Hollinger's Projections

[cdash]

Outlook
Nobody is talking about this team at all, but if Ford can stay upright for 65 games or so, the Pacers are going to surprise a lot of people. Indiana was a decent team a year ago, even with the injuries, and should be better this year thanks to the offseason facelift. Ford is potentially a 20-10 point guard who should provide plenty of opportunities for Granger, Dunleavy and Murphy to fire away from long range, while the frontcourt will survive the loss of O'Neal with a mix of Foster, Hibbert, Murphy and Nesterovic.
Plus, the Pacers are deep. Rush, Jack, Murphy and Hibbert make for a strong second unit, while the end of the bench has useful talents like Baston, Diener, Williams and Marquis Daniels. The fact that one of these players won't even dress if everyone is healthy shows just how deep they go. And as fast as the Pacers play, they might all see action. Finally, remember that this analysis doesn't include whatever they might get in return for Tinsley, who presumably will bring back some kind of warm body if and when the Pacers eventually trade him.

Obviously Ford's health is the key; I projected him to play three-quarters of a season; Foster, the other injury-prone Pacer, is also important given his defensive value and the fact that O'Neal is gone. But Indiana is deep enough to survive their likely absences as long as they aren't gone for too long, and the combination of Ford's pace and the torrid outside shooting is going to knock a lot of opponents on their heels.

Between the trade for Ford and the cap space they have coming after the season, the Pacers seem ready for a bit of a rebirth. Emphasis on "a bit." No, they won't be reliving their glory days from earlier this decade, but it seems more likely than not that they'll return to the playoffs. And with any luck, that will be enough to get a few more fans back in Indy's seats.




Prediction: 41-41, 3rd in Central Division, 7th in Eastern Conference

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/trainingcamp08/columns/story?columnist=hollinger_john&page=PacersForecast0809

Sorry, I'm new at posting links so I dont know if I did it right. More importantly, there is finally someone that sees the Pacers as a sleeper! The article is actually a pretty good read, and he raises a lot of issues we have talked about on the board at one point or another.

[Miller4ever]

Man, I've never really liked Hollinger because of his statistics fixation. Here, though, he makes a good point without using useless numbers (rebounds/number of eggs eaten for breakfast ratio, say) to make his point. I'm not sure if Foster is out injury-prone Pacer that he's thinking about though...

[Dunthreevy]

Good read. I'm glad he quickly mentioned something that not many people have talked about...

"The fact that one of these players won't even dress if everyone is healthy"

It seems like while a lot of P's fans are optimistic, people aren't really thinking about not just the possibility, but the likelihood that we're going to have injuries. It happens, and while I'm still confident that we have a real shot at snagging one of those last couple of playoff spots in the East, it wouldn't surprise me at all to see Ford, Foster, Murphy, Diener, and Daniels miss 10 or more games each this season considering their pasts. We better hope that our depth is really as good as we think it is because from what has been proven from our vets, the only 2 guys I could see giving us 82 games or close to it are Granger and Jack.

I can't wait for the season to start!!!!!

[Gremz]

Finally some love for the team. This is definately some positive thinking for once. I've really struggled to grasp the negative press so far when Ford instantly makes this better than what is what last year with so many guys M.I.A. I just hope we can keep a trouble free season and look to mave great strides towards the future.

[mizzoupacers]

Here, though, he makes a good point without using useless numbers

I echo that--his statistical analysis here is a good read, particularly some of the defensive numbers from last year. I had no idea we led the league in taking charges, and fourth-best in shots allowed per possession is a good number too.

Hollinger is a little off-key here and there--Murphy is pretty clearly going to start rather than be part of our bench, for example--but all in all, I learned some things from his article, and its nice to see a somewhat optimistic assessment of the team's chances this season.

[JarrettJackSG]

Huh, he seems to think our starting lineup would be

Ford
Dunleavy
Granger
Foster
Rasho,

with smallball being played as

Ford
Rush
Dunleavy
Granger
Murphy..

????

[chatard5]

I just read this on ESPN.com and thought it was very interesting. I was going to post it because I thought it was new (on ESPNs front page) and then I saw that it was written in September and found it on here. But I thought this was very interesting, and 41-41 in a rebuilding year isn't too bad.

[HicksvsKnicks08]

Yeah,

But after last night, He might re-adjust his projections

Ouch, looked horrible last night

[europa]

It's nothing short of amazing the 180 degree turn Hollinger has done on Ford. He absolutely blasted the Raptors for trading for him and mocked Toronto for putting such faith in Ford. Then last year he was calling Ford an All Star prior to his injury and now he ranks him among the Top 5 PGs in the game. I give Hollinger credit for waking up and realizing Ford is a pretty damn good PG whose game has made improvements every year of his career. I'd give him a lot more credit if he manned up and admitted he was way off base when it came to his analysis of the Ford-Villanueva trade - a move that clearly made one team (Toronto) much better and made the other (Milwaukee) worse.