Indiana Pacers Could Be This Year's Memphis Grizzlies

Two things made last year's playoffs the best of the past decade. First, the Dallas-Miami Finals lived up to all the hype that the media created, and had a Hollywood ending. Second, the Memphis Grizzlies threw a monkey wrench into the Western Conference.

The aforementioned Grizzlies were a fun team to watch all season long. I jumped on their bandwagon early on and kept an eye on them throughout the season. I lamented when Rudy Gay went down but rejoiced when they flipped the softest 7-footer since Shawn Bradley (Hasheem Thabeet) for Shane Battier. Then, once the playoffs rolled around, the Grizzles had it all figured out. They were rolling.

The Spurs stood ahead of them looking like a Henry Rowengartner at the end of Rookie of the Year after he lost his heater. There was something wrong, it was obvious, but we just couldn't put our finger on it. However, once the Grizzlies figured them out, they ravished the Spurs, giving them the momentum, and more importantly, the confidence to roll on into their series with the Oklahoma City Thunder.

What followed was the most exciting playoff series since Dallas was upset by Golden State back in 2007. Seven games and four overtime periods later (three of which came in Game 4) and Oklahoma City had taken down the scrappy Grizz. They went on to the next round scraped and scratched, humbled and exhausted.

Oklahoma City won the series, but Memphis was the story. They showed that an outsider has a chance in a game where favorites always seem to roll, which gave hope to all those teams hanging around the fringes, not quite elite, but definitely not lottery teams.

Enter the Indiana Pacers.

While they play a different style than Memphis (they're high-energy grinders whereas Memphis was a grinding, pounding team), they look to follow the same storyline as the Grizzlies, only with a happier ending.

When you compare the two teams, there are undeniable similarities.

A young center comes coupled with a veteran power forward with a knack for putting the ball in the basket (Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph-Roy Hibbert and David West). This came along with two young guards with potential and the ability for huge games (Mike Conley and O.J. Mayo-Darren Collison and Paul George) and a veteran small forward who knows how to control the game (Shane Battier on defense, Danny Granger on offense).

These guys aren't the same players from head to foot, but they are built to succeed perhaps better than the Grizzlies were.

When Memphis played games where their guys got in foul trouble or if games went into triple-overtime, they were stretched. Normally, their starting five went Conley-Tony Allen-Sam Young-Randolph-Gasol with Mayo and Battier being their first two off the bench. After that they had Greivis Vasquez, Darrell Arthur, Hamed Haddadi, Leon Powe's knees and Ish Smith to choose from. Not exactly guys you'd want to go to war with.

Indiana, as it looks now, will have a front five of Collison-George-Granger-West-Hibbert. After that they have George Hill and Brandon Rush in the backcourt and Tyler Hansbrough, Jeff Foster and Dahntay Jones in the frontcourt.

That team is seven players deep on a bad day and nine on a good day.

But we're not done there. Indiana still has a couple bucks to spend with another $10 million of cap space after using their amnesty on James Posey, and it seems the best thing they could do would be to improve Granger's backup.

Arron Afflalo would be a great choice, but he'll likely end up back in Denver. That leaves two possibilities: Andrei Kirilenko and DeShawn Stevenson.

Kirilenko would be the more expensive of the two, but he would offer a good option on offense and good defense as a part of a bigger system. However, it seems to me that the better choice here would be Stevenson.

Bringing in Stevenson introduces a forward who has two things, great defense and a ring. Stevenson was a pest to LeBron James in the Finals last year, giving him fits when he tried to muscle his way to the ring, as he is a big, strong man himself.

Playoff Picture?

So, when playoff time rolls around, what is the picture going to look like?

As of right now, the simple look at the Eastern Conference Playoffs will likely look something like this:

1. Miami
2. Chicago
3. New York
4. Boston
5. Atlanta
6. Indiana
7. Philadelphia
8. Random .500 Eastern Conference Team X

The biggest question marks here would be Boston, Atlanta and quite frankly, Indiana. Boston and Atlanta could take a large drop this season if things don't go well for them, and if things go right for Indy, they could be the No. 4 team in the East.

I can see Indiana using their depth to beat New York or Boston in an extended series and their talent to beat anybody that would be placed below them otherwise. They could easily get out of the first round.

The only problem will be the second round, where they will have to try to take down either Miami or Chicago, both excellent teams.

Depending on how their team comes together, the Pacers could very well surprise some people throughout the season, and surprise even more people in the playoffs.