Fans of 29 NBA Teams felt defeated Friday night as they watch LeBron James' Miami Heat advance to the NBA Finals for the fourth straight year (fifth in his career). Miami's apparent dominance seemingly enriches after tonight as they will undoubtedly raise the Eastern Conference Champions banner in October. However, that's not their ultimate goal, now is it? Oh no. They want the big one.
Odds are they will rematch against the San Antonio Spurs who played them to 7 games last year in the Finals before falling to the dreaded Heat. But lets not get carried away, there is no guarantee that the Spurs will win their conference. You see, Oklahoma City has someone named Kevin Durant, and he's pretty damn good.
Lots of questions moving forward are revolving around the Pacers and watch their future looks like. Yes, it could be bright, but at the same time, extremely dangerous. This is a team that traded former franchise-face, Danny Granger, for Evan Turner who has seen limited burn during the playoffs.
So where do the Pacers turn next? Hibbert? George? Hill? West? No one knows quite yet, and in all honesty, some are even saying head coach Frank Vogel could be looking at unemployment (which would be an outrage).
The Pacers lack two key things: scoring and toughness. Sure Paul George and David West can both get you 22 and 15 a night respectively but neither are primetime end-of-game closing guys. Not saying they need Melo, but someone they can trust to always be able to score and give them some extra added talent. (Boy, would Danny Granger would've continued to work out nice for them for sure.
That's another huge question on our minds too, will Evan Turner be back? He's a restricted free agent and should be hoping that Lance Stephenson signs with another team, which I honestly wouldn't be shocked to see.
The Hibbert and West combination is starting to scare me. West not nearly as much as Hibbert, but whose going to take him? Nobody that I can think of. The best type of idea that I have is swapping him for Kevin Love and draft picks for the next 3 or 4 years. However, Minny already has Pekovic and probably isn't going to look to move him away from the 5man spot any time soon. The only other idea I have is to swap him for Tyson Chandler, which would probably be a sizable downgrade for New York, but still give them a better inside scoring presence.
I am scared for Indy, I really am. If they don't figure out a way to upgrade some holes or clean off some dirty countertops, they are going to be in some deep doo-doo come next season.
