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Right now the Pacers have the most insanely deep forward rotation potentially in the whole league.

George, West, Granger, Scola, Copeland, Rasual, and rookie Solomon Hill (listen, I hated the Plumlee pick but I have a good feeling about Solomon Hill. He'll come along and be a player. Bird is the word.)

How can the Pacers possibly divide up the minutes that these guys will need? Well let's look at it;

1. Playing George at the 2. This will require a healthy balance of Stephenson's minutes and rotations. I think that for about 8 minutes a game, George will be on the floor with a center, a point guard, and then almost any two of the West/Granger/Scola/Copeland group.

2. Bringing Stephenson off the bench in certain situations. If Granger comes back fairly decently, then there are a number of great arguments for bringing Stephenson off the bench - you can start george and granger, and then stephenson gets minutes and the forward platoon goes back to having a deluxe guy. This helps balance rotations, as you're getting George's shooting guard minutes out of the way early on, leaving you lots of options with Stephenson - sub him in for whichever guy is underperforming thus far, and just shift back around to his turn.

Copeland I think will play mostly garbage time, but if Granger gets injured, he's the main beneficiary. Crazy thing is, there's a chance the Pacers got a total buckethead in Copeland and he'll be our bench scorer we needed.

Ultimately, I would like to see, by the second half, the following starting lineup and minute distribution

Point guard: George Hill (34) CJ Watson (14)
Shooting guard: Paul George (18) Lance Stephenson (30)
Small forward: Danny Granger (22) Paul George (20) Chris Copeland (6)
Power forward: David West (30) Luis Scola (15) Chris Copeland (3)
Roy Hibbert (32) Ian Mahinmi (16)


Paul: 38 mpg
Hill: 34 mpg
Hibbert: 32 mpg
West: 30 mpg
Stephenson: 30 mpg
Granger: 22 mpg
Mahinmi: 16 mpg
Scola: 15 mpg
Watson: 14 mpg
Copeland: 9 mpg

Ain't that a beautiful 10-man symphony? I hope so. Obviously, injuries and missed games throw the numbers around, and guys like orlando johnson and solomon hill will get real garbage minutes, this is roughly the real-game distribution we should expect. Hill/George/Granger/West/Hibbert start, then you give West and Granger a break and sub in Stephenson and Scola. hill/stephenson/george/scola/hibbert. Hibbert will need rest, so bring back in West and Mahinmi, along with CJ Watson, Stephenson, and George. Ride that for a few minutes.

Then occasionally mix in hybrid hill/stephenson/granger/west/hibbert lineup to give george a rest without sacrificing too much of his time. then you can bring backups for whoever is necessary when you put george back on and drop out granger.

If necessary, you can go to the hill/stephenson/george/granger/hibbert fun-and-gun. Hibbert gets those offensive rebounds, so might as well take shots. that would be a fun lineup to play with once in a while. I mean, Roy Hibbert is manning the defense, why not? You've got an ultra-rim protecting big, you've got 4 guys who can shoot and do it all.

Even better, I like to see a Watson/Stephenson/Copeland/Scola/Mahinmi lineup for a bit. That's my backup crew if we decide to do a little on/off (which is crazy, you can't do it)

Pacers are going to the win the championship

I doubt Mahinmi plays more minutes than Scola. I would expect to see some Scola and West together like last year when Vogel played Tyler and D. West. I dont in particular like that lineup but it will happen. I also expect to see HIbbert for about 35-38 minutes.

We are unbelievably stacked.
I put together ten nice combinations easily.

I hope we do not need anyone to play in the upper thirtys in the regular season. I think Danny and Scola play in the mid to upper twenties.
We should have a good number of lop-sided games that give plenty of clean up time for the youngsters.

Looks like we are preparing ourselves for a post DG era.

I'm sure the Pacers will also try playing George Hill and C.J. Watson together--if that combo works, then it will even further reduce the minutes available for other wing players.

As it is, Paul George/Granger/Stephenson (if all are healthy) will leave very few minutes available to anyone else at the wings. My bet is that Hill ends up getting a good chunk of what is left over. I can't see much time at all available for Solomon Hill or Orlando Johnson. And not much for Copeland at small forward either, although he'll likely get some time in as a stretch power forward. But the minutes at power forward are going to be tight, too, as long as West and Scola are both around.

I can't help but feel like the injury bug will sink it's teeth into our near perfect set up we have. Knock on wood.

Butler just has a training camp invitation contract. don't do more than pencil him in. he and OJ could be playing for the same roster spot. there are other training camp guys in that mix too.

Starkiller wrote:I can't help but feel like the injury bug will sink it's teeth into our near perfect set up we have. Knock on wood.

Injuries will happen if we're prepared or not. I'm much happier that we appear to be prepared this year. To have Copeland able to pull more minutes, as well as Solo Hill waiting in the wings makes me feel a lot better.


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