The CBA is a contract. And when a contract ends, the offer for the next one is only tangentially based on the end point of the deal. It is also greatly influenced by how the offering party feels about the value received in the previous contract, as well as the value they think they will get in the future.

In these terms, a CBA could be viewed as similar to individual player contracts.

It’s hard to find a perfect real-life example, but for perspective, consider two current two free agents: Nene and Mike Dunleavy, Jr. Nene made $11.3 million last season while Dunleavy made $10.6 million. Nene is an emerging, athletic center. He is highly coveted on the market. Dunleavy is a solid, but flawed role-playing wing. He will be hoping to find a soft landing from a steep descent in pay.

The players consider themselves Nene.

The owners consider the players closer to Dunleavy.

Related posts:

1. CBA Talk: The System, Not Stupid Contracts, Creates Wasted Payroll
2. CBA Talk: Why the Owners Might Move Enough to Get the Players to Meet Them in the Middle
3. CBA Talk: Why a Luxury Tax Isn’t My Idea of the Answer

Luis Scola shoots over Josh McRoberts as the Rockets blow out the Pacers (courtesy Pacers.com).

One word has come to mind lately regarding the Pacers.

Unwatchable.

In recent games this team has reverted back its late December-January form, where they managed a 3-12 stretch that included seven double-digit losses. Late February-March has so far brought a 1-5 mark, with three double-digit losses.

Saturday night the Pacers continued their poor play with a 112-95 loss at Houston. It wasn’t nearly that close. The Pacers were dominated thoroughly for three quarters, with Houston leading 94-68 after 36 minutes. Kevin Martin scored 20, Chase Budinger 18, Kyle Lowry 18, Luis Scola 16, Courtney Lee 13 and Goran Dragic 12 for the Rockets. That’s 97 points from that fearsome half dozen.

The Pacers starters were simply awful in this game. Besides helping Houston find all kinds of good looks that led to a 65-point first half, the Indiana starters shot a combined 19-50 for the game. It all added up to another uncompetitive loss. With the way this team has been playing lately, sounding the fire alarm can come none too soon.

There have been many suggestions that interim coach Frank Vogel would not fiddle with his rotation. The problem with that thinking is that the rotation already was drastically altered with the injury to Mike Dunleavy.

Dunleavy is an easy whipping boy for critics of the Pacers. Despite his talent, he’s never lived up to the billing of the third pick in the NBA draft. The past few years he has also suffered serious injuries that have stunted his abilities. That is unfortunate since the Pacers offense works best with Dunleavy on the floor. His passing and shooting skills have been sorely missed in recent games as the Pacers offense has ground to a screeching halt on multiple occasions.

Brandon Rush is not the answer. He’s only starting to preserve a second unit that seems to be losing some steam now that the starters are struggling. It may well be time to throw Paul George in at the deep end and see if he can give the Pacers more production as a starter. George is still raw. The talent is breathtaking, but anyone who says he can be this franchise’s next Reggie Miller is getting way ahead of himself. He’s a rookie, who is going to make rookie mistakes, but this is not a case of giving him more playing time because he’s a young guy. He simply may be the best available shooting guard.

For that matter, it may be time to return Tyler Hansbrough to the starting lineup because of his scoring ability. Yes, the ball stops when it hits Hansbrough’s hands, but he seems to give the team as much energy as anybody else on the floor. He too will make rookie mistakes, but he’s probably the best power forward option available right now.

A move to Hansbrough would not be an indictment of Josh McRoberts. In fact, McRoberts is still a solid contributor on most nights. Something that had to be in question after the failed Indiana-Memphis-New Orleans trade that included McRoberts. It just seems he fits best as a bookend to Dunleavy in the starting lineup. Those two work well together as facilitators of the offense with their passing skills.

Right now the pieces just don’t fit. George and Hansbrough may be square pegs into the proverbial round holes, but you’ve got to try something different when the ship is sinking. Since the Dunleavy injury and aborted trade that’s exactly what’s happening. The Pacers have not turned into the Titanic yet, but icebergs do surround them.

None of this means the Pacers won’t make the playoffs. The teams around them in the standings are equally flawed and uninspiring. For all the strengthening of the top of the Eastern Conference this year, the bottom of the bracket remains far inferior to the West.

What we’re seeing here in the Pacers is an unfinished product. Vogel is a rookie coach who got the interim job years before he would have otherwise have been considered for a head coaching gig. Going to him was the right move because Jim O’Brien had run out of answers and overstayed his welcome. The Dunleavy injury and failed trade came just as the schedule started to toughen up a bit. Vogel’s degree of difficulty went way up after that. If he can get the team in its current state to the playoffs it has to be viewed as a success story.

