The Impact Of A Healthy Tyler Hansbrough

The Pacers are on a three-game winning streak and in two of those games, Tyler Hansbrough has been very productive in limited minutes. He isn’t quite 100%, but he’s nearly averaging a point and a half rebound per minute. If he keeps up this pace, Indiana may have gotten the steal in the draft.

Indiana is in need of healthy players, really anyone to step up and help Danny Granger out on offense and defense. The Pacers have held their last three opponents, all victories, to an average of 90 points per game. Is a coincidence that Troy Murphy has been out during this winning streak? He isn’t very good defensively, but you can’t ignore his offensive ability and the number of rebounds he pulls down per game. Would the Pacers be better off by starting Solomon Jones, Jeff Foster, or Tyler Hansbrough at power forward once everyone is back healthy?

I have been a big fan of Tyler Hansbrough since the Pacers stole him in the NBA Draft. Most of the experts thought that he should have been picked later, everyone except Dick Vitale. Dicky V is in love with NCAA players that stick with the program, mature within the program, and win on that level. The Pacers already had success by picking Danny Granger, who stayed in college and did well in the NCAA tournament his last year. The Pacers have tried drafting players and trying to get them up to the NBA level with some success, but many have been failures. Shawne Williams was drafted early due to his “up-side,” but he was later dumped in a trade and he never matured into a player that should have been drafted in the first round.

The Pacers will be drafting next year in the early to middle of the first round and I expect Larry Bird to draft another player who had success in college and probably a junior or senior. They need players that are ready to contribute and they don’t have to wait on them to crack the rotation. Josh McRoberts, who was drafted by another team, is a player that would have benefited from staying another year at Duke, but he saw the money and left after a sub-par pre-draft workout.

Hansbrough looks like he’s ready to contribute right away for the Pacers, which is great to see. He may need a few weeks to get his body into physical shape to handle more minutes, but they don’t want to over-work him, since he will hit the rookie wall earlier than other first-year players, since he didn’t have any preseason. He went to Summer League, but then fixed the leg problem that hampered him his last year at North Carolina.

I’m excited for this era to begin and I can’t wait to see him mature as a member of the Indiana Pacers.

Tags: jeff foster, Larry Bird, shawne williams, solomon jones, troy murphy, tyler hansbrough