Larry Bird: Redefining Blue Collar Gold Swagger

Over the past several years, the Indiana Pacers had gone to great lengths to earn and establish a distinct culture — an authentic brand.

More specifically, their president of basketball operations, the Legend himself, Larry Bird, had built a team based around the foundational traits of grit and toughness.

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In an era where pace-and-space rules the modern-day NBA kingdom, the Pacers alternatively channeled their inner 1994 New York Knicks, playing a style of smash-mouth basketball only a select few of teams still routinely rely upon — the other, most notably, being the Memphis Grizzlies.

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Gone are their two ethnological pillars in Hibbert and West.

In particular, Bird got rid of Big Roy in a trade with the Los Angeles Lakers, while West turned down his $12.6 million dollar player option to sign with the San Antonio Spurs for the veteran’s minimum — citing the treacherous manners in which the front office treated Hibbert over the past couple of years as the chief reason for his departure.

Incoming are a slew of quicker, more versatile players, capable of executing the fast-paced, space-inducing game a 2015 NBA offense demands.

Most notably, the Pacers signed polarizing combo guard, Monta Ellis, and replaced Hibbert with the 11th overall pick of the 2015 NBA Draft in Myles Turner.

The Pacers also brought in Chase Budinger, who quietly revitalized his injury-plagued career last season with the Minnesota Timberwolves by playing primarily as their small ball 4. In addition, the team also re-signed both C.J. Miles and Rodney Stuckey.

Miles is a sharpshooting veteran wing with the size and length to comfortably slide 2 through 4, and Stuckey, like Ellis, is a ball-dominant lead guard who excels at bending defenses with his dribble-drive game.

A New Day, A New Identity

Slow paced, grind-it-out basketball: the blueprint in which Indiana has adhered to since Frank Vogel took over the Pacers head coaching duties in 2011.

For years, the players they acquired and the prospects they drafted — from the aforementioned West to the enigmatic Lance Stephenson — radiated their trademark fortitude and doggedness, not to mention their unmistakable swagger.

Their on-court play followed suit. In fact, Indiana boasted the league’s stingiest defense for two consecutive seasons, leading the NBA in defensive rating in 2012-13 and 2013-14, per Basketball-Reference.

The principal hub of their top-rated defense was Hibbert, who routinely led the league in opponent field goal percentage against at the rim. However, by playing in a more traditional alignment, with the lumbering Hibbert at center and the rough-housing West at power forward, the Pacers were often relegated to a more restrictive, uninspired brand of offense.

We’ve seen it before, the offense bogs down as the team, either, feels obligated to force feed the ball down-low to Hibbert, or the paint is too clogged to initiate a practical drive and kick game.

As such, over the years, when things got grimy, Indy would often turn to PG to create a contested mid-range jumper in an isolation set, or give West the ball in the pinch post and expect him to live up to his moniker as the 18-foot assassin.

While the duo are highly capable shot-makers from that distance — in particular West, who has shot a Dirk Nowitzki-like 52.1 and 50.2 percent from 16-23 feet over the last two respective seasons — such looks are simply not efficient enough, on the aggregate, to compete on a championship-level in the modern day game.

Case in point: last season, the Pacers ranked 28th among all NBA teams in percentage of field goals attempted at the rim, and along the same vein, 19th in percentage of field goals attempted from beyond the arc.

Not surprisingly, Indiana ranked sixth in the association in percentage of field goals attempted from 16-23 feet. Interestingly enough, three of the other five teams who topped Indy in said category were the Lakers, the Knicks, and the Timberwolves, a.k.a. the holy trinity of bottom feeders in the NBA last year.

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Their shot allocation remained relatively the same even with a healthy George graced his presence on the Pacers’ roster, as Indiana ranked 27th and 23rd in the percentage of field goals attempted at the rim and from 3, respectively, in 2013-14. And likewise, ninth in percentage of field goals attempted from the dreaded long twos.

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More alarmingly, the Pacers weren’t just taking a non-viable amount of mid-range jumpers; a lot of them were also highly contested. According to NBA.com’s SportVU Data, 23.5 percent of their shot attempts as a team were contested — where the closest defenders were within a 2-foot proximity of the shooter — in 2013-14, and similarly, 21.5 percent in 2014-15.

In comparison, only 16.5 percent of the Golden State Warriors’ field goal attempts were of the contested variety last season during their championship run.

