Lance Stephenson remorse?

[8305]

Don't look now but we've won 5 of 6. No wins against what I'd consider to be an elite team but there were a couple of respectable road wins in there. More to the point we've moved ahead of Charlotte in the standings. Lance is struggling almost as much as the team he plays for and it would appear that the combination of Stuckey and Solo might team up very nicely with Paul George next year.

This franchise took a lot of heat when it seemed like the Pacers were low balling Lance compared to the money Gordon Hayward and Chandler Parsons got. Do they look a little smarter today? They would never let on at the time but, is it possible they got the outcome some in the organization might have wanted all along when Lance moved on?

[pacers33granger]

I think regardless of Lance's play we shouldn't get any heat for the deal we offered him as it was slightly more than the deal he took (only other offer he got) and for more years (which seemed to be his issue).

I've always felt that losing Lance would be fine in the short term, but could be potentially bad in the long term. He's got a ton of potential, but as we saw he was largely a neutral player on the court or negative value (though that's not to discount all the times he was positive value).

I think Lance was also insulated and protected more here than he will be anywhere else. People in the organization knew him and some defended him constantly (mostly Bird) and we had several other guys who could take the heat. Now he's the big free agent signing on a team that was expected to be a pseudo-contender. Fair or not, the spotlight is going to be on him and his performance. It won't be Al Jefferson's fault there, but it was usually Roy Hibbert's fault here (perception at least).

[8305]

I think Lance and his agent thought he was being low-balled by the Pacers. When that happens often you lose the guy even to a lesser offer. My recall is that most people pegged Lance as a 10-12 mil guy going into free agency. The Charlotte people were overjoyed after offering Hayward the max and ultimately getting Lance at the significantly lower number.

I absolutely agree as the short term/long term aspects of losing him but I'm not convinced he ultimately develops the maturity needed to lead a team to significant success. And, there will be pain for whoever is trying to get there with Lance in the meantime.

[Jake0890]

I think if we could do it all over again, I'd still want Lance back. He should still be a Pacer, imo. Seems like we might have missed our shot. Had all these young guys on cheap rookie deals, a solid point guard, and a vet power forward leader with a deep bench (on paper at least) and we came up short, time and time again.

Bu I guess with that all said, all of these injuries and the loss of Lance has shown exactly how much our bench players CAN do when given the opportunity. I'd put money on Vogel getting them more court time and more involved in the offense even when we're passed all the injuries. And Solomon Hill's emergence may have never even happened if Lance was still here or if George never broke his leg.

It's a double edged sword really. Did we miss our chance at a Finals or were the injuries and Lance's departure the best thing for the team? I dunno.

[EuroPacer]

I am a massive fan of Lance, but I don't think he was worth more than we offered him. Right now he could have been carrying us through this season but you have to ask yourself if that is just because we were missing a ball handler early on.

What is happening at the moment though, in my mind, puts massive pressure on George Hill - AJ Price can come in and get these guys firing, Hill will have to show he can do the same when he comes back.

All in all the start to this season couldn't have worked out better for us though, I really hope Vogel now learns to appreciate the depth in his squad because that has been an issue for some time.

[8305]

If Lance were here I think there's a pretty good chance he'd be trying to do too much on offense. He would then be more inclined to think defense was everyone else's job. Under those circumstances I don't know that we would be any better than we have been. Sloan, Stuckey and Price have all been a little sticky with the ball but overall the team has been willing to share it and that has been a positive.

I hadn't thought about the pressure facing George Hill but, I think that's a good point. Donald Sloan has been the same kind of solid that we've come to expect from GH. Can GH get more from himself and the team than we've seen in the past? Interesting to see how that plays out.

[basketballwacko2]

I think we should have offered Lance a 3 yr deal at $9 million per flat rate. He would have taken that and then we would not have tossed $4.5 million per for 4 yrs at CJ Miles. Lance is not perfect but he'd be leading the team right now and if it got to the point that chemistry was terrible we could trade him. In effect we traded him for CJ Miles and Rudez.

[Scoot McGroot]

I think we should have offered Lance a 3 yr deal at $9 million per flat rate. He would have taken that...

I don't think so. Apparently, Bird floated that to him, and he outright rejected it.

In effect we traded him for CJ Miles and Rudez.

And Sloan, Cope, Scola, and Shayne this year. All guys we would've had to dump to clear salary to sign Lance to that deal. And $4m of additional savings over each of the next 2 years. Essentially, we got almost 2 MLE slots to work with over the next 3 years instead of Lance. Let's see who we can add next year, too.

[mikepacernation]

Not to worried about losing lance. He playing God awful over in Charlotte shooting 36 percent an 20 percent from 3s an 60 percent from the free throw line an has been benched quiet abit this season.


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[Jake0890]

Well here you have it (stolen from the GB):

[tweet]https://twitter.com/foxsportsreiter/status/538072694109900800[/tweet]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/foxsportsreiter/status/538072836108070912[/tweet]

[EuroPacer]

It's a very odd situation, isn't it? Is it a coincidence that Charlotte are struggling? They have a solid team that should have got better, not worse....