An outsider would say that this team is fatally flawed if Dunleavy’s injury is such a big deal. That’s probably true. Expect the Pacers to use their cap room by shopping for a starting-quality shooting guard and a starting-quality power forward in the offseason. If George and Hansbrough end up being the answers at those spots, the team will gladly take any influx of new talent and do cartwheels that it has some real depth.

The more disturbing questions may come about when looking at the futures of Danny Granger, Roy Hibbert and Darren Collison.

Granger is clearly the team’s best player, but may be destined to be the next Chuck Person. A player with superb talent that is not a number one option or perhaps even a number two option on a good team. If that’s the case, Granger’s trade value should be ascertained immediately following the season.

Hibbert was thrust into a team leader role this year that he clearly was not yet ready for. Several people that follow the Pacers have compared him to a younger Rik Smits, who eventually became one the franchise’s best players. Hibbert is way too inconsistent to be compared with Smits. However, patience with big men — especially someone with Hibbert’s talent — is usually advisable.

Collision is still very young. In fairness to him he should probably be viewed through the same lens as George and Hansbrough. Collison needs to pick it up on both ends of the floor, but would likely benefit from a true point guard to back him up. A.J. Price is a nice player, but he’s really a short two guard.

What’s the key for this team to find the will and attitude to make a playoff run? The easy answer is play better defense, but as our statistical guru will tell you, the defense is already decent. It’s the offense that needs to be fixed. The Pacers don’t have enough offensive weapons on the roster. Maybe it’s time to use the ones they have in the starting lineup together and see what happens.

Related posts:

1. Game #47 Recap – Speaking Frank-ly
2. Game #10 Recap – Want It, Need It, Got It
3. Game #33 Recap – 1 for 15

Not only that, they reinforced the notion that it’s really hard to shoot well against them by holding Charlotte to 41.4% shooting, including a dreadful 3-for-17 (17.6%) from behind the arc. Like the loss in Milwaukee, however, the Pacers did not take care of the glass, giving up 16 offensive rebounds to the Bobcats (9 of which were hauled in by Boris Diaw and Gerald Wallace). They need to work on that. Josh McRoberts in particular seems to always be on the court when the other team is getting second-chance points. That’s concerning. (And it’s something we’ll delve into more soon. Stay tuned.)

But getting back to positive news, the whole team shot very well from three, sticking 13 of their 31 attempts. Brandon Rush (4/8), James Posey (3/6), Mike Dunleavy (3/6) and McRoberts (2/4) all hit 50% of their long-range tries.

Against such a weak front line, you would also have liked to see the team pound it inside to Roy Hibbert more. He did make 6 of 11 shots, but the fact that he only earned a single free-throw attempt is disheartening. Still, on a night when he dropped he had 14 boards, 6 assists and 3 blocks to go along with his 13 points, we can forgive such a venial sin. The big guy played well. One assist in particular stood out. He was drifting across the lane and caught a pass while off-balance. Then, as soon as he gathered the ball, he left a pretty little drop-off pass to a cutting Darren Collison who finished in the paint. It was lovely. (DC, meanwhile, had 7 assists of his own — the most he has recorded since an 11/23 win over the Cavaliers.)

We can’t just totally gloss over the the issue of not getting to the free-throw line team-wide, however. Tonight, the D was strong and the threes were raining. But at least that second factor is not always reliable. If Posey and Dunleavy don’t hit two big threes late in the fourth quarter, the Bobcats might very well have turned this into a game that could have been a toss-up in the final minute.

Had the Pacers gotten to the line more than 18 times throughout the contest, however, they could have used some free points to extend the margin. These are the little differences between being an average team and a good team. The Pacers really are starting to look like a good team.

But if they could find a way to get to the line once in a while, it would go a long way towards instilling some real confidence — in me, in the rest of the NBA outlookers  and in the team itself  — that they truly can beat any team on any night even if they don’t play at their absolute best.

Something to work on.

Related posts:

1. Game #11 Recap: Blown Out by the Bobcats
2. Game Recap #37: Pacers Beat the Best National Basketball Association Team in Canada
3. How the Pacers Beat the Heat

I’ve never seen an NBA team play a better quarter.

The Pacers scored 54 points in the third tonight. They made 20 of the 21 shots they took — the lone miss coming on a Josh McRoberts three-point attempt with just four seconds left in the period. In the process, Mike Dunleavy turned the game into his own personal Dante’s Inferno, scorching the earth to the tune of 24 points in the quarter. He didn’t miss from the field and hit all 5 threes he took, even falling down after the release on one occasion as he ball tickled the twine and Roy Hibbert lost his damn mind on the bench.

