Eight Points, Nine Seconds — An Indiana Pacers Blog

Brandon Rush, Never One to Ignite the Passion, Also No Longer Helping Restore the Pride

by Jared Wade on August 27, 2010 at 2:27 pm

Pacers Restore the Pride

(Screenshot from Pacers.com)

Brandon Rush has been suspended five games for failing a drug test.

Rush has been suspended without pay for five games for violating the terms of the NBA/NBPA Anti-Drug Program. He started 64 games for the Pacers last season and averaged 9.4 points.

Failing one test (most likely for weed given the penalty, I say completely speculating) in the offseason might not be the worst thing in the world, some Pacers fans might say. But this was not his first time.

It was the third drug test Brandon has failed, as Mike Wells noted on Twitter.

Teams aren’t informed about the first 2 failed test. They don’t know about the situation until the player fails a 3rd time and is suspended.

Rich Nye the Sports Guy (who could be the center of a pretty good Bill Simmons/Bill Nye venn diagram) summed the whole situation up best in his Facebook status update.

Brandon Rush suspended 5 games for violating the NBA anti-drug policy. Seriously? I would really like to stop picking on the Pacers. But self-inflicted problems just don’t stop.

I make jokes because, really, what else is there to do at this point?

But, yeah, this is ridiculous.

The team spent the past several years in salary cap hell, and the ultimate payoff of living in that limbo of mediocrity was supposed to be having a team that could “restore the pride” and transform the Pacers into a team of citizens who fans could once again root for without feeling dirty. Management has spent the past several summers drafting mature, NBA-ready players, who while perhaps lacking the tremendous upside potential of some of their peers, would be men of character that the people of Indiana could be proud to applaud.

With Lance Stephenson, they deviated from that course and got a PR blackeye. And with this recent trouble for Brandon, someone who supposedly epitomized that ideal, they have gotten another one.

So it’s back to familiar territory: damage control.

Silver lining: by now the team probably at least has a PR crisis management expert on retainer. So there’s that.

Related Topics: Brandon Rush, Lance Stephenson

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Ball Don’t Lie Is Talking About Roy Hibbert

by Jared Wade on August 26, 2010 at 6:18 pm

dr-hibbert1

Trey Kerbz and Kelly Dwyer aren’t really telling us anything us Pacer followers don’t know, but there were a notable two Roy Hibbert mentions today on the co-#1 NBA blog out there (along with TrueHoop, naturally). So I figured we could talk about that since it’s boring old August and all.

Roy first appeared in the mid-tier of NBA centers on Dwyer’s “Ranking the Centers 30-1″ list. Specifically, Hibbert comes in almost dead center at #16.

Says Kelly:

16. Roy Hibbert, Indiana Pacers (last year: unranked)

Hibbert has had his growing pains, for sure. From fouling too much in his rookie year to serving as Pacer coach Jim O’Brien’s go-to screaming post in his second. But the Georgetown product has significant skills in the pivot, and don’t be surprised if Roy comes out of nowhere in 2010-11 to act as one of the better passing big men in the NBA. His growing ease with the high post, combined with his already potent low-post play gives Indiana a real up-and-comer.

Like I said, nothing here Pacer fans don’t know. And while I’m sure some Indy backers will put up a stink that Roy is ranked behind Anderson Varejao and Marcus Camby (and perhaps Okafor, too), there is a reasonable argument to be made either way.

The second mention was an Ol’ Yertdawgs joint about Roy Hibbert working with Bill Walton this summer. Again, we’ve known this for quite some time (although I don’t think we actually have mentioned it around these parts yet … mainly cause Tim Donahue is really lazy). And, of course, the actual reporting comes from Mike Wells, who told us about how Roy’s “eyes lit up like a 5-year-old on Christmas morning” when Larry Bird told him he could have his choice of working out this Summer with any of Walton, Kevin McHale or Bill Russell, the proud owners of a combined 16 championship rings if my math is correct. (I’m almost positive it is 2 + 3 + 11 … but whenever I do math in my head it sort of goes like this, so you should probably check my work.)

Now, I’m not sure if the decision was actually up to Hibbert (although Larry has a lot of pull with all three of those Hall of Famers so perhaps it was), but I probably would have also opted to learn from Bill if I was Roy.

For a few reasons.

First, none of these three legends are exactly spry anymore, but Russell is 76-years-old and probably hasn’t actually done a post move in a decade. So his teaching would likely be limited to just sage wisdom. That’s not a bad thing when we’re talking about a 6′9, NBA-version of Yoda who knows more about defense than General Patton, but, at this point in his development, Roy mostly requires help with his footwork, which has been really coming along on its own over the past 24 months.

