Larry Bird’s Mistakes Set Up the Indiana Pacers for Mediocrity

Good Pieces Never Fit Together For the Indiana Pacers

Now we are arriving at the most damning evidence against Bird for this season’s failures.

At the end of Vogel’s tenure and the start of McMillan’s, Bird pushed the idea of a faster, more efficient team. He traded for Jeff Teague (a more traditional, distributing point guard than George Hill) and Thaddeus Young (a quick, athletic forward with some range) but after that, there isn’t a ton of speed and certainly not a lot of shooting.

Here’s the rundown on the rest.

• Monta Ellis is a slasher, not a shooter. Also not a good defender.
• Rodney Stuckey is a slasher, not a shooter. Also not a good defender.
• Aaron Brooks shoots 3-pointers well enough, but he doesn’t shoot enough of them to really earn the title of shooter. He picks his spots well, but isn’t a sniper. Not much of a defender.
• Al Jefferson is big, plodding, and offensively minded. He’ll score, but he is going to do it slowly. Also not a good defender.
• Kevin Seraphin doesn’t help in pace and space, but at least he defends.

I’m leaving Glenn Robinson III off the list for a few reasons. He was hitting that “Aren’t you getting a little old for in Summer League?” point after his third summer of it, which wasn’t a great sign. He never impressed before this season, but ended up being a solid member of the rotation.

Lance Stephenson doesn’t count since he was a last-ditch effort to get Indiana into the playoffs. I love the signing, but it only was possible because Stephenson couldn’t stick elsewhere.

I’ll give Bird some credit, but at the same time this seems more of low-risk bets paying off than a move that was part of the bigger picture.