Let me first start off this piece of writing by admitting to you all that these moves will most likely not happen, and are very farfetched. On the bright side, they are entirely possible, cap-wise.

The first thing we have to look at is our "face of the franchise" in Danny Granger. The guy who signed a $60 million dollar contract extension at the end of '08, and during the very next game after the extension, broke his two front teeth when he went face first onto the court against the Boston Celtics. Yea, that guy, who we thought would be our franchise savior.

Don't get me wrong, I love Danny, and it's obvious to anyone who saw him during these playoffs that he has improved defensively. He played Lebron one on one pretty much the entire series, and gave me some excellent playoff memory moments in doing so(excluding the face to face altercations).

But, as an offensive player, has he hit his limit? Ask anyone in Indianapolis, they'll tell you what we need. A go to guy. It's no secret that Danny isn't considered a go to guy, and hasn't been for about 3 years now, even when he was putting up those scoring averages in the mid 20's. He's just not that skilled of a player.

So, where do we go from here?

We pick up 2 of the most prized free agents this year, one via sign and trade, and one via a natural signing, with a little persuasion from Larry Bird, one of the greatest and most respected players of all time.

Who we pick up:

Eric Gordon

Deron Williams

Derrick Brown

Big man in the draft

Who we retain:

Roy Hibbert

Kyrylo Fesenko

Lou Amundson

Lance Stephenson

Who we get rid of/let go:

Leandro Barbosa

Danny Granger

Tyler Hansbrough

George Hill

Aj Price

HAHA!

Okay, most of you are probably laughing your butts off right now, and for good reason. So how would we pull this off?

Well, first and foremost, we need to get rid of Danny's huge contract so we have room to compliment Eric's, Deron's, and Roy's new and huge contracts on our salary cap. Offer a sign and trade deal with the New Orleans Hornets(Danny's hometown) where we send Danny and Hansbrough over, along with a future first round pick in exchange for Eric Gordon.

It's not like the hornets will be stuck with Danny long term, because he only has 1 or 2 years left on his contract.

The Hornets will be intrigued with the idea of acquiring Danny, a player who has grown as a leader with the Pacers who could mentor the young players the Hornets are about to receive in their next few drafts. Plus, we all know how hard it is to find an all star caliber Small Forward in this league who has experience going head to head with superstars like Lebron in the playoffs.

So, in doing this trade, we pick up a viable scoring option who can perform in the clutch. A guy who can create his own shot on the perimeter, or speed past his defender with that sharp crossover and get to the rim with force. He has THOSE two talents that Danny rarely ever shows. We can't afford to have a guy making 14 million a year on this team whose talents only allow him to be a stand around jump shooter.

Okay, now that this deal is done, how in the hell are we going to get Deron Williams? Well, since we traded away the 14 million dollar contract of Danny's, and most likely received the same contract in return with Gordon's(hopefully), it's like we haven't spent any money at all and still acquired an all star caliber player.

So now, it's time to try and sell our team to one of the best point guards in the game. Larry Bird should play a big part in persuading him here. Offering him a huge contract, 5 years at like 75 mill would be acceptable. I'm sure a few other teams could offer him something bigger than that, but with the way our team performed this year without a superstar like him, we might have a chance. The way we handled the Heat and embarrassed them early in the series, Larry has to make him understand that he'd have a really good chance at getting a ring here. He would probably have a better chance with us than anywhere else. The Lakers and Mavs top stars are getting old. We are a younger, more balanced team, who can give him more help than other teams.

Alright, we've acquired Deron Williams and Eric Gordon, spending approximately 16 million a year on Deron, and having Eric on the books for around 12 million a season. We roughly have around 12 million left in cap space. Use this to offer Hibbert a 5 year 50 million dollar contract. Bam. Then, somehow, miraculously, we find a way to re-sign Lou Amundson, Lance Stephenson and Kyrlyo Fesenko to small baby contracts.

Then, since we lost a valuable defender at 6'9 in Danny Granger, we go ahead and pick up Derrick Brown from the Bobcats who is also 6'9 and can defend and hype up any team or crowd with his high flying athletic ability. Check out his highlight video(I find it ironic that the first play in this video is against the pacers and the second one is against the heat,lol).

