The Indiana Pacers are off to a rough start this season as they have lost their first two games. Indiana is an extremely different team this season and so far that hasn't been a good thing. One of the problems with the roster that stood out coming into the season was the lack of depth at the point guard position. Before the season started head coach Frank Vogel said that Joseph Young would be his backup point guard even though he is more of a shooting guard but now it appears that he is out of the rotation completely, according to Pat Boylan of Fox Sports Indiana.
Young played just two minutes in the season opener and was a DNP-coaches decision on Thursday so it is pretty clear he is not in the rotation but Vogel says that his lack of playing time isn't due to anything he did. With Young not getting minutes, Monta Ellis has been the backup at point guard behind George Hill and Vogel reportedly plans to keep it that way.
The Pacers are deep on the wings but lack depth at point guard so it makes some sense to move Ellis over as the backup point guard but he is also the starting shooting guard and he is not much of a facilitator. Ellis is a score first guard that has averaged 4.8 assists per game in his career so the ball won't exactly be moving while he is in there at point guard.
The lack of a true backup has put a lot of pressure on Hill to stay on the floor. Through two games he is averaging 38 minutes and while he has played well he will not be able to keep that up if his minutes continue to be that high.
Young is a similar player to Ellis in that he is undersized to play shooting guard (6 foot-2) but he can really fill it up on the offensive end. Having him as the backup point guard would present the same problems that having Ellis there would present but it would at least take some of the onus off of Ellis. Young averaged 3.7 assists per game in college but he scored 17.5 points per game and his scoring ability will likely transfer over to the NBA but unfortunately he is not a point guard so minutes will be tough to come by this season.
