The Indiana Pacers New Starting Five… Maybe
By Ben Gibson
The Indiana Pacers starting five has a different look going into the 2016-17 season.
Indiana Pacers fans can’t say that Larry Bird has been lazy this offseason, as the team made two trades to alter what their starting five will look like going into next season.
Indiana got busy, trading away George Hill for Jeff Teague and following that move up by trading their first-round pick for Thaddeus Young.
With those two moves, we have a much clearer idea of what the Pacers are going to look like going into next season, depending on what Indiana does in free agency.
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If the season started now (which would be pretty weird), the Pacers starting five likely would be Jeff Teague, Monta Ellis, Paul George, Thaddeus Young, and Myles Turner.
The benefits of this lineup are having Teague play more of a “pure” point guard role as a distributor. Teague averages 5.2 assists a game compared to Hill’s 3.3, but more important that the raw stats, Teague’s assist rate nearly doubles Hill at 32.5% versus 18.4%.
In the front court, Young offers more offensive ability than Mahinmi ever had, even if you only look at the Frenchman’s surge last season. With 15.1 points a game compared to Mahinmi’s 9.3, Young is clearly a better scorer if you compare them head to head.
However, that doesn’t automatically mean the Pacers have gotten better according to FanSided’s Ian Levy.
"The problem, of course, is fit. While Teague is a better on-ball scorer and facilitator, it seems like that value would be eroded by needing to share the ball with Paul George, Monta Ellis, and Rodney Stuckey. In this regard, Hill was perfect because he could attack when he needed to but he was also one of the best spot-ups threats in the league. Putting the ball in Teague’s hands more often means more of Stuckey and Ellis spotting around the perimeter, which is not going to be good for Indiana’s spacing.If you include the fact that Young is not a jumpshooter — he attempted just 30 three-pointers last season and according to the NBA’s play type statistics, 56.7 percent of his offensive possessions came in transition, or on post-ups, cuts, and putbacks — and it would appear that the Indiana Pacers may have a problem spreading the floor on offense. If you take a look at the shot charts for their theoretical starting lineup next season, it looks a lot like a pace-and-no-space approach."
Perhaps it is my bias as a Pacers fan, but I don’t think it will be as big of an issue spreading the floor for Indiana.
Turner’s mid-range game can help spread the floor when he shares it with Young, a player that prefers to stay near the basket. But the defensive end could be a bigger issue as Turner seemed to be at his best when he was paired with Mahinmi.
As far as the offense goes, you have a group with a combined average of 78 points a game
However, the two guards sharing the court could be the biggest issue on both sides of the ball.
While Ellis does need the ball in his hands often, I don’t think it is impossible for him and Teague to share the court effectively. While Monta was expected to carry some of the ball-handling last season with Frank Vogel at the helm, the offense will be different with Nate McMillan running the show. Now, this doesn’t mean that Ellis will suddenly be a different player, but one can at least hope that with a “pure” point guard in the lineup, Ellis can get comfortable without having the ball as often. Perhaps Hill would have been better suited for the role with Teague, but I’m assuming the trade doesn’t happen unless the Pacers are willing to move George Hill to Utah.
With Ellis being more of a mid-range player in comparison to Teague, I don’t think the problem will be on the offensive end as much as it will be on the defensive one.
While Ellis played better defense — at times — last season, history tells us he isn’t a stalwart defender. With the Pacers, he had his first season as anything other than a neutral or negative effect on defense. Perhaps Dan Burke can continue that, but there is the McMillan-coached Pacers are highly unlikely to l play defense like the Vogel-helmed ones did. Teague’s numbers are just as poor as Ellis’ have been in the past, but while one can hope it gets better in Indiana (like Monta’s defense did), there is no guarantee that will happen.
The offense will undoubtedly be better next season for the Pacers, but there are plenty of reasons to worry about how the defense will work out.
Of course, all of this is going off the assumption that Ian Mahinmi isn’t resigned, Monta Ellis remains a Pacer, and the starting five is what it looks like now. Those assumptions are the best-educated guess I can make at the moment. All of this could change with a free agent signing. Maybe Monta moves into a sixth man role, maybe the Pacers make a big splash on July 1, but for now, this is the likely starting five.
The offense could be great for the Indiana Pacers, but this starting five will likely be found wanting on the defensive end.