PACERS ARE A LEGIT THREAT TO WIN THE EAST

[BengalUND]

People are really sleeping on the Pacers. When you look at the roster, they don't have any holes at all. On offense, they have 5 players who averaged 15 or more points last year (Oladipo, Brogdon, Warren, Lamb, and Bitzade). Then on defense, they led the league in points allowed per game last year, and have Myles Turner who led the league in blocks, and Oladipo who led the league in steals in his last full season. They already won 48 games last year with a roster that I think was worse than the one they have going into this year. And with the Sixers, Celtics, and Raptors all losing players, the window is wide open for them to have a shot at winning the east. I also made a video talking about this, but no pressure to watch. I am just curious about what you guys think about the Pacers going into next year.

Watch on YouTube

[Grang33r]

Love your optimism. Welcome to the realgm forums!

[winter_mute_13]

I don't mind a bit of self promotion, but that title and video seem designed as clickbait.

[Scoot McGroot]

Quite optimistic. I will say, as much as you think that teams elsewhere have lost guys and gotten worse, you have to hold that against us too. Sure, we added Brogdon, Lamb, and Warren, but the losses of Bojan and Thad, and the steady yeoman hand of Collison will be missed too. Add in the loss of Oladipo until January-ish, and the question as to how we will be when he returns, and I think this is a learning and building year. Especially when you see that basically everyone we added or signed are on 3 year deals (though McConnell is on a 2 year). We played on a pace for the 6th or 7th seed last year after Vic went down. I’d bet we’re on a similar pace this year until he gets back.

[Wizop]

Read on Twitter

?s=19

Sent from my phone.

[Tom White]

People are really sleeping on the Pacers. When you look at the roster, they don't have any holes at all.

Maybe not....if and when VO comes back to full strength.

....they led the league in points allowed per game last year, and have Myles Turner who led the league in blocks, and Oladipo who led the league in steals in his last full season.

...and we lost one of our better defenders in Thad. Again, VO may only play half the season, and need some of that time to get back to full bore.

They already won 48 games last year with a roster that I think was worse than the one they have going into this year.

We have no idea how this roster will fit together until they play a number of games. This roster has not won any games yet, let alone 48 wins.

And with the Sixers, Celtics, and Raptors all losing players

This is the same mistake I see a lot of people making. Yes, those teams lost players. But, they also added players. By the way, the Pacers did the same thing. Lost some players/added some players.

I also made a video talking about this...

And now we get to the real point of your post. As was said previously in this thread, looks a lot like clickbait.

[Scoot McGroot]

I agree y’all. It’s clickbait in a way. But at least he added some thoughts in writing and what he was hoping to share, and the video expanded upon it. I’d let that slide any day around here.

[Topofthekey]

Yea, like everyone pointed out, definitely a little clickbaity, but then we could use more activity here, so... ok?

This is the same mistake I see a lot of people making. Yes, those teams lost players. But, they also added players. By the way, the Pacers did the same thing. Lost some players/added some players.

Well, its about the nett gain or loss

76ers
Gained: Al Horford, Josh Richardson
Lost: Jimmy Butler, JJ Reddick

Talent wise, Butler+Reddick definitely trumps Horford+Richardson

Celitcs
Gained: Kemba Walker
Lost: Kyrie Irving, Al Horford

Same, Kyrie+Horford > Kemba alone

Pacers
Gained: Malcolm Brogdon, TJ Warren, Jeremy Lamb, TJ McConnell
Lost: Thad Young, Bojan Bogdanovich, Darren Collison, Corey Joseph

I've left out Bucks and Raptors as I think the consensus is they've downgraded, but of the other tops teams in the East that gained and lost players, you can tell that although 76ers and Celtics tempered their lost a bit with new additions, but overall they're still worse off in terms of talent

Pacers otoh, got younger, more talented, and better at offense. We're definitely better off with the four players we gained than the four we lost, at worst you can call it a wash. The only thing that is a legitimate concern is losing Thad's defense and veteran presence, but I think the gains will more than make up for it

However, this is of course looking purely at roster changes on paper, in practice things can be quite different, when you take into consideration coaching, team fit, locker room chemisty, etc, so we'll really only know once the season starts

In my personal view though, 76ers is definitely a paper tiger. They'll still be one of the top teams in the East for sure, but I'm not counting on them winning it. Their starting 5 still has spacing issues, and their bench got worse. Celtics, otoh, may actually have improved, since it was obvious that they didn't mesh with Kyrie, and they've lost Rozier now so that's one less mouth to feed; if there's one team that could have benefited from addition by subtraction, it's them

So where does this all bring us?

We have a situation where the top teams in the East are basically at parity. Everyone has a legitimate chance to win the East (76ers, Bucks, Celtics, Raptors, Pacers, yes even Nets)

But if things go right for us, meaning if the new comers mesh well (probable), our defense maintains its potency (highly probable), Myles and Domas pairs well (slightly probable), and crucially Vic returns close to 100% (unknown), then I like our chances quite a bit over the other teams

And I forgot to mention, Goga too is another wildcard - at worse he needs a season or two to be ready, at best he steps in and becomes a contributor immediately, so that's another thing that can potentially give us a boost

[Scoot McGroot]

Don’t sleep on Josh Richardson in Philly. Guy is like an 85% Jimmy Butler, with none of the locker room combustibility and only a third of the price. I think Philly improved greatly this summer in terms of filling roles, removing combustibility, and, in adding Horford with Embiid, quality spacing and a situation where both guys can get proper load management all season long and still have a top notch big man in the game. And when you do that, Tobias is back at his pure PF spot.

