“We’ve taken a step back.”
Those words from David West ended Brian Windhorst’s recent post on how the Pacers have experienced the darkest timeline possible in the last nine months. After having one of the strangest collapses in recent memory the Pacers return with a roster that is missing two starters from last year and about a third of the offensive firepower. With Lance Stephenson gone and Paul George injured, there will be ways to make up for 35.5 percent of the points missing from last year, but you can’t replace either of those two players’ contributions on both sides of the ball.
The step back this year was big enough for David West to consider retirement. The Vegas odds of the Pacers winning last year were 10-1. Now? 40-1.
A step may be an understatement. Several steps might be more accurate.
Consider the fact that out of the 19,780 minutes that were the Pacers regular season, only 1836 minutes were played with neither Paul George or Lance Stephenson on the court. Barely one percent. The Pacers hardly know what to do without one, much less both on the court. They had 719 points in those situation. The most used lineup the Pacers had that didn’t have one of those players was Butler, Mahinmi, Scola, Sloan, and Turner, and that group inly saw 28 minutes all year and they had a -26 net rating. I wouldn’t put into a lot of the net rating, it is a small sample size and there where other groups that looked wildly productive. The point just goes to show that coach Frank Vogel is going into the season blind as far as knowing what to expect from his offense. I doubt you’ll see many lineups that you saw last year.
It is easy to say the Pacers have stepped back considering they lost two All-Star level players. But more interestingly, they may also be lost in sense. Indiana in unfamiliar territory without George or Stephenson. There isn’t a strategy from last year that can apply. Whatever the Pacers throw out on the court will be a bit of an experiment. I could write about Unit X vs Unit Y that didn’t have either player in it, but those barely existed on the Pacers last year.
The only thing I tried to look at was points per a possession with Lance and PG off the court. The only things I noticed was David West went from 1.05 PPP to 0.94 (32 minutes) and George Hill went from 1.12 to 1.32 (79 minutes). Again, small sample sizes but it isn’t to surprising considering that both allowed George Hill to be more aggressive while taking away the offensive creators that got David West open shots.
It is going to be hard to imagine exactly how Indiana will replace the scoring and defense of both Stephenson and George, but we’ll find out soon enough if that’s possible or how big the gap will be between last year’s team and this years.