restricted from signing payers for 2009-10 even though they're well under the tax at the moment, because any deal longer than a year puts them over the tax in 2010-11.

The tax planning made things more difficult for them, but from there they made several head-scratching moves that cost them talented players and brought in lesser ones without really saving much money. Although the Pacers added five players this summer, they lost three key rotation players and didn't appear to add any newbies who will make more than a negligible impact. We'll go through the list in order of defensibility:

Re-signed Josh McRoberts for the minimum.

OK, let's start small. McRoberts isn't a budding star or anything, but he's done enough as an end of the bench guy to indicate he might be a rotation player at some point. Keeping him for the minimum makes sense.

Drafted Tyler Hansbrough and A.J. Price.

A little dicier, but we can still play along. Hansbrough has little star potential but should produce as an energizer and defender, and the Pacers could use another defender at the power forward spot given Murphy's shortcomings in that department. There were definitely better players left on the board, but if Indy was determined to take a 4 he was the best big man that hadn't been nabbed. Price was a late second-round pick who isn't likely to play much as a rookie given the crowd at point guard.

Let Rasho Nesterovic go, signed Solomon Jones for the minimum.

Nesterovic signed for peanuts in Toronto, and the Pacers replaced him with Jones, who couldn't get minutes in an Atlanta frontcourt that had only three players. He's long and lean and will fit right in with the prodigious fouling program in Indy, but otherwise is a major downgrade who saved little money.

Let Jarrett Jack go, signed Earl Watson for one year, $2.9 million.

Indiana's decision to decline matching Toronto's $20 million offer sheet to Jack was defensible -- though he played very well down the stretch last season, he didn't have a particularly good year overall and wasn't worth that kind of money for a cash-strapped team. So far, so good. But signing Watson for $2.9 million was a serious reach in light of the other moves above. Watson played very poorly last season and shouldn't have commanded more than the veteran's minimum, while several better players signed with other teams for less money. Which takes us to the piece de resistance:

Let Marquis Daniels go, signed Dahntay Jones to a four-year, $11 million deal.

This move wins the Trenton Hassell Award for 2009 for the most ridiculous contract given to a role player on a winning team. Jones was on the scrap heap before Denver picked him up, and there was a reason for that -- though he's an above-average defender, he's not in the elite class and he's an absolutely horrid offensive player. Moreover, there's no need whatsoever to give out a four-year deal for this type of player -- they're fungible commodities. Quinton Ross, for instance, is essentially the same player and signed with Dallas for the minimum.

This is especially vexing because of the scarce resources Indiana committed to sign Jones -- this was their big free-agent splurge. They could have gone after younger, more skillful players with the same money (Carlos Delfino, C.J. Watson, Rodney Carney) or re-signed one of the three key veterans they let walk in free agency; alternatively, they could also have saved themselves the cap hit and heated Conseco Fieldhouse this winter by burning 11 million one-dollar bills.

Instead they spent $11 million on Jones, which is more than Nesterovic or Daniels -- both of whom are eminently superior players -- will make combined on their new contracts.

Bought out Jamaal Tinsley.

After a year spent unsuccessfully trying to trade Tinsley, the Pacers finally gave up and released him. Indiana will pay him $11 million of the $14.7 million that was left on his contract, offering only a bit of savings compared to what they might have reaped if they'd been able to deal him. This resolution is unquestionably a setback for Indiana, but at the margin the savings could prove critical in keeping it under the luxury tax in 2010-11.

Signed Luther Head to a one-year deal for the minimum.

Head has struggled to find a niche as an undersized 3-point specialist because he can't play the point but lacks the size to defend many 2s. As a fifth guard, however, he should be able to hold his own, and Jim O'Brien likes 3-point shooters. Should Dahntay Jones or Earl Watson bomb he has a chance to move up to a bigger role.


Biggest Strength: Outside Shooting


At spots 2 through 4, the Pacers might have the best shooting trio in the league. Dunleavy proved a capable marksman in his one full season in Indy prior to the injury, spotting up from the wings for catch-and-shoot 3s and making 42.4 percent. Murphy, meanwhile, is among the game's sweetest shooting big men, narrowly missing out on the league lead in 3-point shooting a year ago at 45.0 percent.

And then there's Granger, who had a ridiculous year shooting last season. He has become the best catch-and-shoot player in the league, pulling the trigger any time a defender isn't sitting on his right shoulder and usually converting. He knocked down 40.4 percent from long range while pulling the trigger seven times a game.

What makes all three so dangerous is their size -- at 6-foot-9, 6-11 and 6-9, respectively, they can get their shots away over most defenders. Thus, late close-outs won't get it done against these three. The defense needs to be on top of them right from the catch, which in turn opens up driving lanes for themselves and others.

Last season, the trio averaged 6.7 3-pointers per game even with Dunleavy hobbled, the most of any threesome in the league (yes, even more than Orlando's Rashard Lewis, Jameer Nelson and Hedo Turkoglu, who finished with 6.5). This year they could push the total well over seven if all three are healthy, and the daunting threat of a trio of 40-percent 3-point shooters should open lots of lanes for Ford.


