Can Indiana Pacers Use Lost Season to Rebuild into Championship Contender?

The second Paul George went up to block that James Harden layup this summer in the Team USA scrimmage, this season was lost for the Indiana Pacers. He came down awkwardly, suffered a massive lower leg injury and everything the team had been building toward this season was wiped away.

The Pacers will still play 82 games this season; they've started 3-6. They could still compete for a playoff spot at the bottom of the Eastern Conference, and their defense should still be good enough to put some fear into even their best opponents.

While there may be some small successes to find during the season, this was a team moving upward with championship aspirations. In the larger picture of this franchise's development, it will be hard to see this year as anything but a disappointment.

But that doesn't mean this season has to be a waste. George's injury knocks them off course, but there are still long-term goals that can be refined and progress to be made. Moving forward in the right ways can help make sure that when George (hopefully) returns healthy next season, the Pacers are right back where they want to be.

Developing Depth

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As I wrote about last week, a lack of depth has been an enormous and continuing problem for the Pacers. While there will undoubtedly be changes to their roster before next season, the Pacers have an opportunity to work on their long-term depth in a few different ways. The first is by developing the, albeit limited, amount of youth on the roster.

The obvious place to start is with Solomon Hill, the Pacers' first-round pick from the 2013 draft.

Hill played sparsely last season, but he has received some early opportunities due to injuries this season and has looked impressive at times. His per-game averages—11.8 points, 5.4 rebounds, 1.4 assists, 1.1 steals in 33.4 minutes—hint at a player of considerable utility, especially when you take into account his developing defensive acumen.

Hill still turns the ball a little too often and—like you expect from a player with just 527 NBA minutes under his belt—can struggle with shot selection and forcing the issue on offense. Still, the Pacers haven't yet found a long-term replacement for Lance Stephenson's versatility at shooting guard. Feeding Hill plenty of meaningful minutes this season, letting him develop while the stakes are low, could pay enormous dividends next year.

The only other youth to speak of on the Pacers roster is 25-year-old power forward Lavoy Allen, who has also been a pleasant surprise in the early going. Allen came over with Evan Turner in a trade at the end of last season, but he rarely saw the floor. With David West out with an injury, Allen has been playing just under 24 minutes per game. 

He's a typical low-reward, low-risk guy and his impact is limited to some fairly specific places.

Allen is a reliable team defender, solid rebounder, doesn't turn the ball over and has been a consistent mid-range shooter. He's been terrific on the offensive glass and is actually leading the Pacers in total rebound percentage at 18.4 percent. His range stops at about 18 feet, but he's shooting 43.3 percent on mid-range jump shots this year.

Below you can see his shot chart from last season. His areas of efficiency are at the rim or pick-and-pop mid-range jump shots near the top of the key.

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Obviously, those skills aren't going to make him an offensive centerpiece. But the Pacers desperately need a big man who can provide some spacing next to Roy Hibbert and Ian Mahinmi. Allen has done a nice job standing in for West so far.

Beyond those two young players there will be plenty of opportunities for the Pacers to, again, try to build themselves a bench for next season. Luis Scola, C.J. Watson, Donald Sloan, Rodney Stuckey and Allen will all be free agents this summer.

This season will be an opportunity to try to figure out if Allen is solid enough to bring back as a reserve and whether Stuckey is a help or hindrance on the wing. Additionally, we'll learn if either Sloan or Watson is the second-unit point guard the Pacers really want.

A full season is a great sample to figure out exactly who they want to commit to and what holes they'd like to go back to the drawing board and try to fix.

Building Up Roy Hibbert and the Offensive System

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Last year was a disaster for Hibbert. He played his typically phenomenal brand of interior defense, but underwent a startling offensive regression over the course of the season. His field-goal percentage hit a career low of 43.9 percent. As he continued to struggle, he became a smaller and smaller part of the team's offense, finishing with a career-low usage rate of 19.4 percent.

Although it wasn't all Hibbert's fault, his offensive struggles were so obvious that he ended up shouldering much of the blame for the team's stunning slide in the second half of last season.

Paul George is the Pacers' biggest offensive talent and, once healthy, he should resume his place in the middle of their attack. As George and Stephenson blossomed last season, a big part of the team's offensive problems came from an awkward balancing act between their old interior focus and their new perimeter focus. 

Just before this season began, Hibbert talked with the Indianapolis Star's Candace Buckner about his struggles last season:

"

From where I was early on in the year, I thought I was playing at a certain level and when things get a little difficult and we're losing, I was missing shots. I wasn't playing as well. Things move on. The coaches and the staff have to move on and Lance was playing tremendous, leading the league in triple-doubles. …That was probably the hardest thing, I felt like I was holding myself back mentally and then I wasn't bringing it on the court physically.

"

The Pacers have no such problem this season. While C.J. Miles, Stuckey and Hill should give them a passable level of production on the wing, there is no reason to tilt the offensive system in their direction. Without George's skills, the heart of this offense lives with Hibbert and West on the interior.

So far this season, the Pacers have done just that.

Hibbert's usage rate has rebounded to 22.4 percent. Thanks to a much improved free throw percentage of 84.1 percent, a free throw rate of 0.454 and a terrific field-goal percentage of 49.5 percent, his true shooting percentage is at a career-high 57.2 percent, according to Basketball-Reference.com. He's shooting better from the floor and the line, while earning a lot more easy points at the free throw stripe. These are really important developments for both Hibbert and the Pacers. 

We're only nine games into the season, but "Big Roy" is performing like an entirely different player. The Pacers are involving him more and he's rewarding them with increased efficiency and an assertive offensive presence on the inside.

George's absence is obviously bad for the Pacers offense in the short-term, but there is a possibility it could pay off in the long-term. The team and coaching staff is in the process of building Hibbert back up to the All-Star trajectory he was on before last season. They also have the space to experiment with their offense and figure out some of the balance, spacing and structural problems that plagued them last season.

By the time George returns next season, it will hopefully be to a team with more depth, an All-Star center and a more coherent plan of attack on offense, one that better utilizes the resources at their disposal. The Eastern Conference landscape will continue changing around them, and there is no guarantee that the Pacers will immediately pick up where they left off.

Still, catastrophe has opened a window to make some changes. As the Pacers are outlining goals, they have to stretch beyond this season into the team they would like to be next year as well. 

Statistical support for this story from NBA.com unless otherwise noted.