Can Bynum and Turner end the Pacers' streak of lousy moves?
Larry Bird, Donnie Walsh and the Pacers front office get a ton of credit for assembling one of the best cores of talent in the NBA, building a contender using just about every method possible, but without ever tanking for draft positioning. Franchise player Paul George and emerging star Lance Stephenson were chosen in the same draft, George with the tenth pick (out of anonymous Fresho State) and Stephenson in the second round (after even his hometown Knicks passed on him). Defensive anchor Roy Hibbert and backcourt mainstay George Hill were both acquired on draft night trades, Hibbert in a deal that saw Indiana cut the cord with All-NBA center Jermaine O'Neal and Hill for the pick that would become San Antonio stalwart Kawhi Leonard. Veteran power forward David West, the final piece of the puzzle, came courtesy of the team's lone free agency splurge. It was a brilliant series of outside-the-box moves that rebuilt the Pacers' entire culture, and assembled a roster that would eventually turn into one of the league's elite.
It was a run so hot that few have made a fuss about what a cold streak the team has been on since. As of the summer of 2012--after the Pacers won their first postseason series and took the Heat to a hard-fought six games in the semis, announcing their arrival as one of the NBA's emerging powers and essentially switching the team's front office from Rebuilding Mode to Go For It Mode--nearly every move that Indy has made in the personnel department has either not panned out as hoped or even brutally backfired. The team's five-man core has remained in tact and continues to grow stronger every year, but the team can't seem to figure out what players to put around them or how to get them, and attempts to build a competitive bench to support the team's starters have thusfar proven ineffective.
It's been enough questionable moves now that it's almost starting to cut into the great work that Bird, Walsh and company did in assembling the team in the first place, as the team's lack of a consistent bench two years into a period of two contention still leaves them vulnerable in potential playoff matchups--most notably against the Heat, the team who's dispatched them the last two seasons. In case your memory needs some jogging, let's run down the moves the Pacers have made since the summer of '12:
Drafted Miles Plumlee with the 26th pick. (6/28/12)
The Pacers needed a reliable backup center to spell Roy Hibbert, and so they selected athletic four-year center Miles Plumlee out of Duke with their late first-rounder. The Plumlee pick was largely derided at the time, with ESPN's Chad Ford calling the Pacers' draft night "uncharacteristically weak" and saying Plumlee's "four years at Duke raise serious questions about how his size and athleticism translate on the court," given the underwhelming numbers he put up as a Blue Devil. Indeed, Plumlee was statistically inert in his rookie season in Indy, scoring just 13 points in 14 games and failing to carve out any kind of consistent role on the Pacers, playing just 55 minutes the whole season.
Traded cash to the Sacramento for Orlando Johnson. (6/28/12)
The Pacers bought themselves Orlando Johnson, the 23-year-old Cal-Santa Barbara swingman, from the Kings out of the second round of the '12 draft. Johnson got sporadic minutes throughout '12-'13 and showed a tiny bit of promise towards the end of the season, but fell out of the rotation entirely this season and was waived from the roster in February--signing, coincidentally, back with the Kings that originally drafted him.
Signed Gerald Green for three years, $10 million. (7/12/12)
Despite having bounced around, in and out of the league, for the first six years of his pro career, the Pacers were swayed enough by Gerald Green's strong end to the '11-'12 season with the bottom-feeding Nets to commit eight figures to him, to help bolster their bench wing situation and (ultimately) fill in for Granger as he recovered from injury. But Green never it in with Indiana, and saw the much-improved shooting stroke he found in New Jersey totally desert him in Indy, finishing the season averaging just seven points a game on miserable 37% shooting (31% from deep). He played in just nine of the Pacers' 19 playoff games that postseason and contributed little.
Traded Darren Collison and Dahntay Jones to Dallas for Ian Mahinmi. (7/12/12)
Largely a salary dump for the Pacers, and perhaps a move to dispel any possibly quarterback controversy between Darren Collison and starting point guard George Hill, the deal jettisoned not only Indiana's most productive reserve, but one of the only players to give them any kind of consistent offense in the playoffs, as Collison averaged 17 points and six assists per 36 minutes on 51% shooting (a 23.2 PER) during the Pacers' 13 postseason games. In return, they got Ian Mahinmi, third-string center for the title-winning Mavs, who's given the Pacers mostly decent minutes, especially on the defensive end, but has hardly been a difference-maker for Indiana, barely posting a replacement-level PER of 10.6 last season, which has slipped to 9.2 this year. It'd be much easier for the Pacers to replace Mahinmi than it has been for them to replace Collison, certainly.
Signed D.J. Augustin for one year, $3.5 million. (7/13/12)
Of course, the Pacers thought they had a plan for replacing Collison, and that was with former Bobcats point guard D.J. Augustin. It wasn't a bad plan in theory: Augustin had mostly proven himself a competent point in his four years in Charlotte, a consistent distributor and decent outside shooter--though he was coming off his worst season with the Bobcats, shooting just 38% for a seven-win team, and he was never known to be a defender. Augustin was even worse for the Pacers, averaging just five points and two assists in his 16 minutes a game, shooting a sickening 35% in the process, and the fact that the Pacers had no better option than Augustin to run their second unit in the playoffs ended up being one of the team's achilles heels against the Heat. Augustin was not retained in the offseason, to the surprise of no one.
