Ian Levy is a Third-Grade teacher by day and amateur basketball analyst by afternoon (he usually sleeps at night). Ian suffers from a rare psychological condition known as Anti-Homeritis which renders him incapable of rooting for hometown teams. He grew up in Upstate New York and has therefore been a lifelong Indiana Pacers fan. He writes his own basketball blog, Hickory High, and is a contributor at IndyCornrows and The Two Man Game. You can also find him on Twitter, @HickoryHigh. Ian currently lives in Boise, Idaho, where he roots against the Boise State Broncos.
I wrote a post for this forum last August, called “Once Again the Pacers are Hoping Players Get Better.” The Indiana Pacers had just completed a trade sending out power forward Troy Murphy, bringing back second-year point guard, Darren Collison, and veteran swingman James Posey. Troy Murphy was a disaster this season, splitting time between New Jersey and Boston, but had been terrific for the Pacers, producing 13.7 Wins last year. At that point, the Pacers were left with a roster which had combined to produce just 22.3 Wins in 2009-2010. With dreams of making the playoffs, the Pacers’ were relying on significant improvement from several players. The dreams came true and the Pacers were able to reach the playoffs, mostly due to some new and renewed contributions from several players.
The table below shows the numbers for the Pacers’ roster this season, and what we would have expected given last year’s performance.
The Pacers compensated for the loss of their most productive player, Troy Murphy, and still won five more games than last year. Jeff Foster and Mike Dunleavy were healthy, returning to levels of production they had provided in the past, combining to produce 6.7 more Wins than their respective performance last season would suggest. Josh McRoberts continued to prove he deserves considerable playing time and Darren Collison’s production held steady as he grappled with the challenges of running a new team and a new offensive system.
After losing a surprisingly competitive than series against Chicago in the first round of the playoffs, optimism will likely be the prevailing mood of Indiana’s summer. The optimism is not unjustified, but should be tempered with caution as the Pacers have some difficult questions to answer moving forward.
With just over $25 million in salary committed for next season, the Pacers have considerable flexibility. Mike Dunleavy, Josh McRoberts, Jeff Foster, T.J. Ford and Solomon Jones are all free agents. A.J. Price’s contract is not guaranteed for next season, meaning he could also be jettisoned at no cost. Price was actually fairly impressive as a rookie last season, but an absolute mess in 2010-2011. Even if his true abilities lie somewhere in between the two seasons, he’s probably not worth a roster spot. Price, Ford and Jones played a combined 2,096 minutes for the Pacers this season, producing -1.5 Wins. Happily waving goodbye to all three should be a no-brainer.
Jeff Foster’s situation is complicated by the possibility of retirement. The chances of him leaving for another team, after spending his entire career with the Pacers, seem pretty slim. Basically, if Foster wants to continue playing he should and will, be welcomed back with open arms.
The way Pacers’ fans view Mike Dunleavy is largely colored by his large contract and injury history. Dunleavy produced 8 Wins this season at a cost of $10,561,984. In the grand scheme of things paying $1.3 million in player salary per win is not a bad deal. It’s vastly preferable to the $1.5 million the Pacers spent on Solomon Jones’ -0.7 Wins. The problem is that the market for player salaries is not built around Wins Produced, it’s built around scoring. In that context it feels to many, that the Pacers have vastly overpaid for Dunleavy’s production. Throw in the fact that he’s missed 100 games over the past four seasons and it’s hard to disagree. Still, for the past four seasons the Pacers have usually been at their best with him on the floor.
Josh McRoberts was very productive for the Pacers this season, but lost his starting job because of problems with turnovers and missed defensive rotations. Between McRoberts and a steadily improving Tyler Hansbrough, the Pacers have a fairly solid power forward rotation. Unfortunately, neither is the low-post scorer or interior defender the team has publicly coveted. McRoberts will likely be due a raise this season, but certainly not more than the Pacers can afford. Even if the team doesn’t believe he is their long-term answer at power forward, his price-tag shouldn’t be unreasonable for a back-up.