It was about as close to perfect as an offense can be. Pacers color commentator Quinn Bucker summed it up suburbly: “That’s as good of a shooting exhibition as you’re going to see in basketball — ever … It was a sight to see.”

Getting into that “ever” question, this onslaught was tied for the fourth-best scoring quarter in NBA history, according to Henry Abbott of TrueHoop. Top honors go to the Buffalo Braves for racking up 58 points in the fourth quarter of an early-season game on October 20, 1972 — and somehow still losing to the mighty, Dave Cowens-led Celtics by 8 points. (That Dr. Jack Ramsey-coached Braves squad also notably finished a lowly 21-61. Ouch.) The pre-Tim Hardaway Warriors dropped 57 in the third against the Sacramento Kings on March 4, 1989, on the strength of a 47-point game from the always-underrated Mitch Richmond and a 34-point outburst from Chris Mullin. Just two seasons later, the Phoenix Suns matched that feat with a 57-point quarter of their own in the second on November 10, 1990, against these very same Denver Nuggets — something that was all the more impressive considering the Suns opened that game by piling up 50 points in the first period.

That’s right Nuggets fans, your team once gave up 107 points in a half — an NBA record for defensive futility over 24 minutes. By comparison, this doesn’t even look all that bad.

So … there’s that.

For those who prefer to get their context from graphics instead of history, just look at the top of the post. That is Indiana’s shot charts for the third quarter. As someone (I forget who … sorry) said during tonight’s ESPN’s Daily Dime Live chat, it looks like someone spilled a bag of marbles Indiana’s side. Glorious, blue, victory marbles. (Dunleavy’s shot chart is pretty stellar as well, particularly when contrasted with that of JR Smith, who also had to go muck up the pretty Pacers side of the image by missing a 60-foot heave at the buzzer. Classic JR.)

Or … For those of you more into photojournalism, take a look at these pictures. That was essentially what happened to the Nuggets for 12 minutes on November 9, 2010.

The Pacers went grizzly.

Here’s the full Indiana play-by-play from ESPN for what will almost certainly forever be the best quarter in franchise history.

Related posts:

1. Game #17 Recap: They Just Can’t Score
2. The Lamp Post: Third Quarter of Death
3. Game #18 Recap: They Just Can’t Score, Vol. II

Glossary: Offensive Rating | Defensive Rating | eFG% | Pace

The easiest thing to do would be to simply cut and paste yesterday’s preview, and change the names to protect the innocent.  However, it’s really hard to find any innocents.  Yesterday, the Pacers were trying to snap a three-game losing streak.  Today, it’s a four-game skein they’re trying to halt.

Over the last two losses, the Pacers have added all around horrible defense to the litany of offense woes I detailed yesterday.  They’ve been particularly badly exploited in pick and rolls, but the failures have not been limited to that.  Rather than launch into a lengthy attempt to rationalize an increasingly irrational situation, I think I’ll just give you some things to look for tonight, and start preparing for Thanksgiving.

• In the second half last night, Danny returned to his All Star form by scoring 22 points and helping the Pacers to cut 16 points off of a 21-point halftime deficit.  The effort fell short, but the important question is, “Can he do it again?”  He was only 3/12 in the first half, and he’s shot under 40% in 7 of the 12 games this season.

• Roy Hibbert is expected to return to the line up after seeing only short minutes in the Toronto game.  Matchups were the cause of his limit last night, but that shouldn’t be an issue against the Clippers.  L.A. starts the 7’0″ Chris Kaman and the 6’11″ Marcus Camby on their front line, and bring the 7’0″ DeAndre Jordan off the bench.  O’Brien has been non-committal, though, and it may be a game time decision.

• Hoosier native Eric Gordon is questionable for tonight’s game with a strained groin that has cause him to miss eight of his team’s 15 games.  He was averaging almost 19 points per night on over 50% shooting before going down.  Rasual Butler has taken his place in the starting lineup.

• Baron Davis has stayed healthy this year, but he’s still exhibiting that questionable shot selection, shooting a paltry 38% from the floor and 29% from beyond the arc.

• Surprisingly, the Clippers are led in scoring by Captain Caveman (Chris Kaman).  His 20.5 points a contest nearly doubles his career scoring average, and is almost five points higher than his previous best of 15.7.

• It won’t be a Dunleavy family holiday tonight, as Junior has elected to sit out a few more games in order to get into better game shape.  He’s currently expected to return sometime during next week’s West Coast road trip.