With their new additions, however, Indiana’s attack should theoretically be much more potent. Chiefly, their offense should encourage ideal driving angles for their ball-in-hand playmakers — such as, Stuckey, Ellis, and George Hill — due to the new-found spacing their stretch bigs and small ball fours will ideally provide.

In a lineup that features, say, George Hill, Monta Ellis, Paul George, C.J. Miles and Jordan Hill, or a concoction of Monta Ellis, Rodney Stuckey, Paul George, Chase Budinger and Myles Turner, the Pacers should be able to engender a cavalcade of fruitful looks at the rim and from deep through their defense bending drive-and-kick game.

Leading the pack of their hard-charging savants will most certainly be Ellis, who finished 12th in the league last season in total drives. He also ranked within the top 73rd percentile in terms of pick-and-roll efficiency, producing a score — either, for himself or a teammate — on roughly 41.2 percent of time he served as the ballhandler in screen-and-roll situations.

Hill and Stuckey were also terrific creating off of the pick-and-roll last season. Specifically, the former IUPUI star, Hill, ranked within the top 88th percentile, while the Seattle native, Stuckey, ranked within the top 78th percentile in regards to screen-and-roll effectiveness, respectively.

Thus, when combined with the outside shooting of Miles, who shot at a 35.9 percent clip on catch-and-shoot opportunities last year, and Budinger, who made 40.3 percent of his 3-point attempts over his last 19 games of last season after reinventing himself as a stretch 4, the Pacers have all the perimeter groundwork to fund a spread pick-and-roll heavy attack.

Not to mention, PG will give Indy another ball-in-hand playmaker on the floor at all times, either at the three or the four. He can also serve as a pick-and-roll initiator, high-post operator, or spot-up spacer. Meanwhile, Jordan Hill will provide some of the same elements West brought, in his rebounding and mid-range shooting, but as a small ball five.

Turner, on the other hand, was an absolute revelation during Summer League — swatting shots, nailing face-up step-back Js, and attacking the defensive glass; he looked like the potential steal of the draft.

He won’t be the rim protector that Hibbert was over the past several seasons next year, but with his 9’4″ standing reach and impeccable timing, he could potentially evolve into a bonafide anchor down the line. When you combine his defensive potential with his outside touch, even with his awkward running gait, Turner has the makings of a two-way star.

An Uncomfortable Compromise

No one doubts the league has changed, and the Pacers has appropriately adapted to the said changes. But, by becoming homogeneous with the rest of the league, did Bird overreact and eradicate their core competencies and competitive advantage?

It’s one thing to add versatility and shooting to your established blueprint, it is something entirely different to completely renovate the team’s cultural identity.

Can the Pacers sustain their defensive stinginess despite the departure of Hibbert? We know coach Vogel likes to drop his bigs back on pick-and-rolls and zone up the ballhandler, conceding the mid-range jumper while packing the boxes the elbows. Without the sheer size of their disfigured frontcourt, Indiana will surely have to tweak their scheme.

Will they replicate a similar scrambling, helter-skelter style of D the Miami Heat deployed during their championship runs?

Here is another food for thought: franchises around the association are slowly adapting to the Warriors-esque multiple pick-and-rolls, dribble-handoff heavy attack. More and more teams are gradually going to construct a team full of 6’6″-6’9″ pterodactyls capable of switching 1 through 4– a tactic coach Vogel and the Pacers brass will undoubtedly explore.

In such an instance, the Pacers, as currently constructed, do not have the ability to make teams pay for switching their point guard onto say, Budinger or Miles, for example. Hibbert, for all of his offensive shortcomings, could at least wreak havoc on a team for going super small (see: the 2013 Eastern Conference Finals).

Indiana also lost Luis Scola in free agency, who could have also helped in that department.

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As polished and effective as Tuner looked operating in the mid-post during Summer League, it is an entirely different animal when facing an NBA-caliber defense, even if he’s shooting over someone half a foot shorter than the 6’11” rookie, with the D collapsing and hard digging.

Nonetheless, the latest Larry Bird experiment will be one of the most intriguing storylines as we head into the 2015-16 season.

PG, playing in an offense-friendly environment for the first time in his career, could thrive. He is now strategically placed to leverage his multi-functioning skill-set and athleticism, and has the opportunity to catapult himself from superstar to elite status.

He could lead the Pacers charge in a wide-open East, and Indiana could emerge as the Cavaliers’ main challenger for the Eastern Conference throne. Or, pessimistically, the Pacers may just end being another small-ball reliant team stuck in the doldrums of NBA mediocrity.

For now, one thing is for certain; those Hickory throwback jerseys are indisputably awesome.

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