I've been a big fan and backer of Bird...

[countryboy667]

but in his quest for more offense and a desire to play "small ball" (the current fashion trend in the NBA) he has produced a team that is not only mediocre, but is flat-out boring and will lose its best player when Paul George's contract is up. That's especially bad because Myles Turner is a good one, but he won't be able to carry this team by himself and he will leave in his turn.
I believe "small ball" is the flavor of the month because one freak outlier team, the Warriors, has been successful with it--but I believe because of the intrinsic nature of basketball, it is still in the long haul a big man's game. Somewhere down the line a team will go super big, win it all, and a new cycle will begin, returning the game to its roots.
Also, maybe firing Vogel and replacing him with McMillan, a bad fit from the get-go, wasn't such a great idea.
Comments?

[Cresy06]

I am also not a big fan of small ball, but it has proven to be effective in the last years. Sometimes you kind of have to adjust your style of play a little.
That being said, I'm also not a fan of what the Pacers are trying to do here. It feels like we're blindly following this trend, instead of going with what you have and building on that. Also, I never really liked McMillan as our headcoach.

[Pacersike]

Smallball can be effective if you can find the greatest smallball players before other teams do.
Golden State drafted Draymond Green and used him as center in their death lineup with Harrison Barnes at the 4.
Thompson and Iguodala have huge wingspans that allow them to guard taller players.

The problem the Pacers are facing is when they decided to go small, lot's of great smallball players were either drafted or signed by other teams. The Celtics have/had Bradley, Crowder, Olynyk, Sullinger, Horford. The Hawks had/have Horford, Millsap, Bazemore, Sefolosha, Scott, Muscala. Small guards with long arms who can defend bigger players and bigs who can knock down threes. Perfect for smallball.

The Pacers have Monta Ellis, who can't even guard players his size with his short arms. Al Jefferson, no comment. CJ Miles, got hurt when guarding bigger players. Stuckey, gets hurt while not guarding anyone. Thad Young, a significantly worse rebounder than Millsap, Sullinger, Green.

I do believe Myles Turner is a great piece to have for smallball. If you look at how he is shooting the three at such young age, he is going to be hard to match up against in the future. And defensively, he has enough tools to be a very good defender.

Another thing that worries me though are Paul George his turnovers, who come close to his assists numbers. Smallball requires great ball movement and too many of our players aren't good enough at passing the ball IMO.
Larry Bird was definitely not crazy when he said PG should try playing the 4 to get his turnovers down.

Again, this roster needs better pieces for it to be succesfull though and when you react to others in stead of act ahead of others, you might be a bit too late...

[heyPlayer]

Teague's need for rhythm in order to even attempt a shot really hurts the "small ball" style. PG, miles, cj, thaddeus, etc can all be non hesitant shooters and it puts the defense on its heals. Teague can't make a jumpshot if his life depended on it if he is even partially under coverage.