Grading Past Pacers Drafts, 2012 Edition: Miles Plumlee

2012 will always go down as the year that Adrian Wojnarowski officially hijacked the NBA Draft. After scooping nearly half of the previous year’s first round picks before they were announced on television, “Woj” was at peak form in 2012 as he “predicted” almost every single pick on Twitter before ESPN and David Stern were able to officially announce each pick to the world.

From an (admittedly trivial) personal perspective, I remember needling my Cavs friends about Dion Waiters before the pick had even been publicized. By the time Cleveland selected Jared Cunningham with the 24th pick, I had officially outlived my good graces with all of my cohorts up in Cleveland. In all, the draft was an incredibly hilarious undertaking for me as I astounded my fellow NBA fans with my “knowledge” of the draft process — that is until I received the following message from a ticked-off Cavs fan, a full five minutes before the Pacers even came on the clock:

“Plumlee!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!”

In that moment, Pacers fans everywhere froze. We knew Woj wasn’t going to be wrong. He was almost never wrong. But he had to be wrong this time. Really? Plumlee? The older Plumlee? The not-talented Plumlee?

Please no. Anything but that.

Grading Past Pacers Drafts Project

Here at 8p9s, we looking back at some old drafts from an Indiana Pacers perspective. In the first installment, we discovered that while Solomon Hill’s career hasn’t been special, Larry Bird generally made a fine selection with the draft pick he had. Unless, of course, you happened to be the Miller Time Podcast guys.

It’s clear, now, that Bird should have drafted Draymond Green with the 26th pick in the draft. Of course, we will never know how Green would have developed on the Pacers.

How has Larry Bird done in the draft? Will this mean anything for Myles Turner and Mighty Joe Young? Overall, is the franchise in a good position going forward?

Today, we will look at the 2012 draft in which the Pacers selected Duke big man Mason Plumlee.

But first, a few ground rules:

• We are only looking at this from a Pacers perspective. While it’s funny to criticize the Cavs for drafting Anthony Bennett with the first-overall pick in 2013, we ultimately don’t care.

• Team needs will be factored in, but if the Pacers whiffed on a huge talent just to fill a need, there can be no excuse.

• The specific moment of time must be factored in. Events that happened after the draft should not be unfairly held against Pacers’ management, unless there were signs that said event might happen.

• This isn’t NBA2K, and you can’t just make things happen because the computer is dumb. Trading up into a draft will not be an option. Therefore, no judgments on the Pacers front office will be made regarding players picked ahead of Indiana’s draft slot. It doesn’t matter how much you IU fans loved Cody Zeller and Victor Oladipo – the Pacers never even had a known opportunity to draft those guys, so they will neither receive credit for passing over a bust nor criticism for failing to draft a stud that wasn’t even available when they drafted.

With that said … bring on 2012.

Discussing the 2012 Draft

As of right now, the 2012 Draft Class was probably the most mercurial of the past decade. Anthony Davis, the Unibrow that might already be the best player in the leauge, was taken first overall. Fellow stars Bradley Beal, Damian Lillard, and Andre Drummond were taken later in the lottery. Harrison Barnes and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist have also become good NBA players taken from various points in the first round. But the misses in this draft — yikes. Austin Rivers and Dion Waiters have basically turned into internet memes. Nobody still has any idea what Thomas Robinson is. Is Terrence Ross a high-flying 3-and-D guy capable of dropping 50 points in a game, or is he a guy that can’t even crack the rotation for a fringe playoff team? (Um, yes?) And that’s just your top 10 right there.

When the Pacers finally were placed on the clock, 25 players had already been taken ahead of them in the first round. The Pacers, you will remember, had just reached the playoffs for the first time in half a decade under the leadership of then-interim coach Frank Vogel. Vogel had taken over mid-season for Jim O’Brien (one of the least popular coaches in Pacers history) and turned the Pacers into a defensive stalwart that also maximized its offense around a volume-shooting Danny Granger.

Rookie Paul George had just defended current MVP Derrick Rose about as well as possible during five incredibly close playoff games against the #1 seeded Chicago Bulls. Paul George looked like he had defensive greatness in his future, but it was unclear at that point whether he would ever even learn how to handle the ball effectively in the NBA.

Danny Granger and Roy Hibbert looked to be the foundation of something interesting, if not something good. If Paul George worked out, the Pacers might be a point guard away from something special, but there were just too many questions at that point to predict much of anything.

I think it’s important, here, to briefly pause and explain why the “Plumlee Woj Bomb” was received so poorly from myself and the rest of Pacers nation. Indiana was only two years removed from selecting Tyler Hansbrough ahead of Ty Lawson and other more intriguing and successful names. Hansbrough had been a hard worker, but he hadn’t proven to be a good NBA player, and there were even jokes being thrown around by Pacers fans about Larry Bird’s affinity for, ahem, lighter-skinned players. Even a cursory look at Bird’s history as a personnel guy confirms that this doesn’t hold much water, but fans are rarely rational and, in 2012, the internet was really turning into a place for these irrational fans to have a voice.