Signed Sam Young, Sundiata Gaines, Blake Ahearn and Ben Hansbrough to minimum free agent deals. (9/6/12 & 9/18/12)
The Pacers threw a bunch of free agency fusilli against the wall to see if any of it stuck; unsurprisingly, none of it did. Gaines and Ahearn never played a minute for the Pacers, Hansbrough (younger brother of four-year Pacer forward Tyler) got some minutes at backup point to see if he was any better than DJ Augustin (he wasn't, and played just 22 minutes in the playoffs) and Sam Young underperformed, was waived, was resigned and underperformed again, getting far more postseason burn than anyone in Indiana was comfortable with, making just nine field goals in 130 playoff minutes. None have played in the pros since.
Signed Dominc McGuire to two ten-day contracts. (1/7/13)
Please.
Drafted Solomon Hill with the 23rd pick and Colton Iverson with the 53rd pick of the 2013 draft. (6/27/13)
Hill was again seen as a reach for the Pacers, with Chad Ford again ragging on the Pacers in his draft grades column, calling Hill a "jack-of-all-trades and master of none," and claiming that "there isn't a single characteristic he has that screams first-round pick." Hill has yet to make Ford eat his words in his rookie season, scoring just 38 total points in his 20 games of action and failing to nail down any kind of consistent role for the Pacers, falling behind even 57-year-old Rasual Butler in the rotation. Meanwhile, Iverson was pawned off on the Celtics for cash, a move that has yet to move the needle for either Indiana or Boston in any considerable way.
Pulled Tyler Hansbrough's qualifying offer. (7/2/13)
After four years of over-caffeinated frontcourt play for the Pacers, Indy finally said goodbye to their 2009 first-round pick last summer, allowing Tyler Hansbrough to become a free agent and (eventually) sign with the Raptors. Hansbrough had not been seen as a core member of the Pacers for sometime, but after the departure of Darren Collison, he was easily their most productive bench player, scoring seven points and grabbing five rebounds a game in his final season in Indiana, while getting to the foul line a team-high eight times per 36 minutes, getting under opponents' skin and in getting them into foul trouble in the process. It wasn't a particularly sophisticated element to the Pacers' offensive attack, but it was arguably a key one, and one they've missed since Tyler took his all-arms-and-legs act North of the Border.
Signed Donald Sloan to a two-year, $2 million contract. (7/3/13)
Continuing their tradition of pilfering statistically poor point guards from the worst teams in the NBA, the Pacers signed Sloan--hot off a season of shooting 35% for the 24-58 Cavaliers--to a two-year minimum deal, to serve as the team's emergency backup point. And it has indeed been an emergency whenever Sloan has played for Indiana thusfar, averaging about one point and one assist a game on 17-52 shooting and a 7.0 PER. If this guy gets any minutes for Indy in the postseason, something has gone terribly wrong.
Signed C.J. Watson to two-year, $4 million contract. (7/10/13)
Arguably the crown jewel of the Pacers' bench-bolstering efforts, Watson has indeed been a competent two-way point guard off the bench for the Pacers in his first season of service. You wouldn't call him a steal, exactly--six points and two assists on 43% shooting (33% from deep) isn't going to get him any Sixth Man of the Year votes--but he's been serviceable enough, with a PER comfortably over 10 and an offensive rating comfortably over 100. By Pacers reserve standards, this makes Watson a candidate for Ring of Honor induction.
Signed Chris Copeland to a two-year, $6 million contract. (7/14/13)
Continuing their other tradition of signing longtime league washout to multi-year deals after one hot end to the season, the Pacers nabbed the 29-year-old Copeland after his strong rookie (yes, rookie) season as a late breakout star for the Knicks, averaging 20 points a game on 50% shooting for them over their final seven contests. Copeland has hardly been the disaster for the Pacers that Green was--per 36 minutes, he's basically putting up the same numbers that he did in New York, though on lesser shooting--but he's yet to earn the trust of Pacers coach Frank Vogel, only averaging five minutes a contest and sitting out more than half of Indiana's games, mostly just getting run in garbage time. $3 million a year is a lot for a contending team to waste on a player who can't get on the court.
Traded Gerald Green, Miles Plumlee and a 2014 first-round pick to Phoenix for Luis Scola. (7/7/13)
The big all-in move of the Pacers off-season, they traded two bench scrubs who weren't doing much for them and tacked a first-rounder onto the package to send to the Suns for their veteran power forward Luis Scola. The move made sense in a lot of ways, as without Hansbrough, the Pacers would need a four man to back up (and injury-insure) David West, and Scola brought a lot of the same attributes (jump-shooting, passing, toughness) that made West so successful in their system. However, Scola's production for the Pacers has been inconsistent--he was fantastic in December, averaging nine points and five boards on 54% shooting, but was a sinkhole in February, averaging six points and five boards on 37% shooting--and it's hard to know if the Pacers will be able to trust him to hold up in the postseason.