Derrick Brown Highlight Video

Wa-La! We have our new team. Check it out:

PG: Deron Williams/Darren Collison/Lance Stephenson

SG: Eric Gordon/Dahntay Jones/Lance Stephenson

SF: Paul George/Derrick Brown/Dahntay Jones

PF: David West/Lou Amundson/Jeff Pendergraph/Draft Player

C: Roy Hibbert/ Fesenko/Draft Player

What do you guys think? :)

I guess the city of Indianapolis really ISN'T that intriguing to players. Crawford tweeted "Rip city!!!" to officially announce the agreement he's made with the Portland Trailblazers, accepting the exact same deal we offered him earlier this week. 2 years, $10 million. I've got to say, I'm sort of heart-broken by his decision; the fact that he'd choose the Blazers over us.

The only question I have is, why? Why would he choose them over us?! I honestly want to know what pushed him away from here. We have an up and coming team, full of talent and potential, and he chooses to go over to a team that just lost their franchise player, who unfortunately was forced to retire due to degenerate knees.

Just doesn't make sense. We make the playoffs, give the best team in the league(record-wise) a run for their money and this is how we're repaid? The Blazers are about to enter into rebuilding mode, there's no reason for him to go there.

Maybe he didn't watch the playoffs last year, and isn't aware of where teams stand at the moment, since he's been so caught up on where he's going to land this summer. Maybe he went on vacation somewhere, and his mind was away for so long, that he forgot which teams are the most talented ones.

The only thing that can keep me emotionally intact right now is to make myself believe that he just isn't a fan of the game, and that he just isn't aware of which teams are good.

What about you guys? Should we take this personal? It's kind of bothering me at the moment

I've been thinking really hard about a lot of options we could pursue. There are many possibilities here, and many different roster line-ups we could come up with. But in my opinion, this could be the golden roster, and the best possible scenario over-all.

1. Make trade for Mayo
2.Trade Brandon Rush and 2nd round pick to anyone, for ANYTHING
3. Amnesty James Posey
4. Waive A.J. Price
5. Sign Carl Landry and Hilton Armstrong
6. Sign Michael Redd(preferred 1 year deal so he can prove his worth to the league)

The reason we trade brandon rush and amnesty James Posey will merely be for roster space, and a little more cap room to pick up Landry and Redd. At the same time, we get a decent sized center in Hilton Armstrong who could be a nice back-up in case one of our centers goes out with an injury.

If we went through with this, our line-up would look like:

Collison / Hill / Stephenson
Mayo / George / Redd / Hill / Stephenson / Jones
Granger / George / Jones / Redd
West / Hansbrough / Landry / Pendergraph
Hibbert / Foster / Armstrong

Our roster would be set at 15 with this line-up. Obviously some concerns are apparent, including the fact that we’d be short at the SF position, which could put a damper on our defensive abilities towards players like Lebron James, Melo, and Kevin Durant who all play at that position. Never the less, I still think we’d perform excellent with this line-up. Let's not forget, that by waiving price, we would be giving lance a little more room to improve, especially at the point guard position. Larry has faith in him, so it's time to put him out their on the court to see how he reacts.

What do you guys think? Is this a reasonable roster that you would like to have? Or more realistically, is it a roster that we have a chance to attain?

Espn and other news sources are reporting that it is OFFICIAL. All sides, including the Rockets and Hornets, have agreed on a 3 team trade that will send Paul to the Lakers, with the Lakers giving up Pau Gasol AND Lamar Odom. Gasol will be shipped to Houston, while the Hornets get Lamar Odom along with some fine pieces from the Rockets such as Luis Scola, Kevin Martin, and Goran Dragic.

Welcome to Hollywood, Chris Paul. The Hornets have agreed to send CP3 to the Lakers in exchange for Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom. Gasol may be rerouted to the Rockets

-ESPN

The first thing that pops in my mind is....pity. LOL! As of now, the Lakers starting power forward will be Derrick Caracter

At the same time, it makes a little sense. With them giving up both Gasol and Odom, it gives the Lakers a little cap flexibility. I can remember the last few days hearing rumors about the interest they have had in Josh McRoberts. Could McBob be headed to L.A. to play along side a starting lineup that includes Paul, Bryant, and former pacer Ron Artest(Metta World Peace)?

