Air Guitar Lance Stephenson is the best Lance Stephenson

Lance Stephenson’s played some of his best games in the last week and serving as a reminder of how fun this Indiana Pacers team can be.

The Indiana Pacers fans love Lance Stephenson, and Lance Stephenson loves them back. Toronto Raptors fans, not so much. In the last three games, he is made that easier than ever.

Stephenson is averaging 17.3 points, shooting 65.5% from the field and 63.6% from deep. Throw in 7.7 rebounds and 3.3 assists a game, and you’ve got The Good Lance. We know those numbers will settle back toward his 7.8 points and 5.6 rebounds averages, as well as a more reasonable 42.5% field goal percentage, but this version of Lance Stephenson is playing like a 6th Man of the Year.

Stephenson scored 18  points during the Pacers win over the Orlando Magic but nothing was better than when he hit his final 3-pointer of the night. The shot all but closed the door on the Magic, but the pure Lance moment came when he broke out his air guitar.

Rock on Indiana, rock on Orlando. Wheaties, breakfast of champions.

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It’s still hard to get a solid handle on what effect Lance Stephenson has on his teammates, and what they have on him. If you look at the on/off numbers, even in the last three games, Indiana is better without Lance on the floor, statistically.

Of course, that doesn’t paint the full picture. We’ve seen Stephenson benefit from sharing the floor with Domantas Sabonis, and he makes Darren Collison better when they play together, but his effect on Sabonis and Bojan Bogdanovic is minimal. More concerning is the fact he hurts Cory Joseph’s production substantially thanks to the fact they both are better with the ball in their hands.

But perhaps this is a time when the number’s do lie, or at least can’t capture all the things a player does.

Last season we saw Stephenson join the Pacers at the end of the regular season and proceed to light a fire under the team’s collective ass. His effect on the team was more obvious in those 10 games, but the way he brought a certain levity to the Pacers isn’t quantifiable then or now.

Is Lance guilty of doing too much sometimes? Of course. But what gets lost sometimes in his play is the way he helps the team enjoy itself, and in turn, they play with a certain edge. We throw the word ‘fun’ around a lot with this Pacers team, but this team’s chemistry is a big reason why we can say that, and Stephenson helps fuel that with his play. Whether the Good or the Bad Lance, he leads the way for Indiana’s bench and is capable of stepping in with the starters when needed.

There was a perfect example of what Lance does right and wrong in Monday night’s win. Stephenson drove to the lane and threw a tough pass around a defender to Sabonis, but the reserve center struggled to wrangle it in.

But once the play reset Lance was open in the corner where he proceeded to shake and bake his way through the Magic defense before throwing an easier to catch pass to Sabonis, who scored this time. Also, take a look at the screen from Victor Oladipo that helps create the space needed for the play to work.

Stephenson has a little Russell Westbrook in him when it comes to his stats. The first pass in the play above was a bit ill-advised, and one of the rebounds he snatched in the game was clearly going to Domas before Stephenson scooped it. It isn’t the worst thing that he pads his stats, but sometimes he falls back into the old habits he had in his first Pacers stint, and it hurts Indiana.

In those early years, Stephenson was guilty of making passes to get assists instead of making passes that led to better shots for his teammates. He was guilty of stealing rounds. There’s less of that now, but with the Good Lance, sometimes you get the bad.

While sometimes the numbers are going to go against Stephenson, note that things like his on/off stats, his net rating, and other stats are dependent on his teammates.

And maybe it’s overselling that idea that the numbers are against Lance when you remember his net rating is -0.7, hardly a drag on the Pacers. When he plays the way he has in the last three contests, it’s hard to find any real fault in his game no matter what the stats say.

More importantly than his stats, Stephenson is being a positive influence on the Pacers more often than not. Stephenson isn’t perfect and will frustrate everyone involved at times, but ultimately the Pacers are better with Lance.

Next: Being thankful for these Indiana Pacers

But why worry about the stats, his contract, or even the wins and losses? Just sit back and enjoy the Lance Stephenson Show. It’s a helluva ride.