The Indiana Pacers lost their starting frontcourt this season of David West and Roy Hibbert so they are looking for ways to replace them. At this point it seems like Ian Mahinmi is the favorite to start at center and head coach Frank Vogel has been adamant about starting his star player, Paul George, at power forward this season. On Tuesday Vogel reportedly softened his stance on George playing power forward slightly by saying that it will depend on the matchup, according to Mark Montieth of Pacers.com.
Vogel thinks that the Pacers' small lineup, which he will start with most games, is better than any other team's small lineup. C.J. Miles will start at small forward when they decide to start small with Monta Ellis at shooting guard and George Hill at point guard. George will likely have a huge mismatch on offense when he is playing the four but he is still not too happy about it because he is coming off a major injury and will have to do some dirty work in the paint most likely.
The Pacers open up their season against the Memphis Grizzlies who start a traditional lineup with two big men, Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph, so George will likely start that game at his natural small forward position. Vogel understandably doesn't want George to have to deal with Randolph on the defensive end so he will probably put another big in there for that purpose.
It is unknown who would start at power forward in these situations but the two most likely options might be Myles Turner or Jordan Hill. Lavoy Allen is another option but the Pacers are extremely high on Turner so it wouldn't be a surprise for him to get the occasional start against teams like Memphis. George's reaction when he heard that he likely wasn't going to start at power forward against bigger teams was "that's music to my ears."
George came back from his gruesome broken leg last season to appear in six games for the Pacers but he only played 15.2 minutes per game and was understandably inefficient with his shooting. This offseason it seems like George is fully healthy and he has his spring back based on the way he finished this alley-oop.
No matter what position George plays he should be in for another great year. The 25 year old is entering his sixth season in the league and he has improved every year since entering the NBA in 2010 with the obvious exception of last year. George may not like the move to power forward but at least it won't be full-time and it will certainly make the Pacers an exciting team to watch for the most part this season.