The Pacers’ have some young talent in place, particularly in the backcourt with Paul George and Darren Collison. However, there is the possibility of them losing their three most productive players. Foster, Dunleavy and McRoberts should all be in Pacers’ uniforms next season. They may not be, each for different reasons. The team will have a considerable amount of money to spend in free agency. But as we see time and again, spending money unwisely doesn’t actually improve teams. The Pacers’ front office will certainly feel the urge to go find some shiny new players on the open market. Before spending that money, they should take an accurate accounting of what they have. Foster, McRoberts and Dunleavy are all very productive players and should be available at reasonable prices.
The team can’t head into next season simply hoping for player development to take them to them to another level. After three seasons, it’s unlikely the Pacers will ever get above-average production from Roy Hibbert. Brandon Rush and Danny Granger. At this point, each should be considered a known commodity.
They could make some improvement in just filling the roster spots vacated by Solomon Jones, T.J. Ford, and possibly A.J. Price, with positive contributors. However, if Foster, Dunleavy and McRoberts aren’t brought back the Pacers’ could find themselves in roughly the same position they were in this season, trying to replace double-digit Win Production, and hoping someone steps up to fill in the gaps.
– Ian Levy
Wages of Wins Journal 
Brett
April 28, 2011
I think the Pacers improvement this season was mainly the result of a huge improvement on the defensive end of the floor in which the loss of Troy Murphy probably played no small part. Since WP is mainly an offensive measurement, when you see WP improvements in almost every player across the board, it is usually an indicator that the team is getting easier possessions on offense, which is usually the direct result of better team defense. For example in the playoff series against the Bulls, the Pacers struggled to score efficiently in the half court offense, but their improved defense masked this by creating easier scoring opportunities in transition.
dberri
April 28, 2011
Brett,
WP does include defense. Plus performance from last year does a very good job of explaining performance this year. The lone exceptions were Dunleavy and Foster, who simply returned to what we saw in the past after recovering from injury. If Murphy’s defense was such a big issue, why didn’t we see bigger changes in each player’s per-minute performance?
ballin
April 28, 2011
The real question, where WILL the Pacers get improvement from if not internally? I would think they might have to ship Danny Granger off for some young star talent. Wins produced suggest Granger isn’t worth the money anyway, and I’m relatively certain you could find a GM or two more than willing to give up valuable players to get him.
Italian Stallion
April 28, 2011
I recall reading several times that Bird likes Granger.
ilevy
April 28, 2011
This scenario takes place in a vacuum, but just replacing Ford, Price and Jones’ 2096 minutes with average production and leaving everything else the same would project to add 5.9 Wins over this season’s total. They probably aren’t going to compete for a championship with this roster, but just optimizing the distribution of minutes could make a big difference.
AWilliams
April 28, 2011
Off topic: What was Oscar Robertson career WP48?
dberri
April 28, 2011
AWilliams,
We don’t know how many turnovers Robertson committed. So we will never know. I think Ty W. at Courtside Analyst, though, has some ideas for players before the turnover era.
Brett
April 29, 2011
Dr. Berri,
I know you have had this argument a million times before, but box score statistics simply aren’t enough to evaluate an individual player’s effect on team defense. I’ve read your books, and that is the one thing that I cannot agree with regarding wins produced. For the record, I was a Troy Murphy fan when he was a Pacer, and I was quite chagrined by his trade at first. However, the team defense has improved quite a bit since then, and it has had an effect on just about every player’s per-minute stats. That is borne out in the WP numbers listed above. For players who played significant minutes on the Pacers last year and this year, only Granger’s production declined significantly, and I think that is because the half-court offense, especially late in the shot clock, tended to run through him in isolation with fewer of his shots being assisted than in previous years. And yes, they were healthier this year. I will give you that, but it doesn’t account for everything.
dberri
April 29, 2011
Brett,
We must be staring at different numbers. The difference between this year and last year is 5.9 wins. Dunleavy and Foster combined to improve by more than 6 wins. And this improvement simply put these players back to where they were before they were injured. Hard to see how you can credit the improvement to defense.