Man, time sure does fly.

The Indiana Pacers have one more preseason game left against the Chicago Bulls before they open their 2012-2013 campaign on the road against the Toronto Raptors.

Expectations are admittedly mixed with this year's group. On the one hand they lost solid guys like Darren Collison, Jeff Foster, Lou Amundson, Dahntay Jones and Leandro Barbosa. But on the other they picked up Gerald Green, DJ Augustin, Ian Mahinmi and drafted Miles Plumlee. On paper, it's hard to discern whether the team has improved or taken a step back, but what is clear is that their key competition in the East (being Miami and Boston) have improved, and perhaps New York and Brooklyn will pose a much bigger threat than last year.

Even though preseason games are usually meaningless, it is interesting to take a look at how the team has performed and what observations can be gathered.

So far, the Pacers are 4-2 in 6 preseason games, including a 3-0 record on the road. The team's projected starting 5 has only played one game together, their most recent, a 100-82 blowout of Cleveland which saw Danny Granger play his first preseason game after tweaking a knee injury during the offseason. In the 6 games, the Pacers scored and gave up an average of 91.2 points, demonstrating that they are still trying to figure things out.



These are the things I have personally observed from the offseason:

• Roy Hibbert (Mr Gangnam style), after flirting with leaving the team over the summer, is getting kudos left, right and center for his fan and community work since. He is undoubtedly going to be the future face of the franchise, if not already. Remember, he was ranked higher than Granger in ESPN's player rankings. However, while we know that he worked hard on his conditioning, it's still unclear whether Hibbert's game has been elevated to the next level following the signing of that big contract, or whether it's starting to plateau. Hibbert played in 5 of the 6 preseason games and so far his performance has been patchy. He had a monster game against the Hawks (16, 11 and 6 blocks) but failed to score more than 5 points against the Wolves and the Cavs. Consistency has always been Roy's achilles heel, so it will be interesting to see if he has turned the corner.

• Danny Granger has always been a slow starter and it appears he will be one again. He played a restricted 12 minutes (6 per half) against the Cavs and performed well (9 points on 4-7 shooting), but chances are he won't be 100% when the season starts. That's not good news. Hopefully, having grown used to sharing the load last season, he will start to contribute more in other ways, especially in rebounding and assists.

• David West has played sporadic minutes in the preseason but he has been great when he's on the floor. It's time to forget last season's David West, who spent most of his time recovering and finding his legs after surgery. This year's David West, the true leader of the team, will be in beast mode all year. Something to look forward to.

• Paul George and potential seem to go hand in hand, and this year is supposed to be the year where he takes off. Year 3 usually is, right? And you can tell from the preseason games that PG is trying to assert himself more after having worked on his most glaring weakness -- ballhandling -- diligently during the offseason. It hasn't necessarily translated to great shooting nights but PG has filled up the stat sheet every game so far, averaging 16 points and grabbing boards, getting dimes, blocking shots and intercepting the passing lanes all over the place. I don't think he'll be a star this year, but he could be getting close.

• George Hill has been sitting out with a hip injury and hasn't played a single preseason game, which is a concern for the team's supposed starting point guard. I like what Hill brings to the team in terms of his shooting and fearlessness but I'm still not sold on him as a distributor.

• Which brings me to newcomer DJ Augustin, who did not racked up many assists until the most recent game against the Cavs, where he came away with 11. Every Pacer fan knows that it has been an extremely rare thing to see a Pacers point guard dish double-digit assists in a game since Mark Jackson left (and when Jamaal Tinsley was still a stud), so I suppose that is a promising sign. My guess is that Augustin has been a little timid with the new squad because he was the go-to guy in Charlotte but just a backup in Indy. He should get better as the season progresses, and so far all the talk coming out of training camp is that he has impressed with his court vision during practices.

• Gerald Green is going to be great this year. I can already feel it. I was worried when the Pacers decided to let Barbosa go because I wondered where the bench points would come from, but I've been ecstatic with what I've seen from Green so far. He had 18, 6 and 4 against the Wolves in 27 minutes, 10 against the Hawks, 13 against the Magic, 18 against the Grizzlies and 13 against the Cavs. I have no doubt he will average double digits this season and be in the running for Sixth Man honors.

• The guy that might turn out to be Indy's most surprisingly positive addition is Ian "Mini Me" Mahinmi. People criticized his acquisition in the beginning but I'm starting to feel optimistic after seeing him put up 17 and 8, 13 and 9, and 10 and 6 in 3 of the 4 games he has played in. His offensive game and rebounding appear to be more refined than advertised, and he actually seems to fit in quite well with Roy in the PF spot. Perhaps he was indeed a talent wasted on the Mavs bench. He might be the best all-round Pacers big man off the bench in years.

• Tyler Hansbrough took a step back last season and he knows it. This preseason he has shown the vicious relentless drive he is well known for, and the results have been mixed. Apart from an anomalous 23 points in a blowout loss against the Magic, Hansbrough has shot horribly. But he has grabbed a lot of boards. His brother Ben Hansbrough, who is an undrafted guard, might not get much burn on the Pacers and might get dropped eventually.

