Josh McRoberts: Ankle Breaker

We have a lot of things to talk about this summer. A lot went wrong this year, ownership is saying some troubling things and none of the key players that Bird has assembled improved considerably aside from Roy Hibbert. I mean, even Larry himself is publicly calling out Granger for taking a step back. (I don’t necessarily believe that and don’t really think Larry really does either, but Danny obviously didn’t have nearly as good of a year this season as he did in 2008-09 even if he was able to right his ship over the last 20 games.)

I promise that we will soon be back to more regular posting to break down all that stuff and weigh in on everything from individual player assessments and the ongoing “they need guards—badly” concern to the perhaps-seriouser-than-ever financial problems for the franchise and how the team can improve this summer through the draft/free agency.

But, frankly, after such a terrible year, I think we’re all a little burnt out and need, like, two weeks away from Pacer Nation (starting retroactively from the end of the regular season apparently). 82 straight games of almost unbroken negativity will do that.

One positive thing about the season, however, was Josh McRoberts.

His emergence as a potential rotation guy was, to me, very unexpected and, at times, very fun to watch — both because this roster lacks much in the way of athletic finishers other than him and because, let’s face it, this team needs as many low-salaried-yet-productive players as possible given how much of the cap is monopolized by middling, overpaid vets. (Looking at you, TJ, Lil Dun, Foster, Troy and Tinsley’s buyout.)

Thankfully, Kyle Weidie of the Wizards blog Truth About It was able to track down two sweet gifs of what was my favorite Josh McRoberts play of the season and probably one of the better Pacer moments of the entire year. A few of Josh’s dunks/alley oops were more productive from a basketball sense, sure, but I’ll always have an affinity for ankles getting broke. So I like this the best.

Kyle was nice enough to point out two other interesting facts about the play.

"In other news, McRoberts kinda-sorta looks like a much taller Charlie from “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”.Also notice — in the first GIF — how Al Thornton was duped by McRoberts, meaninglessly sprinting to an irrelevant spot on the floor."

Enjoy.

(And don’t worry … we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled posting in, I dunno, 10 days or so. I’m going to Boston all next week for a work conference so I’ll be back on my grind shortly thereafter. There will be some stuff before then, but don’t expect a huge windfall of content, from me at least, in the interim. I will, however, continue to cover the NBA Playoffs over at Both Teams Played Hard and Hardwood Paroxysm, so stop by and say hello.)