To add fuel to this fire, it was announced just days before the draft that Larry Bird would be stepping down after the draft because of some health issues. Fans had hoped that he would “swing for the fences” with some sort of home-run pick. Instead, he chose the low-upside workhorse from a big-time North Carolina school.

Objectively though, the pick was actually quite good.

Larry Bird had a few different realistic options at the 26th pick:

• Perry Jones, III – the upside pick. Jones was the type of sexy “high risk, high reward” player that most fans were hoping for. At one point, Jones, III had been the #1 prospect in the entire country before scouts decided that injuries and inconsistency made him too risky. Still, his upside and length alone made Jay Bilas blush.

• Marquis Teague – the hometown kid. Teague had just helped lead Kentucky to a national championship. While he was probably (and turned out to be) the lesser Teague, he was still a big talent.

• Jeffery Taylor/Jae Crowder/Quincy Miller/Khris Middleton – Several mock drafts had the Pacers selecting Jeff Taylor with this pick, but all four of these guys were mostly lumped in together in the “swing men that could be great and could be busts” group that comes near the end of every first round. Missing out on Middleton is a big whiff. He has proven to be an excellent contributor and it’s quite possible that Crowder is also a better pro.

• Draymond Green – Ouch. We’ll get to him, but this isn’t revisionist history. The Pacers absolutely had both the chance and opportunity to take Green. Draft Express actually had him going to Indiana in their final mock draft.

• Orlando Johnson/Doron Lamb – If Paul George wasn’t going to work out at SG, these were the two best options available.

It seems odd, looking back, that nobody predicted that Indiana would select a big man. While Hibbert was young and (seemingly) on the rise, Jeff Foster was all the way past washed up, and besides Josh McRoberts there were no other potential centers on the roster. Still, most scouts and draft experts thought that the Pacers would try to shore up their wing rotation to add depth behind the Granger/George lineup. Still others thought the Pacers should try to upgrade George’s position as a hedge against a guy who hadnt shown much on the offensive side of the ball yet.

In spite of that, Larry Bird stepped outside of the consensus and selected Miles Plumlee to backup the Big Fella from Georgetown. While it’s obvious now that Draymond Green is the far superior player, the actual logic in Bird’s selection made some sense at the time.

First of all, Bird very clearly believed that Paul George was going to be a good player. He had “reached” the year before to draft Paul George ahead of most projections, and he had seen enough potential in him over the second half of 2011 to believe that he and Granger were the wings of the future.

Secondly, Plumlee actually turned out to be a quality NBA player. The older brother averaged 8 points and 8 rebounds for the Suns in 2014 while also proving to be an above-average defensive center. In a different universe, Danny Granger never gets hurt, he and Paul George form a formidable wing duo, and Mason Plumlee adds more bulk to a front line that pestered the Miami Heat during every postseason.

Unfortunately for Bird and the Pacers, Granger would hurt his knee the next season and never recover. While Lance Stephenson would stand in the gap for a few years, he would never become as exceptional as Draymond Green and would eventually leave town anyway.

Bird very clearly believed that Paul George was going to be a good player, and despite the consensus, he didn’t feel the need to draft another wing to play behind George and Granger.

The Final Decision

It’s clear, now, that Bird should have drafted Draymond Green with the 26th pick in the draft. Of course, we will never know how Green would have developed on the Pacers. Playing next to Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson has really allowed him to blossom, and we can only speculate as to what his career would have looked like in a Pacers uniform. Still, one can envision what this Pacers lineup would look like with Draymond Green manning the power forward position, and it’s quite intriguing.

Larry Bird was probably right to pick Plumlee over both Perry Jones, III and Marquis Teague. Neither player has been able to play well for an extended stretch of his NBA career, and both have been plagued by injuries. It’s also obvious that Khris Middleton would have been a better selection, but nobody can in good conscience pretend that he was a plausible selection at that point in the first round. Many experts had him outside of the top-50 overall prospects. It’s clear that Bird missed on him, but then again, so did nearly everyone.

The Pacers front office cannot receive an “A” for the 2012 NBA Draft because they passed on a player who might already be the most versatile, and some would say even best, defensive player in the league. Had Plumlee stayed around Indiana, his performance probably would have earned Bird a solid “B” or perhaps a “B-” grade. However, the Pacers chose to chase a ring after one year of the Plumlee experiment and flipped him and a first-round draft pick for the lovable Luis Scola. Because of this, the most accurate grade for Indiana’s 2012 Draft is an Incomplete.

Who they should have taken: Draymond Green

Better options they could have taken: Jae Crowder, Khris Middleton,

Worse options it’s good they didn’t take: Perry Jones, III, Marquis Teague, Jeffery Taylor

Final Indiana Pacers 2013 Draft Grade: INC

Next: Why Myles Turner Was the Perfect Fit for the Pacers

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