What do you think?

Hey guys. Word around town is that Paul George has some interest in joining the dunk contest this season. I along with others think he has a great chance at winning. If we can create a buzz for him, there's a possibility he could be atleast considered for a spot. Please show your support by liking his official Facebook dunk contest fan page. Try contributing in any way you can! The url is http://www.facebook.com/LetPGFly

Also be sure to have your friends and pacers fans like it as well! Would be great if we got the word out.

Let PG Fly!!!!!!

Before I get flamed, cussed at, and talked back to, I would just like to get a heavy point across that has been bothering me for sometime now. It all has to do with roy hibbert. We all know in todays NBA that it's rare for a team to have a very talented center. Back in 1995, we had guys like Hakeem(who was winning championships at this time), a very young shaquille o'neal, patrick ewing, david robinson, and hell, even Rik Smits! Then there were the not so talented centers who were only admired because of one specific skill, their ability to block shots. A few of these guys were dikembe mutumbo, Manute Bol, and even Gheorghe Muresan. Now in no way were these shot blocking centers on the same level as the legendary centers I mentioned before, but in a lot of ways even these types of centers beat most of the centers in the era of today's NBA.

The obvious point that i'm trying to make is that the 90's are over. It's rare for a team to have a talented and skilled big man on the court who can post up, block shots, rebound, make hook shots, and hit 15 foot jumpers on a regular basis. So I think you know where I'm going with this, we trade Roy Hibbert to a team who doesn't have a skilled center, and we get back some of that teams talent that they have at other positions. Why do we do this? Because most of the talent we have at other positions are below league average. In other words, they suck. Not talking about the SF position, and i'm most certainly not talking about the C position. We have good talent at the SF and C positions, but that is it.  Our SG and PF spots always change, one night we have brandon rush starting, and one night, we have dunleavy starting. One night we have hansbrough starting, and one night we have mcroberts.

Another reason we should trade roy hibbert is because not only would we finally get some talent at other positions, but I also think we could have a good chance at signing Greg Oden in the offseason, who has probably 10x more potential than hibbert ever will. Now you might flame me because of his injury problems, but if you ask me, I don't think it's because he has bad knees. The blazers training staff smells really fishy and every great center they've ever had has crapped out on them. Doctors have run numerous tests on Greg's knee and no serious problems have ever been found, in fact after his first micro-fracture surgery, his knee was even stronger than it was before, so there's no reason why this next one can't get stronger as well.

Now I want to go in to another point as well which will connect well with my last point. I always hear all this talk on how we have all this money to spend this summer, who we're going to sign, and how this is the best thing that has ever happened to us. Is it really? Has Larry Bird actually put us in a blessing of a situation? Think again. There's no talent out there in the 2011 class, and the talent that is out there, they most definitely will NOT want to sign with indy. In my opinion, what will happen is we'll sign a few scrub players, give them enormous contracts because we have all this cap money, and hope because we signed them for that much that they'll actually play above their potential and turn us into a contender. Then what happens after that? We end up sucking for the next 4 or 5 years while waiting for the garbage enormous untradeable contracts to run out.

I've always heard Larry Bird talking about how he wants to build chemistry and he wants players on his team like Paul George, Tyler Hansbrough, Darren Collison, and A.J. Price. To be honest, I love these guys, and I really think they should be apart of our future because they are all very young and have not met their full potentials yet, especially George. But these players also have something else in common. All of their contracts expire in 2 years, 1 year after our big "Cap relief". So if we go out and spend all of our cap money like the franchise is wanting to do, then where does that leave us with those players? We have 1 big contract coming off that year in james posey. Even if we let him go, we still won't have enough to sign all of those players, I guarantee that. In the end, I only see us keeping maybe tyler hansbrough and if we're lucky we'll get to keep Darren collison. Then A.j. price will leave along with paul george because they'll obviously get really high offers from other teams.

The only way to fix this problem is to trade our above average talent at one of our positions, preferably the C position, get talent back at other positions that we are weak at so we won't have to fill up those weak positions we have with overpriced contacts next summer, then in 2012 we'll be able to resign the players we have now to keep the chemistry up.