Given that, McHale might seem the best choice. Along with Hakeem and Duncan, Kevin has the best low block moves of any player to grace the league in my lifetime. But his combination of quickness, deception and gorilla-dragging-his-knuckles-on-the-ground arm length make replicating anything he was able to do nearly impossible. Hibbert trying to learn post moves from McHale would be like an average Major League pitcher trying to learn how to throw like Randy Johnson from Randy Johnson. “Oh … So I see … I should just be 6′10, left-handed and hurl a 100 mph four-seamer that drops six inches while making the hitter think he is about to die from head trauma? OK … I’ll get right on that.”

Thus, Walton was the best fit. Sticking to that past paragraph metaphor, Roy learning from Big Red is like a normal Major League pitcher learning from Greg Maddux. The skill set seems, at least on paper, reasonably translatable.

Both are very, very tall. Both have touch around the hoop. And while even mentioning Roy in Walton’s class when it comes to big man passers is laughable, Hibbert is certainly above average in that regard.

Going back to Dwyer’s comments from earlier, he certainly does have a “growing ease with the high post.” At the beginning of last season, he was at times comically poor, holding … holding … holding the ball with his back to the hoop and just waiting for someone to come save him by taking a dribble hand-off. A dribble hand-off he would execute clumsily.

But by the end of the year, he was turning, facing and hitting cutters at times. No, the awkwardness never escaped him entirely. And, yes, the low block is where most Pacers fans should want to see him firmly planted most of the time. But there may be no big man on the planet more qualified to help Roy get comfortable holding the ball when he isn’t immediately trying to score than Mr. Sir Bill Walton himself.

Meanwhile, Bill was a master of the outlet pass, something that will come in handy in an high-pace offense on the few occasions Roy actually grabs a defensive rebound. Speaking of, Bill can help him with that, too. And, yeah, did I mention that Walton is a genius on the low block, too? Well, he is. Both hands. Hook shots off one or two feet. The works.

All and all, Roy can’t go wrong learning from Walton.

Trey sums it up well:

Yeah, there’s probably no better feeling than having Bill Walton hyperbolizing about how great you are at basketball. It’d be like living in a dream world of magic. Heck, I’d buy a 12-second Walton-ism for $50 if he offered such a service.

Who knows how much this is going to help Roy Hibbert, but if he learns even three defensive tricks from Walton, that’s good news for the Pacers. And, of course, it’s good news for Hibbert because, well, he got to hang out with Bill Walton all summer.

Honestly, the best part of this story, really, is just that Walton is up and about and even physically capable of helping Roy out. Not long ago, Bill was dealing with perhaps his most painful —at least emotionally — injury in a life full of way too many. His spinal pain got so bad that, according to Walton himself, he almost didn’t want to go on living.

“It got to the point where my life wasn’t worth living. I was standing on the edge of the bridge, figuring it was better to jump than to go back to where I was.

“You can’t understand until you’ve been where I’ve been.”

So, yeah, hopefully Roy has gotten a lot out of working with Bill this Summer.

But I have a feeling that one of the best ambassadors this sport has ever had might actually be the one enjoying it even more. Glad to see you back on your feet, Bill.

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Of Tweets and TJ and Ghosts of Point Guards Passed But Not Gone

by Tim Donahue on August 18, 2010 at 10:44 pm

The internet is an amazing, confusing place. It goes absolutely nowhere at a million miles an hour. It has destroyed the concepts of time, seasons, and personal boundaries. As a child growing up, I loved baseball in the summer, football in the fall, and basketball in the winter. At this time of year, I would have been dreaming about being Reggie Jackson, just a few weeks away from turning into Sweetness. It would have been months before I fantasized about swooping around the hardwood like Dr. J.

These days, I literally spend some time thinking about the Indiana Pacers and the NBA every day of the year. There’s been plenty to keep Pacer fans engaged – acquiring Collison, Danny Granger’s success with Team USA, and, sadly, Lance Stephenson’s arrest. And it certainly appears that Larry Bird isn’t done with the summer.

One of the big issues that is expected to be resolved before training camp is the future of T.J. Ford. The point guard has lost his starting job in each of the two years here, and reportedly danced a jig in front of his teammates when it appeared that he was going to be traded to Charlotte at the deadline. With an entire Pacer fan base wound up from all of the summer’s activity, it’s no wonder the following tweets from T.J. this morning caused a reaction.

Had a great talk yesterday with JOB!!!!

” God sends u through things to see how u will respond with ur faith ” sometimes it’s hard to believe. Thx u Jesus.. Blesses Day

Almost immediately, a thread opened on Pacers Digest to speculate on the meaning of these lines. I’ll be honest, I was swept up in it, too. I didn’t participate in the thread, but I did follow it closely. I was (and still am) baffled by this development.

