Do the Pacers Have Too Much Balance?

Balance is usually seen as a good thing, but do the Indiana Pacers have too much of it? Nine players who have played this season have averaged at least 10 points per game, and that doesn’t include Luis Scola and his 9.4 ppg output.

On the one hand, that’s fantastic. A balanced attack is one that the defense can’t see coming, whereas the opposition can game plan to stop a single scorer. A team full of scorers can more easily overcome a bad night by one of its key players, whereas a team with a single go-to has all its eggs in one basket.

Then again, this is the NBA — a league where only five players are on the court for a team at any given time in a sport where the team with the best player usually wins. And the main reason the Pacers are so “balanced” is because they are so mediocre.

Really, after David West, Roy Hibbert, and George Hill there isn’t much talent differential between the next seven or eight players on the roster. So while the result is an uncanny scoring balance among the rotation players, it’s really just a product of injuries and nobody being a reliable enough option to base many offensive sets around

The Milwaukee Bucks broadcast team recently discussed the phenomenon.

There is no doubt that the balance is both helping and hurting Indiana this year.

For one, they are being more unselfish. And it seems that injuries and relatively similar skill level is keeping everyone upbeat. Contrast this Pacers season — in which 11 players have gotten at least one start — with a hypothetical year in which the team is losing a ton of games while just a few players are accounting for the bulk of the offense. It would be easy to start pointing fingers and for the reserves to think they should be out there getting a chance.

Instead, the team is failing together. None of them — until C.J. Miles of late, and George Hill during his five-came cameo into the year — have had long stretches of strong play. So nobody can really get upset with anyone but himself. And this team is reportedly still oozing positivity and focused on making the playoffs.

On the other hand, the balance is leading to a role-less rotation. Aside from Hibbert and West, there is really no telling from game to game how many shots players will get up. Sometimes Rodney Stuckey is featured more whereas on other nights Solomon Hill puts up a lot of shots. Last week, for example, Solomon took 5 shots in one game and 15 in the next. Sometimes Lavoy Allen gets 8 and other nights it is 2.

This isn’t necessarily a negative — it can be good when players have to earn their shots — but it means that games can have vastly different feels depending upon who is taking charge the most. And more than anything, it just speaks to the biggest issue this franchise has: The roster lacks talent.

Ultimately, however, this is also a byproduct of all the injuries. But if the Indiana Pacers can get healthy and want to make a legitimate run at the playoffs, it will behoove them to sort out the roles and decide how they want to play on a night-to-night basis.