Candace Buckner

candace.buckner@indystar.com

The second of The Star's five-part positional breakdown of the 2013-14 Indiana Pacers. In this installment, we examine why the power forward position provided the most stability for the Pacers.

Friday: Point guard inconsistency plagued Pacers

DAVID WEST

Paul George earned the All-Star starter status, the All-NBA honor and the All-Defensive first-team recognition. George, rightfully so, is the most well known and most rewarded Pacer. But with all due respect to the all-around star, David West is simply All-Everything.

West's three years in Indiana have been three years of consistency. His shooting percentage has remained around 48 percent — and he's a power forward who takes most of his shots from the midrange (422 of his 939 total attempts through the regular season). Also, his rebounding totals and points per 36 minutes have provided the one unbroken link in a starting five given to rocky ups and downs.

Even when the team nearly went off course after the All-Star break (16-14 overall), West actually improved his production in the categories that mattered most — his minutes spiked (30.2 to 32.2), his rebounding improved (6.5 to 7.2) and his scoring boosted (13.7 to 14.2) while many of the teammates around him contributed wildly inconsistent numbers.

This past season, George operated as the go-to man in the offense with a team-high 28.3 usage rate, which estimates the percentage of team plays used by a player when on the court. West, with his throwback game centered from the free-throw line and closer, ranked second with 21.9 but his percentage of successful scoring plays graded higher than George. Also, West's on-court/off-court net ratings proved his worth as the team's most significant player.

The Pacers outscored opponents by 7.9 points per 100 possessions with West on the court but were outscored 1.5 when he sat — West led all teammates in this statistic. Overall, the Pacers' offense netted an additional 6.9 more points per 100 possessions while West was on the floor, again the highest on the team.

When Indiana faced must-win games through the first two rounds of the playoffs, West stepped in with his most aggressive performances of the year (the pair of Game 6s against Atlanta and Washington). West would explain after those victories that he wanted the result of the game to be on his shoulders.

West, who after the February trade of Danny Granger found himself as the longest tenured veteran in the locker room, has survived more playoff adversity than the other younger starters. While George admitted after the season that the team was unable to handle success, the mature West was not one of the players implicated in that statement.

"I think he recognizes his window," assistant coach Dan Burke said of West in March. "I would have to say he probably wants it more because the young guys' tendency is every year is going to be like this. I'm sure he's told them — I'm putting words into his mouth — that it's not always going to be like this. You got to take advantage of a year like this and now we should just do everything we can to go after it. I would say that maybe his urgency is a little higher than the young players and that's just the natural way of the league."

LUIS SCOLA

While West will turn 34 this summer, his backup has already reached that age. Luis Scola was the second oldest Pacer on roster – Rasual Butler, who turned 35 during the season, was the oldest – and as another trusty veteran, provided more steadiness from the power forward position.

This past season, Scola played the fewest minutes of his seven-year career (17.1) and as a result, averaged just 7.6 points per game. In spite of the limited role, Scola's shooting percentage remained on par with production from the 2012-13 season, his last as a regular starter.

Scola, who often stretched out to 15-19 feet then tossed in feathery jump shots, played on a second unit with a ball-dominant Lance Stephenson. This helps explain why Stephenson contributed more assists (58) to Scola's made field goals than any other teammate. It also helped Stephenson to have someone on the floor who could consistently knock down shots. Scola was an astounding 107-of-227 from his sweet spot and though a bout with a nagging elbow injury through much of February affected his shot, overall he remained at 47 percent through the season.

Although Scola rarely plugged into the center position — just 5 percent of his time on the court through the regular season was spent at the five spot – he showed that the Pacers could go with a 'small ball' look for a limited time.

While the West-Scola frontline wasn't good for defense (a 118.2 defensive rating, the worst of all the Pacers' five-man units that played more than 40 minutes together this season), the unit gave Indiana versatility when it needed it most in the playoffs.

Scola had some good minutes when the Pacers went small against Atlanta. He also showed up in Game 1 against Washington and scored six crucial points in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals. But he was an afterthought through much of the postseason as the Pacers shortened the rotation. Through 18 playoff games, Scola was a minus 3.8 and averaged just 13.5 minutes.

CHRIS COPELAND

As the heralded free agent who would have been the Pacers' backup forward under normal circumstances, Chris Copeland gained the hearts of fans but rarely saw the court. Last August, after the Pacers picked up Scola, Copeland — the spread-four whose 67.5 percent of shot attempts came from beyond the 3-point arc — was pushed further down the depth chart and appeared in only 41 games.

However, those season-long chants of "WE WANT COPE-LAND!" that filled Bankers Life Fieldhouse during blowout wins were answered in a time of desperation.

Yes, Copeland scored the game-winner in Milwaukee when the starters sat on April 9 and even dropped a season-high 19 points in the final regular-season game in Orlando, but his finest moments came during the first round of the playoffs.

In Game 5 against Atlanta, the Pacers lost control after a horrid second quarter. When Copeland stepped on the floor in the third quarter, Indiana trailed by 27 but he finished out the game with a unit that featured four perimeter players and the Pacers lost by only 10, 107-97. Then in Game 6, Copeland earned early minutes and was a plus-11 through his time on the court in the first and second quarters. Copeland finished with only five points but his contributions on both ends were far greater as the Pacers survived the potential elimination game.

Though Copeland averaged 10 minutes a game during the Atlanta series, he returned to a trivial bench role through the duration of the playoffs.