There has to be a reason Clifford is slagging Lance off all the time. I think we might see a shock-trade with Lance going to NYK in the summer.

[boomershadow]

Phil does like to take on those troublesome personalities: Kobe, Metta, Odom, Rodman, etc.

[Scoot McGroot]

Well here you have it (stolen from the GB):

[tweet]https://twitter.com/foxsportsreiter/status/538072694109900800[/tweet]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/foxsportsreiter/status/538072836108070912[/tweet]

Ya know, I think we all had read a similar thing into this, but for these tweets to come out now just strikes me as lazy shock journalism. Retrospect kind of stuff, and the such.

[pacers33granger]

It's a very odd situation, isn't it? Is it a coincidence that Charlotte are struggling? They have a solid team that should have got better, not worse....

There has to be a reason Clifford is slagging Lance off all the time. I think we might see a shock-trade with Lance going to NYK in the summer.

Seems that Clifford is hiding behind Lance's issues and letting him take the blame. I'm sure Lance isn't the guy he wanted in free agency, but he has to deal with what management gives him.

What Clifford should be saying is that MKG is a huge part of what they do and they miss him, Jefferson is still playing back from the injury, and they're working in several other new guys. Plus McBob did a lot for them last year and Williams is garbage.

This is what Bird meant by giving Lance the perfect environment. The Pacers didn't let Lance take all of the blame, but they made sure he didn't get away with crap at the same time. That is a real tough line to balance on and it's clear Clifford can't do that.

If anything Clifford should be calling out Kemba for being horrible all year after getting paid.

[pacers33granger]

Oddly enough one thing that hasn't gotten much press about Lance this season is that his agent did an absolutely horrible job in free agency. Somehow Lance and his family think that once Bird signed CJ Miles, the offer was gone, but Bird publicly said it was still on the table and was never taken off. And he's done a terrible job of helping Lance with PR.

I wouldn't be shocked if his agent is pissing off the Hornets management/staff too.

[EuroPacer]

Yeah good point on the agent, I haven't got a clue who it is, but not sure they have Lance's best interest at heart.

I do think it is a shame by the way, the kid really can be a superstar if he sorts out his head.

[8305]

It's a very odd situation, isn't it? Is it a coincidence that Charlotte are struggling? They have a solid team that should have got better, not worse....

There has to be a reason Clifford is slagging Lance off all the time. I think we might see a shock-trade with Lance going to NYK in the summer.

At the end of the day the pieces have to fit and I'm not sure Lance and a typical ball controlling point guard along with a low post guy who commands a good bit of ball control time in his own right is a good fit. On this Board I see myself among the lesser sophiticated yet I could see a potential problem with Walker and Lance. They both need the ball and a pure shooter to play off of them.

The Pacers on the other hand are populated by guys who generally understand that they have to fit into a system. On paper we shouldn't be better than Charlotte but I think we are.

[pacers33granger]

Yeah good point on the agent, I haven't got a clue who it is, but not sure they have Lance's best interest at heart.

I do think it is a shame by the way, the kid really can be a superstar if he sorts out his head.

http://ebanksandsattler.com/alberto-a-ebanks.html

That's his agent. A criminal practice attorney from New York. I just checked and his only clients are Lance and Kyle O'Quinn (I guess he's got some football guys too it seems). From his bio it looks like he did do some union stuff, but normal unions are not the same as the players' union.

From Googling him a bit it looks like he's represented some rappers too (noticed Fabolous back in 06), so that may be why Lance went with him, at least in part. Wouldn't be shocked if he took less of a cut than a major agent, which likely hurt Lance in the long run. Also I think he represented Lance before when he was younger too.

I obviously know little about the guy, but from looking up stuff on him he seems like your typical New York sleazebag lawyer. He's probably a good lawyer, but I don't think he's even able to zealously represent his clients as an agent. He clearly does not understand the CBA fully, I doubt he has connections that other agents have, he seems to talk in the press a lot, and he seems to be the point where communications broke down between Lance and the Pacers.

The whole situation reminds me a bit of when Master P decided to masquerade as an agent, and subsequently helped Ricky Williams flush his career down the toilet.

[boomershadow]

If you could give me Stuckey's offense and Lance's defense, I'd be sold.

[Grang33r]

When Lance signed with Charlotte, i read/heard somewhere that people in the know were sceptical of how much interest Bird/Pacers truly had in retaining Lance? It kind of made sense a new weeks later when a report came out about how Lance wanted to sign with Dallas because they showed more love then Indiana and he felt disrespected, and thats why he chose Charlotte once the Dallas deal fell through because of Parsons signing there.

So, i do see this being true that Lance was the problem child.

BUT, it doesn't fix the problem. Pacers were on the verge of winning a NBA title which a opportunity like that comes very rare. Now, even without the injury to Paul George, we wouldn't be considered a serious threat to win it all. They lost an important piece without replacing him. I like Stuckley when his game is on, but if we are to get back to that Championship caliber basketball, they will need to add another piece to that team.