Roy Hibbert Exercises Player Option with Pacers: Latest Details and Reaction
From the NBA's most dominant defensive center, to the most mocked basketball player on the planet, to being called out by his own coach and team president. The past 12 months sure have been a roller-coaster ride for Roy Hibbert.
Despite the turmoil, the Indiana Pacers star has decided to return for one more season. Hibbert officially exercised his player option June 25, per Grantland's Zach Lowe, which puts the Pacers on the hook for a $15.51 million salary in 2015-16.
However, ESPN's Marc Stein reported the Pacers will attempt to move Hibbert, and the selection of power forward Myles Turner with the 11th overall pick in the 2015 NBA draft made that potential decision much easier.
The two-time All-Star averaged 10.6 points, 7.1 rebounds and 1.6 blocks per game last season. An integral member of the Pacers' effort in trying to unseat the LeBron James-led Miami Heat the past two seasons, Hibbert saw his role change amid a vastly different Eastern Conference. He played his fewest minutes per game in a half-decade, averaged his fewest points since his rookie season and became an increasingly polarizing figure in Indiana.
With Paul George out almost the entire regular season, the Pacers missed the playoffs and finished 38-44. In their season-ending meeting with the press, team president Larry Bird and head coach Frank Vogel made it clear Hibbert's role would be different if he returned.
"We'll have to see how it all plays out and what the roster ultimately looks like, but there's a possibility that Roy's role will be diminished, if we're trying to play faster and trying to play smaller," Vogel told reporters, according to Candace Buckner of the Indianapolis Star. "But a lot of stuff is going to happen this summer. We'll see how the roster shapes out coming into next season."
Once fashioned as a title contender, Indiana's grind-it-out style has fallen behind recent NBA trends, and a trip to the lottery should spark changes. Hibbert, meanwhile, saw his reputation go from one of the game's rising stars to something of a Twitter laughingstock.
Although the team had been publicly supportive, this in no way guarantees Hibbert will be on the roster in October. There were reports dating back to last July about the Pacers putting out trade feelers. Don't be surprised if they float his name around again in hopes of revamping their roster.
For all of the criticism—some fair, some not—Hibbert is one of the league's best defensive centers. He's one of the best, if not the best, rim protector in the league; opposing players shot 42.6 percent against him near the basket, per SportVU data provided by the NBA.
He was the lynchpin to everything the Pacers did defensively. He atoned for acts of overaggression on the perimeter, cleaned up for guys who missed backdoor cuts and helped define how Vogel wanted to defend the pick-and-roll. Indiana remained a top-10 defensive outfit despite losing Lance Stephenson and playing without George for all but six games.
Hibbert is far from a perfect basketball player. He's a bit of a relic, a big, lumbering player who doesn't help floor-spacing and lacks the quickness to help in transition. But his use of the verticality rule has helped revolutionize how we value centers defensively, and there's value in the skills he provides.
Hibbert and his representation are banking on another season in Indiana rejuvenating his value. It was impossible to expect him to match his $15-plus million salary for next season on the open market. Instead, he'll enter free agency in a summer when nearly every team will have cap space and the league's salary structure as a whole will be in flux.
We'll just have to see whether the Pacers' "new look" will help Hibbert as much as he hopes.
