Reasons for Optimism.

[Donerik]

For a long time I've been a fan of the wages of wins journal's metric based insights into basketball. So the other day I was catching up on a summer's worth of wages of win posts and I saw that Troy Murphy made their list of most under paid players. http://dberri.wordpress.com/2009/08/04/ ... n-2008-09/

At number seven they value troy murphy very highly because he rebounds and scores, while improving greatly from 07-08' to 08-09'.

As much as we like to malign TMurda for not playing defense. Maybe he's not a defender but he is very good.

Another reason I'm optimistic was the drafting of Tyler Hansbrough, not because I expect him to be a game changer but because I expect him to be average. If you read this article http://dberri.wordpress.com/2009/03/29/ ... be-bryant/ you'll come to the part where it details that Danny is much more productive at the 3 than the 4.

This makes me happy because now with Queezy gone, Tyler in and our team a bit more forward heavy this will free up Danny to play his more productive position Small Forward.

Statistically Mike Dunleavy is very good; and he claims to be pain free for the first time via his blog. In this wages of wins article he discusses why Mike Dunleavy's net production is that of a star status player. http://dberri.wordpress.com/2008/01/16/ ... r-in-indy/ If Mike Dunleavy returns to his former self it will be a shot in the arm to this team.

The WoW season ending(ish) (66 of 82 game) article http://dberri.wordpress.com/2009/03/12/ ... n-indiana/ talks about Danny Granger a lot, From what I've heard Danny is continuously working on many of the areas he needs to improve. So not only do I think Danny can't score much more in each game I think he should pump up his other stats a bit.

All of this with some of the improvements we have made to our Defense and Energy have left me hopeful that our pacers will return to the playoff hunt.

[fienX420]

Also a big Wages of Wins fan. Regarding Murphy, I posted this link before, but here it is again...

http://www.wagesofwins.com/Top152009.html

Troy Murphy had the number 1 rank for power forwards and the number 7 rank overall. Obviously, this is just based on one season. But it shows that we would likely have been a 20 win team without his contribution.

I think we'll see a potent Troy, Mike, and Danny combo this season. If we can get solid play from the center and point guard positions, we'll be good.

[joeshmoe]

Well according to win score we need help at the SF position as well.

[fienX420]

Yeah, I love Danny, but he is vastly over-rated by the general Pacers fan population. He has the potential to be awesome, but he still needs to improve his rebounding and defense a lot. Also, if we can keep him at the 3, that'll help a bunch.

[Gremz]

There's always reason for optimism. Only 2 seasons of salary restraints!

[Dunthreevy]

taken from Jim O'Brien's recent "letter to the fans"

"Mike Dunleavy described Dahntay as the best individual defensive player he's ever seen and that certainly is a heck of a statement to make."

That's definitely a hell of a statement. I don't know how much weight we can put behind it, but for Mike to make a statement like that says a lot of Dahntay's defense. I'm wondering how long it's going to take for us to actually see this new defensive attitude's effect on the team's performance.

[chatard5]

I liked the wordpress read, although I don't believe a lot of it (like a player should be paid nearly $50 million.... Hmmmm....) It was still interesting. I remember most Pacer people (I don't know about this board, but in general) thought we got a pretty good deal for Harrington. Now they consider him extremely overpaid.

I wonder what kind of money JO will get. I think he will actually be underpaid a lot after this year. If he wasn't part of the "evil past" I would think he'd be a good pick-up for the bench, for the right money, obviously. A guy to help out Hibbert and come off the bench as a potential multi-tool threat. His knees could be finished though, and so would he.