Indiana Pacers Need a Veteran Leader to Go From Good to Great
The Pacers are showing signs of improvement this season. Sitting at 4-4 doesn’t seem like a great accomplishment, especially considering they could be 7-1; however, they have shown the ability to rally and the ability to build big leads — they just haven’t shown the ability to finish anyone off. The only loss that I feel they couldn’t have won was against Phoenix. That was the definition of an unwinnable game. Something about that team seems to make them win whenever they shouldn’t.
In the NBA .500 is good enough to make the playoffs (which is part of the league’s problem, but I’ll save that for another column), but is it good enough for this Pacers team? A team which leaves it all on the floor, a team full of young guys, and one newly made multi-millionare who is living up to his contract. These guys deserve better, they deserve that 7-1. The thing missing from this team, the thing that would help them finish those games off is a true league veteran.
Sure there is a link to the Miller years with Jeff Foster, and the team has a couple guys who did a decent amount of time with other franchises in Daniels and Troy Murphy, but the thing they need is an aging star. Someone who can still dust off the cobwebs and win a few games, someone who can show Granger what he’s on his way to becoming.
This team is so close to being something special, the only missing part is leadership. Granger will have that quality one day, but it’s not there yet. If we could find an old guy and sign him for two years, this team would be spectacular. To those of you who may say “O’Neal would have been that guy” stop reading, turn off your computer, and go bang you head into a wall until you know what you did wrong. That being said, I don’t have any names to list, I’m not that familiar with the current NBA, but I am familiar with basketball. I have seen teams in the Pacers current prediciment and the answer to what currently ills them is always the same: experience and leadership.
If we can find someone that can add that to this team, we will be set.
[tags]indiana pacers, danny granger, nba[/tags]
Tags: Danny Granger
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