Meanwhile, the package that the Pacers sent the Suns is looking like more of a steal every day. Miles Plumlee had a great summer and started the regular season as the Suns' starting center, a role he's held down while averaging nine points, eight boards and over a block a game, while shooting 50% and anchoring the team's defense. Gerald Green has rediscovered his New Jersey form and then some, averaging a career-high 15.7 PPG and shooting a career high 39.3% from three, resulting in outbursts like his recent 42-point night against the Thunder. And even the lottery-protected first-round pick, which previously seemed like a lock to be the lowest-possible in the first round, might now creep as high as #27 or #26 with the Pacers struggling a bit, which in one of the deepest drafts in recent memory is no small thing.
Signed Darnell Jackson and Ron Howard to non-guaranteed deals. (9/10/13)
Whatever.
So with the possible exception of the CJ Watson deal, the Pacers had basically posted an 0-fer for the better part of two years' worth of personnel moves. The only really slam dunk moves they made over this stretch was in re-signing or handing out fair-value extensions to core guys Paul George, Roy Hibbert and David West, a streak which they'll have to continue in this coming off-season with the pending free agency of Lance Stephenson. But when it comes to the guys outside of the Pacers' current starting five, it's basically been a non-stop s---show.
Of course, this all leads up to the Pacers' two most-recent personnel moves, and possibly the highest-leverage ones of all they've made in the last two seasons. In February, they signed the recently released problem child big man Andrew Bynum for the rest of the season for about a million, and then traded Danny Granger--the one-time core Pacer who had seen his standing with the team slip away after a couple years of injuries--along with a future second-rounder to Philadelphia, for swingman Evan Turner and rotation big Lavoy Allen. These were the final moves meant to fortify the Pacers for their best chance at a championship run in a decade, to finally turn their bench into a potent force that can ably support their starting five.
Until last night, the returns had not been terribly promising. Bynum hadn't played at all, still recovering from whatever lower-body maladies were sapping his strength and will this month, and Lavoy had only picked up garbage-time minutes, still yet to score his first bucket in a Pacers uniform. That left the difference-making to Turner, who had thusfar not proven up to the task, proving incredibly inconsistent on offense, with his best game--a 22-point outing against the Bobcats--coming almost entirely in garbage time, as the Pacers got blown out in Charlotte. The Pacers had lost a season-high four in a row, and Evan had scored a total of seven points combined in the three non-Charlotte losses.
But to quote Esther Williams, last night may have changed it all for the Pacers. Bynum finally made his on-court debut in Indiana, and the impact was immediate--he scored eight points and grabbed ten rebounds in less than 16 minutes of game action, giving the Pacers a second-unit presence that they've simply never had before, and scaring the crap out of the undersized Celtics. The impact spread to the rest of the bench as well, as Turner scored nine points on 4-4 shooting (including the most wide-open three-pointer he's ever shot in his career) and handed out three assists, and even Scola got in on the action, chipping in 11 on 5-7 FG. After scoring just four points combined in Indy's previous game, the Pacers bench combined for 31 this time out. It was the kind of performance that changes your entire perspective on a team's prospects.
Of course, it was still just one game, and playing just one good game has never really been the problem with Bynum or Turner. It's stringing multiple strong consecutive performances together that has proven a challenge with those guys, as Bynum's knees will likely flare up again post-game, and the shots that Turner nailed last night may very well clank off the rim during Indy's next game--which, wouldn't you know it, happens to be in Philly, where these two guys were expected to be the team's future not all that long ago. As great as last night was for the Pacers organization, it's still way too early to declare victory on any front.
But now, Bynum and Turner have become two of the most pivotal players of the NBA's stretch run and eventual postseason. As we've now seen, what they can give the Pacers can totally swing their potential as a team--with them producing consistently, the Pacers can be every bit the championship threat they've long been alleged to be these playoffs, but with them producing inconsistently or not playing at all, they're heavy underdogs to the Heat and might even be the slightest bit vulnerable to the Raptors, Bulls or Nets in the second round. It's gotta be a scary thought for Pacers fans, pinning your playoff hopes to a perpetually injured knucklehead and one of the NBA's most frustrating teases of the 2010s, but it's just about all they've got at the moment.
And it's also the best chance that Bird, Walsh and friends have at redeeming their past two years of lousy personnel decisions, moves that could have undone enough of the good they did in assembling one of the league's best starting fives to handicap the team from ever reaching its true potential. If Bynum and Turner turn out to be the difference, the ghosts of D.J. Augustin, Chris Copeland, Gerald Green, Solomon Hill and all the rest will likely fade away into oblivion, forgotten and unmentioned. If they don't, those ghosts could haunt the team, their front office and their fans for some time to come.