Biggest Weakness: Bench Scoring


The Pacers have a starting lineup filled with guys who can score but can't defend. After this offseason, they have a second unit filled with good defenders, none of whom can score to save their lives. When Indy turns to a second unit of Watson, Rush, Jones, Foster and Hansbrough, they're counting on five players with extremely low scoring rates -- Rush, at a meager 13.5 points per 40 minutes, was the best of the bunch last season.

It's not entirely clear how the Pacers might generate offense with such a group, or who would be the go-to guy in such an alignment. One supposes it might be Hansbrough by process of elimination, since he's the only one who hasn't proven he can't handle such a responsibility.

All of which takes us to the more likely conclusion -- that Indy will have to shake up its starting lineup to get an offensive player in the second unit. It wouldn't be a big surprise if Dunleavy ends up coming off the bench in order to give the subs a primary scoring option and allow Jones or Rush to act as a defensive stopper with the starting unit.

Either way, however, we end up with the same math. The Pacers have five players who can score, and only five. It will be hard for that quintet to score enough to offset the minimal contributions of the supporting cast.


Outlook


The Pacers would have been a playoff team a year ago with a healthy Dunleavy, and he's recovered unexpectedly quickly from serious knee surgery and expects to be in the opening day lineup. That's the good news. The bad news is that the roster around Dunleavy is no longer anywhere near playoff caliber. The Pacers gutted much of their core from a year ago by dropping Nesterovic, Jack and Daniels and replacing them with scrap heap talent like the two Joneses and Watson.

Additionally, the Pacers are highly unlikely to get an encore performance from Murphy and can't necessarily count on Granger repeating his extraordinary shooting efforts, either. Factor in the financial constraints that prevent the Pacers from making in-season upgrades, and this squad looks much more likely to head down in the standings than head up.

They'll keep it entertaining at least, as O'Brien's funky offense keeps opponents off-balance and the fast pace keeps fans engaged, but unless they get huge years from the five starters they're likely to slip back in the Eastern pack.



Prediction: 31-51, 4th in Central Division, 11th in Eastern Conference.


6 Rod Benson
12 Travis Diener
17 Mike Dunleavy
5 T.J. Ford
10 Jeff Foster
33 Danny Granger
50 Tyler Hansbrough
13 Luther Head
55 Roy Hibbert
1 Dahntay Jones
44 Solomon Jones
32 Josh McRoberts
3 Troy Murphy
0 Demetris Nichols
22 A.J. Price
4 Lawrence Roberts
25 Brandon Rush G
2 Earl Watson


En rouge : nouveaux arrivants (fdraft, signatures, transferts..)



Votre commentaire ou votre réponse :

Voici à quoi doit ressembler une simple quote :
<blockquote class="citation"><cite><strong>Untel</strong> a dit :</cite> Son message</blockquote>
Vous pouvez mettre votre message directemment à la suite.
On doit donc toujours avoir une seule balise "<blockquote class="citation">" et elle doit forcément être refermée par "</blockquote>" avant le début de votre message.
Tout ce qui se trouve entre le premier <cite><strong>Untel</strong> a dit :</cite> et le message que vous souhaitez conserver peut être effacé.

Joindre une photo

Depuis votre ordinateur
  (cliquez sur parcourir pour choisir une photo sur votre ordinateur, inférieure à 500ko)
Ou depuis un serveur internet
exemple : http://imgur.com/
Auteur : Vous allez poster en Anonyme, si tel n'est pas votre souhait,
merci de vous inscrire !


Afin de lutter contre le SPAM, vous devez répondre à cette question pour pouvoir poster




Utilisation des smileys... Pour placer un smiley dans votre message, il vous suffit d'introduire l'un des raccourcis clavier ci-dessous dans votre texte. Mettez-en partout !
Smiley
Raccourci clavier :) :( ;) :D :)) :o) Cliquez ici pour voir les raccourcis correspondants...

Un petit cour d'HTML...
  • Texte en gras : écrire le texte entre les balises <b> et </b>.
    <b>gras</b> donne gras
  • Texte en Italique : écrire le texte entre les balises <i> et </i>
    <i>italique</i> donne italique
  • Texte souligné : écrire le texte entre les balises <u> et </u>
    <u>souligné</u> donne souligné
  • Lien Internet : écrire le texte entre les balises <a href="adresse_internet"> et </a>.
    <a href="http://www.stopweb.com">stopweb</a> donne stopweb
  • Insérer une image : mettre l'adresse comme ceci <img src="adresse_internet">.
    <img src="http://www.stopweb.com/photos/334641"> donne
  • Vous pouvez, bien sûr, combiner toutes ces commandes entre elles :
    <a href="http://www.stopweb.com"><b><i><u>stopweb</u></i></b></a> donne stopweb

  • Texte en couleur : écrire le texte entre les balises <font color=couleur> et </font>
    <font color=darkred>texte en rouge foncé</font> donne texte en rouge foncé