[IMF]

Everything has to break the right way, but it’s not a crazy thought.

Philly is always an Embidd injury away from being a non-factor, a MILWAKUEE vs. INDIANA Eastern Final could be a hell of a series. They have the MVP but I like our roster much better after that.

[Topofthekey]

Didn't want to start a new thread for this, and not sure where to park this since there isn't a recent Myles Turner thread, so seems like a good idea to just park it under the thread with the most click-baity title

Who would you rather have, Myles Turner or Karl Anthony Towns?

1. If you're starting a team from scratch
2. If you're a playoff team trying to make a push
3. If you get to choose one for this current Pacers team

I was looking at the 2015 draft class, and I realized Myles could turn out to be the best player from that draft - certainly top 3

[Scoot McGroot]

9 times out of 10 I’d take KAT. He’s just such a dynamic super young big man. I love Myles, and don’t love how badly Butler got KAT down and kind of killed his fire, but he’s just so good. He’s got an offensive game like Hakeem, able to dictate and dominate play at every level, and not bad defensively.

[boomershadow]

9 times out of 10 I’d take KAT. He’s just such a dynamic super young big man. I love Myles, and don’t love how badly Butler got KAT down and kind of killed his fire, but he’s just so good. He’s got an offensive game like Hakeem, able to dictate and dominate play at every level, and not bad defensively.

Can't say I agree. It's not Hakeem's era anymore. Most teams take defense over offense at the center position because that's just what the modern game calls for. KAT might be a good offensive player, but that didn't even get Minnesota to the playoffs last year. An AMAZING offensive talent should at least be able to do that.

[Scoot McGroot]

9 times out of 10 I’d take KAT. He’s just such a dynamic super young big man. I love Myles, and don’t love how badly Butler got KAT down and kind of killed his fire, but he’s just so good. He’s got an offensive game like Hakeem, able to dictate and dominate play at every level, and not bad defensively.

Can't say I agree. It's not Hakeem's era anymore. Most teams take defense over offense at the center position because that's just what the modern game calls for. KAT might be a good offensive player, but that didn't even get Minnesota to the playoffs last year. An AMAZING offensive talent should at least be able to do that.

He's absolutely an amazing offensive talent. Might the absolute sheer management ineptitude of Thibodeau and the locker room explosion of Jimmy Butler have something to do with that?

[Tom White]

9 times out of 10 I’d take KAT. He’s just such a dynamic super young big man. I love Myles, and don’t love how badly Butler got KAT down and kind of killed his fire, but he’s just so good. He’s got an offensive game like Hakeem, able to dictate and dominate play at every level, and not bad defensively.

Can't say I agree. It's not Hakeem's era anymore. Most teams take defense over offense at the center position because that's just what the modern game calls for. KAT might be a good offensive player, but that didn't even get Minnesota to the playoffs last year. An AMAZING offensive talent should at least be able to do that.

He's absolutely an amazing offensive talent. Might the absolute sheer management ineptitude of Thibodeau and the locker room explosion of Jimmy Butler have something to do with that?

You are right. That roster has had some absolute poison on it.

[Nuntius]

If Dipo was healthy, I'd agree with you. But he isn't so this year is mostly a lost year for us. Lost doesn't equal hopeless, though. This is the year where we're going to play our young guys, where we will see if the Domas/Myles pairing work (including with checking if Goga fits with either Myles or Domas) and where we're going to try out all sorts of things. We won't make any deep playoff run without Dipo but we are going to get all the info we need about the players on our roster so we can determine what we need to make a deep playoff run next year.

Now, I want to touch on two other things you mentioned.

1) Goga's scoring. He can definitely score and I expect him to be a good offensive player at the NBA level but you can't really say that he averaged X points last year since he didn't play in the NBA. He definitely has the offensive ability to do that in the future but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

2) Philly didn't lose anything this off-season, imo. They upgraded. Horford is a much better fit with them than Butler was.

[Wizop]

If Dipo was healthy, I'd agree with you. But he isn't so this year is mostly a lost year for us. Lost doesn't equal hopeless, though. This is the year where we're going to play our young guys,

certainly could be a lost year, but it really is too early to tell. I agree 100% that Dipo's health is the issue and the longer he is not himself, the more the young guys should play. at this point though, we just don't know.

[Nuntius]

If Dipo was healthy, I'd agree with you. But he isn't so this year is mostly a lost year for us. Lost doesn't equal hopeless, though. This is the year where we're going to play our young guys,

certainly could be a lost year, but it really is too early to tell. I agree 100% that Dipo's health is the issue and the longer he is not himself, the more the young guys should play. at this point though, we just don't know.

I'm operating under the assumption that Dipo won't be back until the new year and that he won't be 100% right out of the gate. If he only gets 100% healthy at around March then our seeding would be more or less locked in.

[Wizop]

I'm operating under the assumption that Dipo won't be back until the new year and that he won't be 100% right out of the gate. If he only gets 100% healthy at around March then our seeding would be more or less locked in.

you know what they say about assumptions. I'm not disagreeing with your reasoning if the assumption proves accurate. however, as I post every summer, this is the time of the year for all fans to be optimistic.

[Nuntius]

I'm operating under the assumption that Dipo won't be back until the new year and that he won't be 100% right out of the gate. If he only gets 100% healthy at around March then our seeding would be more or less locked in.

you know what they say about assumptions. I'm not disagreeing with your reasoning if the assumption proves accurate. however, as I post every summer, this is the time of the year for all fans to be optimistic.

Oh, I agree. I'm definitely optimistic. We're going to see that Domas/Myles combo at work and that's all I wanted