Now I have no idea what trades we can make for Roy Hibbert, and I have no idea who we should sign in 2011. I know that we should make a run at Greg Oden and maybe give him a nice 3 year contract because he has a lot of potential, and keep in mind he's still 22. If we do sign some other talent in the summer of  2011, we should only give these players 1 year contracts so we have a chance to grab guys like Paul George, Darren collison and Tyler Hansbrough. If this franchise doesn't want to be in another talent hole like they've been for the last 5 years, they have to wake up and start making moves now because its the only way we'll ever get back into contention.

Ok first of all I see a lot of people mad at larry bird and david morway for their horrible moves so far this summer. I think it's nothing to worry about. Yes, we are no match to contend for the big guys in the 2010 free agent class, but I think there is nothing to worry about, because in some ways the free agent class of 2011 is a lot better. The economy has a lot to do with it. Some players you thought would be in the 2010 free agent will stay another year for money reasons and of course the economy. I did some research and decided who will be free agents for sure in 2011 and who will most likely be free agents if they are smart enough. Check it out:

Top for sure free agents of 2011 who's contracts expire:(if they don't sign extensions)

Brandon Roy

Lemarcus Aldridge

Tony Parker

Michael Redd

Caron Butler

Kenyon Martin

J.R. Smith

Tashaun Prince

Andre Kirilenko

Top guys who will most likely be free agents in 2011 if they don't sign extensions(and gives reason):

Kevin Durant - in summer of 2011 if he gets a bigger offer, he is a restricted free agent, and you know he will, he was the 6th leading scorer in the league in just his 2nd year! come on!

Dirk Nowitski - Has  a player option for 2010-2011 to earn over 21 million, how can you opt out of that? if he doesn't opt out he will be a free agent in 2011!

Chris Bosh - Has a player option to earn over 17 million in 2010-2011, I don't think he'll pass that up! especially in this economy, and after he earns that he will become a free agent in 2011!

Paul Pierce - Has a player option to earn over 21 million in 2010-2011, he will take it definitely, he can't get more than that anywhere else. After he does that he will be a free agent in 2011.

Kobe Bryant(don't think he'll leave, but he will be free agent) - Has a player option to earn over 20+ million in 2010-2011, he won't pass that up. After that he'll be a free agent in 2011, but he'll most likely stay with L.A.

Greg Oden - Greg will earn 8.7 million in 2011-2012 unless he gets a better offer from another team, then he  can become a restricted agent. I think it's a possibility he will get a bigger offer. He may be a bust to some, but he has potential, he's so strong and athletic. I mean he averaged 8 points 7 rebounds in his rookie season. So he's just starting. Andrew bynum makes 15 million a season for 10 points 7 rebounds? I think greg can get a nice contract like that as well then

There's so much more than this, it's just the tip of the ice berg, there will be a lot more talent in the summer of 2011, and I think that will be our key year to fully rebuild our team. If we can get one or two of these guys, then we can have a star to go along with granger. Over 40 million goes off of cap space that year, so we will have so much money to spend. We might have enough left over to pick up a few good bench players as well and have a fully functioning playoff team!

Here's the top 5 free agents in 2011 position by position(You might not agree with me about who's the best, but its just my opinion). I made an extension on the SG and SF because there was the most talent in those positions.

pg:
1.Tony Parker
2.Mike Conley
3.Rodney Stuckey
4.Jamal Crawford
5.Mario Chalmers

Sg
1.Kobe Bryant
2.Brandon Roy
3.Paul pierce
4.Micheal Redd
5.Caron Butler
6.J.R. Smith
7.Jason Richardson
8. Josh Howard
9.Wilson Chandler

Sf:
1.Kevin Durant
2.Richard Jefferson
3.Al Thornton
4.Tashaun Prince
5.Thaddeus Young
6.Andre Kirilenko

Pf
1.Dirk Nowitski
2.Chris Bosh
3.Kenyon Martin
4.Carl Landry
5.Deandre Jordan

C
1.Greg Oden
2.Al Horford
3.Samuel Dalembert
4.Marc Gasol
5.Kendrick Perkins

*Note that some of these players may sign extensions, so even if their contract does expire in 2011, they can still sign for that team for more time. But there are so many players that have the chance to be free agents in the summer of 2011, I like our chances :) Lets go pacers!