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Lance Stephenson Can’t Save the Indiana Pacers Season

By Ben Gibson

May 30, 2014; Miami, FL, USA; Miami Heat forward LeBron James (left) stands next to Indiana Pacers guard Lance Stephenson (right) during the first half in game six of the Eastern Conference Finals of the 2014 NBA Playoffs at American Airlines Arena. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports
May 30, 2014; Miami, FL, USA; Miami Heat forward LeBron James (left) stands next to Indiana Pacers guard Lance Stephenson (right) during the first half in game six of the Eastern Conference Finals of the 2014 NBA Playoffs at American Airlines Arena. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports /
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Signing Lance Stephenson isn’t going to help the Indiana Pacers this season, but he has the chance to help them next year.

If Lance Stephenson can have even a slight bounce back with the Indiana Pacers, he’s worth his 3 year, $12 million contract. That’s a big if, but it is also a low-risk/high reward situation for the Indiana Pacers.

However, for anyone hoping he can save this season’s team, that seems unlikely.

Yes, he is an upgrade from a declining and oft injured Rodney Stuckey. Yes, he’s bigger than Monta Ellis or Aaron Brooks, which can help defensively. But no, he isn’t the team’s savior, or at least there is little reason to think he is.

His arrival does help in some areas, but it doesn’t change the face the team doesn’t have shooting or rebounding outside of the starters. It doesn’t change some of the possible chemistry issues with the team and the roster is still one that doesn’t quite fit together.

Not to mention you are throwing in a new player with only seven games left in the regular season.  He may be a bench player, but that doesn’t change the fact this is just more chaos for a rotation that has rarely seen stability. We’ll find out if this helps or hurts a team trying to remain in the playoff hunt.

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Don’t forget, he’s only averaged 45.8% shooting from the floor and 20.6% from 3-point range since leaving Indiana. He hasn’t shown a consistent ability to stretch the floor as a shooter. It isn’t as if he is going to open up the floor more for a bench unit that desperately needs it. His style is closer to Monta Ellis and it is to Glenn Robinson III.

What you hope Lance Stephenson brings is a spark. He’s fighting for his NBA life beyond next season, so motivation shouldn’t be an issue at all for Born Ready. To his credit, trying never seemed to be a problem for him. Occasional moodiness? Sure. But I don’t remember Lance having a lot of quit in him.

What you hope to avoid (and don’t expect to get) is the Lance that blew in LeBron’s ear, smacked him in the mouth as they were losing to the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference finals. Moves that wreaked of immaturity and weren’t helping the Pacers in that series.

You hope Lance Stephenson is still playing with the reckless aggressiveness he once had in Indiana, perhaps best illustrated when he nearly fell on his head going for two points against the Atlanta Hawks in a regular season game.

That sort of effort is what you hope infects the entire team.

But to expect Stephenson to have a meaningful impact on this season is very optimistic. He’s coming off a number of injuries this season and being dropped into a new environment. He played with Paul George and Lavoy Allen in 2014, but everything else has changed.

My biggest fear is that the Stephenson we last saw when he was in a Pacers uniform was the product of a system. Back then, he was flanked by George Hill and Paul George to form nearly 21-feet of wingspan on defense. Behind him were a savvy vet in David West and the NBA’s best rim protector at the time, Roy Hibbert. On offense, those same players helped him find enough room to operate and be a double-double threat night in and night out.

That team is long gone. The question is, are Lance Stephenson’s best days gone too?

Next: Who Deserves Minutes Off the Pacers Bench?

Lance Stephenson will have the opportunity to become a valuable member of the Indiana Pacers next season, most likely as a jolt of energy coming off the bench. That’s if he can make himself great again.

But he can’t fix this season’s team and save it from all the problems they’ve had. Those are issues for the Indiana Pacers to address in the offseason if they expect to keep Paul George around.

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