• One guy that gets more chatter than he deserves is Lance Stephenson, who despite being "Born Ready" has not been ready for two years. He is now, the Pacers say, but the preseason hasn't shown that at all. I once again hope he will finally prove me wrong.

• Jeff Pendergraph looks more NBA ready than he did last year, but does that really mean anything?

• The rookies, Miles Plumlee and Orlando Johnson have been okay considering where they were drafted. Plumlee has actually been solid every game (his best game was 9 and 4 in 24 minutes) whereas Johnson just continues to miss shots. I don't think Johnson will get any minutes anyway.

On the whole, I think the preseason has been positive, considering Granger has only played one game and George Hill hasn't played at all. For me, the main positives are Paul George's assertiveness, the shape David West looks like he's in, and the surprising effectiveness of Gerald Green and Ian Mahinmi. The main negative would be that Roy Hibbert doesn't look like he's going to be worth the big bucks ON the court (though OFF the court he's worth every penny). Tyler Hansbrough's shooting and the rest of the bench are still question marks.

Coming up, player reviews and predictions. 

Update: Pacers lost their final preseason game against the Derrick Rose-less Chicago Bulls, 97-90. George Hill still did not play and Granger came off the bench to play 22 minutes. DJ Augustin had 13 assists to go with 10 points in another stellar effort. 

There hasn't been much going on since the Olympics, except this ESPN Player Rankings thingy that attempts to rank all 500 players in the NBA. It's taken a while, but finally all Pacers players have appeared. The full rankings list of the Pacers roster can be found here.

All five Pacers starters are in the top 100 (between 87 and 35, to be exact):

• George Hill (87)
• Paul George (75)
• David West (56)
• Danny Granger (39)
• Roy Hibbert (35)

I suppose that is a pretty good achievement, depending on how you look at things. On the bright side, it means the Pacers join a small group of teams that have all five starters in the top 100 (the others being the Brooklyn Nets, Chicago Bulls, Dallas Mavericks, Denver Nuggets, Memphis Grizzlies -- there are a couple of other teams with five or more players in the top 100 but not all are starters, eg. Boston Celtics).

On the other hand, it also means the Pacers don't have a single player in the top 30 in a league of 30 teams. This puts them in the same category as a dozen other teams, and all of them are likely lottery teams. Here are the top players of those other teams:

• Charlotte's Michael Kidd-Gilchrist at 128
• Detroit's Greg Monroe at 49
• Golden State's Stephon Curry at 40
• Houston's Kevin Martin at 76
• Milwaukee's Monta Ellis at 46
• New Orlean's Eric Gordon at 38
• Orlando's Arron Afflalo at 80
• Phoenix's Marcin Gortat at 57
• Sacramento's DeMarcus Cousins at 42
• Toronto's Kyle Lowry at 51
• Utah's Al Jefferson at 44
• Washington's Nene at 52

Also surprising to me is that Roy Hibbert was named as the Pacers' best player for the first time. Hibbert is a rare big man on the rise, that's for sure, and possibly the team's most important player. But the best on the team? I'm not so sure. Personally, I'd still put Granger and West ahead of him.

More concerning was the rankings of the Pacers bench, where the highest ranked was DJ Augustin at 147. Tyler Hansbrough is the only other bench player in the top 200 at 174. New additions Gerald Green and Ian Mahinmi are 246 and 251, respectively. Sam Young rounds out the Pacers players in the top 300 at 275, and the rest of the roster are all in the 400-500 range. It might be worth mentioning that Lance Stephenson is ranked 405 and actually fell by 36 spots from the year before.

The team's highest riser was of course Paul George, who shot up 130 spots to 75. The biggest fall? Of course, Tyler Hansbrough, who dropped 52 spots to 174.

So I guess if you want to sum up this year's squad based on these rankings you would say the Pacers have a great, even-strengthed starting five but has no superstar and has a horrible bench that has only three reserves (Augustin, Hansbrough and Green) in the top half of the league (Mahinmi falls just out of it at 251).

Not sure what to make of this.  

Indiana Pacers guard Reggie Miller was finally inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame this weekend, along with former Pacers legend Mel Daniels. I say "finally" even though this is only his second year of eligibility because I, like many others, thought he should have been on the ballot last year.

This is not a time to debate whether Miller actually deserves to be in the HOF like his big sister Cheryl, a fellow HOFer whom is described as the greatest female basketball player of all time. Reggie's credentials speak for themselves (you can check them out here), but his career has always been about much more than just stats.

Miller is a unique player and there will never be another player like him. He is almost single-handedly responsible for a whole generation of Pacers fans, including myself. Pacers Pulse would not exist with him. Well, maybe it would, but I wouldn't be blogging on it.

Reggie was an NBA superstar despite not being known as a prolific scorer. He was an average defender in a league of great defenders. He could be regarded as one-dimensional (by NBA standards, of course). He was consistently good but rarely great, having only made the NBA Finals once and retiring without a ring. He was on a small market team. And yet he was undoubtedly a superstar that struck fear into the hearts of his opponents and their fans. 