• Buckaroo Banzai (Hansbrough) played only 15 minutes last night, despite being cleared to play 22 by the medical staff.  He was pretty effective in his time, so it was a bit of a head scratcher as to why he didn’t play more.  O’Brien later explained that the 22 minutes includes practice time, as well, and some of that had been used up earlier in the day.

• Tonight is the first a home-and-home series with the Clippers.  They’ll be done with them early this year, as they visit the Staples Center on December 5th.

• Friday night, the Pacers host Rick Carlisle’s Dallas Mavericks before leaving for a four-game West Coast road trip.  This may be the most forgiving West Coast swing I’ve ever seen, as the Pacers will face three losing teams (Sacramento, Golden State, and the Clippers) and the Utah Jazz, who sit at .500.  Normally, this would be cause for some optimism, but the Pacers are not playing at a level necessary to beat anyone on any floor right now.  Here’s hoping this two-game homestand will change that.

Most importantly, I hope that this holiday weekend finds you and yours safe, happy, and warm.

Related posts:

1. Game #4 Preview: Need Win, Will Travel
2. Game #11 Preview: Good Day for a Road Win
3. Game #2 Preview: DWade Comes for Home Opener

3 – 4

The Pacers record during the preseason might be the biggest foreshadowing for the season. It extrapolates to 35 wins over an 82-game season, and that sounds about right to me.

.429

This is the opponents’ field goal percentage for the preseason, which was 8th out of 30 teams. This is a point of emphasis for Coach O’Brien, whose pace of play makes the points allowed stat somewhat misleading. This is about two full percentage points below the league average.

105.2

The Pacers allowed almost 4 fewer points per 100 during the preseason. Despite this and the OppFG% figures, Jim O’Brien was still unsatisfied with the teams’ defensive performance, explaining it away as the defenses being ahead of the offenses early. It seems that there’s good reason, because:

24th

Despite the improvement over last year, the Pacers defensive rating ranked 24th in the preseason. The average points per 100 possessions during the preseason were about 103, compared to 108 for the 2009 regular season.

101.4

The Pacers offensive output per 100 possessions was horrendous. In their four losses, Indiana averaged less than 94 points per 100 and shot a paltry 41% from the floor.

40.1

That would be the number of free throws per game shot by Pacer opponents. The league average was 31, and nobody else had more than 39.

60

Points the Pacers were outscored by at the free throw line. They were only outscored by 28 points overall.

27.7 & .335

The number of three-point attempts per game in the preseason and the success rate (or lack thereof). This is almost 7 more attempts per game than last season, but almost 4 full percentage points lower.

50%

Portion of Danny Granger’s field goal attempts taken from beyond the arc. That’s too high.

7.7 vs. 8.2

Solomon Jones’ rebounds per 36 minutes as compared to his personal fouls per 36 minutes. That’s not real encouraging.

24.9

Number of minutes per night that T-Murda (Troy Murphy) needed to average 12.7 points an 9.7 rebounds. Only shot 38% from three, though. Slacker.

6.2

Fouls per 36 minutes committed by Roy Hibbert, which sounds ugly until you compare it to his 7.7 pace last year. Somewhat more encouraging is that he did it with replacement refs that were calling almost 25% more fouls per game than were whistled last season. This is important, because …

13.6, 5.4, 3.6 & 24

Roy’s points, rebounds, blocks and minutes per night in the preseason. If he can do this when it matters, well, boys and girls, we have ourselves a center.

1.4 to 1

TJ Ford’s shot-to-assist ratio, which is down about 40% from last season. He did struggle with turnovers (4 per game), but it does look like he’s at least trying to heed O’Brien’s call for him to give up the ball.

4.1 to 1

AJ Price’s shot-to-assist ratio. The rookie second rounder spent much of the preseason looking more like an undersized ’2′ than any possible future answer at the point.

4

The number of games missed by each of Jeff Foster and Luther Head due to lingering injuries.

Zero

This could mean a lot of things. It could mean the number of wins the impressive victories against Denver and Houston will net us in the regular season. It could represent the number of losses that will result from the ugly defeats to Denver and Orlando.

However, the most meaningful thing related to zero to come out of the preseason for the Pacers is this: number of games played by Mike Dunleavy and first-round draft pick Tyler Hansbrough.

It’s neck and neck as to whether the Pacers’ preseason performance will tell us more about the upcoming season than this fella could.

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2. 8p9s/Pacers TrueHoop Network Season Preview
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   Bulls 104, Pacers 95