To be honest, I am at a loss as to any “talk with JOB” not involving news of T.J.’s imminent departure from the Pacers that would make T.J. happy. At least, not one that I would think would actually realistically happen. I cannot see a conversation where O’Brien earnestly tells T.J. that he’s got a realistic shot at either the starting job or heavy minutes this coming season. The thought boggles my mind. The Pacers have done everything short of run a 24-hour ticker announcement on ESPN that they’re done with him, and now they’ve got Darren Collison.

I mean, can you see any realistic conversation that might make Ford happy to return to the Pacers this year?

At the same time, it doesn’t make a great deal of sense for O’Brien to be the guy letting him know that a deal was in the works.

But then, as I was trying put my thoughts together, I re-read the tweets – together.

Had a great talk yesterday with JOB!!!! “God sends u through things to see how u will respond with ur faith.” sometimes it’s hard to believe. Thx u Jesus. Blessed day.

And I thought, “Uhhhh…”

So, it seems like after T.J.’s great talk with JOB yesterday, he realized that God sends trials and tribulations to test man’s faith. It’s not unreasonable for Ford to have seen his struggles with the Indiana Pacers as a test of faith. It also seems that someone of Ford’s faith would probably seek solace in the Bible, specifically within the book that illustrates the story of a pious man who was tested by Satan himself – the Book of Job.

“Oh.”

Well, this is what I get for imbuing a 140-character social networking forum with way too much depth of meaning.

So, now I’m stuck. I have two alternate explanations for Ford’s tweets. One that hits deep in the sweet spot of the Pacers fan base and my interests, despite the fact that the conclusions drawn from this explanation create a mind-numbing amount cognitive dissonance, including the fact that it seems very unusual for Ford to refer to Jim O’Brien as “JOB” – an internet forum monicker that is unlikely to be used by his players or people around O’Brien. A second which has a much deeper, more significant meaning – which I am completely unqualified to discuss.

Yeah.

Right now, every instinct I have tells me that T.J. was actually sharing inspiration gained from reading the Bible, and that “JOB!!!!” is not Jim O’Brien, but Job. Because of this, I’m not going to dwell any further on the implications of the tweets themselves. Instead, it is still worthwhile to spend a few words on Ford’s future with the Pacers.

Or should I say, lack thereof?

The day the Collison trade was completed, there were reports that the Pacers were trying to buy out the last year of T.J.’s contract Ford was thoroughly uninterested, and it appears that the Pacers may have low-balled him, with the buyout amount being reported at only $5 million of the $8.5 million owed. I find it hard to believe that the Pacers expected that to actually work.

However, I am still firmly of the opinion that T.J. Ford has played his last game as a Pacer. At the time of the reported buyout offer, the Pacers Point Guard situation had Darren Collison as the apparent starter, a rapidly recovering A.J. Price as backup, and promising rookie Lance Stephenson as the third stringer. Since then, Lance may have butchered his future with the Pacers, but I still don’t think that changes the calculus here. The Collison trade created a $3.5 million Trade Exception at the same time as creating the same amount of space under the Luxury Tax. This leaves plenty of room to pick up a veteran point should Price not be ready and Stephenson prove…expendable.

O’Brien and Ford clearly mix like oil and water in terms of basketball, but both did an admirable job of keeping the situation from degenerating in the public eye. However, that seems likely to be tested to the point of breaking if they go into next season with this situation.

This Pacer locker room welcomes Darren Collison, James Posey, Paul George, and likely Magnum Rolle, as well as the hopefully healthy returns of second year players A.J. Price and Tyler Hansbrough. Add in young veterans Roy Hibbert, Brandon Rush, and Josh McRoberts, and cluster them all around Danny Granger, you begin to see a promising young core. A group that can begin to compete soon – this year – and hopefully grow towards contention over the next few years. I can’t imagine risking that dynamic by bringing a player who doesn’t fit either in the scheme, the future or, arguably, the locker room into the mix.

Now, some will say to hold onto his expiring contract as trade bait. I’m fine with that up until training camp, but no longer. The Pacers currently have over $28 million in “trade-able” expiring contracts, but there is no way they would want to trade all of them. That would mean basically rebuilding their payroll back to $70 million. This would be foolish because (a) it is difficult to tell what the new CBA will look like, (b) it would interfere with future year signings – such as Hibbert, Rush, and others coming off rookie contracts, and (c) a payroll that big is not really financially viable in Indianapolis.

Therefore, the Pacers could afford to forgo keeping Ford around as an expiring contract, effectively taking him as “savings.” In their place, if I am unable to trade Ford or negotiate a buyout prior to the start of training camp, then I would release him outright. I have nothing personal against Ford, but it makes no basketball sense or locker room sense to me to bring him back. This is a very aggressive move, and one the Pacers are likely to be hesitant to make, but I believe it’s a possibility.

In the meantime, Pacer fans will continue to wait and watch the summer unfold, in a virtual world where the daily inundation of blogs, posts, and tweets would surely test even the patience of Job.

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I may need divine inspiration to sort out T.J.’s tweets.