The Reinvention of George Hill Is Critical to the Indiana Pacers

The Indiana Pacers are facing a steep challenge at the offensive end this season. Scoring efficiently will be an uphill battle that requires big contributions from some of their new additions and some big changes from point guard George Hill. 

The Pacers' offensive challenges begin with the enormous hole they dug themselves last season. From January 1 onward they scored at an average rate of 100.1 points per 100 possessions, just barely ahead of the JV roster that was the Philadelphia 76ers. Roy Hibbert went in the tank. Paul George stopped hitting his mid-range jump shots. Any semblance of a system broke down, and they basically just alternated isolations and pick-and-rolls to nowhere as they limped into the playoffs.

As one illustration of the team's struggles, here's Roy Hibbert's shot chart from last season, showing points per shot.

NylonCalculus.com

From that enormous disaster, the Pacers now need to find a way to rebuild a functioning offense. They'll also have to do that without their two best offensive players from last season—Paul George and Lance Stephenson. 

George is expected to miss the entire season with a catastrophic leg injury suffered this summer in a Team USA scrimmage. Stephenson took advantage of unrestricted free agency and found himself a new home with the Charlotte Hornets.

The Pacers have acquired some reasonable pieces in their stead—Rodney Stuckey, C.J. Miles, Damjan Rudez—but no real offensive game-changers. If they are going to build a respectable offense, it will have to come from rapid player development or a burst of organizational creativity. In either case, they will probably have to accomplish it with the underwhelming offensive talent they have.

However, George Hill stands apart as a player who has shown much more offensive potential than what was asked of him the past few seasons. If there is a player who can assume a larger share of the scoring responsibilities this season, and do it in a successful way, Hill is the most likely candidate.

Pacers head coach, Frank Vogel, talked recently with NBA.com's Jeff Caplan about what the team needs from Hill this season:

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He’s just going to have the ball in his hands more, have his number called a lot more. We’ve always wanted him to be aggressive, but I think he understands that that’s needed more than ever. Years past he would be aggressive at times, but the ball would be in Lance and Paul’s hands a lot. So a lot of times he was the secondary option; most times he was the secondary option. He’s going to be more of a primary option this year.

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His peak offensive season came in 2009-2010, when he played 29.2 minutes per game for the San Antonio Spurs as an offensive spark plug, moving between the second unit and the starting lineup. That season, he posted per-36 minute averages of 15.2 points and 3.6 assists, shooting 47.8 percent from the field and 39.9 percent on three-pointers.

Over his three seasons in Indiana, Hill's field goal and three-point percentages have been almost identical each year—right around 44 percent from the field and 36 percent from behind the arc. The career-low 11.6 points per-36 minutes he averaged last season were mostly a function of his decreasing role in the offense as George and Stephenson blossomed.

During his first three seasons with the Spurs, Hill was seen as a combo guard whose natural tendencies leaned more toward scoring. Hill and the Pacers had to work together to bring the "floor general" point guard experiment to fruition. Now it seems the Pacers may need him to turn back the clock to the type of player he was when he entered the league.

This graph shows just how much Hill's offensive role has changed since his time in San Antonio. The black and yellow lines, representing his time with each team, show his ratio of scoring chances (shot attempts plus trips to the free throw line) to assists. 

Flipping that ratio back toward scoring is going to be crucial for the Pacers this season. It also means Hill will need to do a lot more creating for himself. His remarkable passivity in pick-and-rolls, often looking exclusively to pass even when driving lanes were available, was an enormous drag on the Pacers offense last season. 

The percentage of his field goals that were assisted on last season was a career-high 52.9 percent. That number will need to come way down as a Pacers offense with very few avenues of attack will need him to drive the basketball looking to score for himself.

In the article mentioned above, Caplan also pointed out how much the Pacers need from Hill in terms of breaking down the defense off the dribble:

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He [Hill] ranked 96th in the league, according to NBA.com’s player tracking data, in number of drives to the basket. To put that low number in some perspective, Oklahoma City’s Russell Westbrook registered 99 more drives to the basket even though he played in 30 fewer games.

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Hill is capable of playing a much more central, attacking, scorer's role. We saw him succeed in that style for three seasons in San Antonio, albeit under slightly different circumstances. While there will be much more pressure in Indiana, and much less support around him, the Pacers desperately need him to shift his mindset this season.

All statistics from NBA.com/stats, unless otherwise noted