Miller inspired me because he always looked like the guy you would pick last on your team on the playground. My friends (who all went for the big market and traditionally successful teams) joked that he was an alien who should was in danger of literally slipping through the cracks in the floorboards.

Yes, he wasn't a competitive psycopath like Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant. He wasn't dominant like Shaq or Lebron. He's not athletic like Vince Carter or Blake Griffin. He looked awkward too -- he didn't have the sweet stroke of Ray Allen. But he had the audacity to believe that he belonged on the same court as them. And even if he couldn't beat all of them, he sure tried his hardest every night. If it meant playing the villain as he often did against the Knicks, then so be it. He was never going to back down from anyone despite his physical disadvantages.

He was the ultimate professional and teammate, a guy that set an example with his relentless work ethic for 18 years. It's not often that you see a player that hated by opponents and fans during his career be that revered by the end of it. You only need to take a look at this video to understand the impact he had in New York, where he tormented Knick fans for much of his career.

 
And check out the end of his final game. I don't recall opponents doing something like this to any player other than Michael Jordan. And remember, this was merely a few months removed from that infamous brawl.

 
When it comes to memorable moments, Reggie Miller has a truckload of them. My favorite, unlike most others, was not the 25-point fourth quarter or the 8 points in 8.9 seconds. It was game five against the New Jersey Nets in the 2002 playoffs (back when it was a best of five series in the first round), a game I watched live on TV, where Miller hit that 40-footer at the buzzer to force overtime, and then forced a second overtime with a two-handed dunk in traffic against three Nets defenders. The Pacers eventually lost that game, but the fact that they, as the number eight seed, pushed the first seed and eventual NBA finalist that far was something I'll never forget.

I had a final exam later that day and I remember I needed to get going soon. I was almost glad when it appeared that the Nets had put the game out of reach. And when Reggie hit that improbable bank shot, I went nuts. And so did the telecast, which went black momentarily after the shot went in, driving me even more nuts. 

Then when Reggie faked the shot at the top of the key and drove into the lane instead, throwing down that insane two-handed dunk, I lost it again. This was a guy that dunked only a handful of times every season, and he had the balls to drive the ball down the throat of three defenders down by two in the dying seconds of an overtime elimination game. That's the type of player Reggie Miller was, and I hope that is the way he will always be remembered.

Thanks for the memories Reggie, and congratulations. 

It's been pretty much dead around here since the Pacers missed out on OJ Mayo.

Let's see...Danny Granger bought a house in California -- does that mean he is considering heading over there permanently in the near future? Brian Shaw is staying for another year as associate head coach, as far as we know. Bankers Life Fieldhouse announced some new renovations...all pretty mundane news.

ESPN started their season predictions already, and the experts say the Pacers will finish third in the East behind Miami and Boston, even though they will have the same record as the Celts at 50-32. The records themselves are not really indicative of much because they are averaged out, meaning they will generally be lower than expected.

But I don't see the Pacers falling behind the Celts in the standings. As much as the Celtics improved during the offseason with the addition of Jason Terry and what not, they did lost Ray Allen and their two core guys, Pierce and Garnett, remain on the decline. The Pacers, on the other hand, have a core that is getting better. Their new additions might not add a whole lot considering who they've lost, but they are younger and improving. Definitely more potential if you ask me.

Oh, yes, the latest news is that the Pacers and the Hawks are two teams in the running for Anthony Tolliver, a free agent coming off a season at Minnesota. The Cavs and Wizards are also said to be interested. Tolliver, a 6'8" forward, averaged 4.1 points and 3 rebounds in 17 minutes a game with the Wolves. The Pacers already have three SFs in Granger, George and Gerald Green, but I guess another solid shooter off the bench as insurance doesn't hurt. 

Swingman OJ Mayo has signed a multi-year with the Dallas Mavericks. Not that he was going to join the Pacers anyway, but this has officially put the dreams to sleep, so to speak.

Mayo was almost in a Pacers uniform a couple of times in the past, but the Josh McRoberts trade supposedly fell apart at the last second. Then the Pacers didn't re-sign McBob and didn't pull enough strings to land the prolific prep star in Indiana. Oh well.

Some people remain convinced Mayo would have been a good fit for the Pacers, a team in desperate need of someone who can create their own shot off the dribble and provide an offensive spark off the bench. Mayo was once touted as the top high school player in the nation, but we all know that doesn't always pan out so well in the pros (Lance Stephenson, anyone?). 

Mayo's career high was 18.5 points -- in his rookie season. That's almost unheard of. Last season, he came off the bench in Memphis and put up 12.6 points wile barely breaking 40% on his field goal attempts. So yeah, I'm not sure how I feel about him, though I am certain I would have been happy had he landed in Indy. After all, there hasn't been much to get excited about this offseason.

PS: Nothing to do with the Pacers but how about Jeremy Lin going to the Rockets? Crazy stuff.  Good news for the Pacers though from a basketball standpoint. Plus it shows a small(er) market team can derail a big market team with the right poison pill.