Written by C.Cooper at IndyCornRows.com
Set to clear waivers on Thursday after coming to terms on a contract buyout with the Houston Rockets, soon-to-be free agent point guard Ty Lawson has drawn serious interest from the Indiana Pacers, reports Yahoo’s Shams Charania.
“Free-agent guard Ty Lawson is in strong discussions on a possible deal with the Indiana Pacers, league sources tell The Vertical.”
Having spent the first six years of his career with the Denver Nuggets, the beleaguered guard was expected to lighten James Harden’s load as a distributor when he arrived in Houston. But that very quickly turned out to be a failed thought experiment. Per NBA.com’s Player Tracking, Harden leads the league in total time of possession (336 minutes) among non-point guards while scoring or assisting on 46.3 points per game. With the former MVP candidate clearly more potent with the basketball than without, Lawson was soon supplanted to the reserve lineup, where he averaged career-lows in points (5.8), assists (3.4) and field-goal percentage (38.7%).
Though far from producing at the same level as he did in Denver, there are still a few numbers which support signing the guard the Indiana Pacers once passed over in the 2009 NBA Draft, even if it means waiving a member of the 15-man roster.
24: The number of games Rodney Stuckey has missed this season. If prior injury is, in fact, the number one predictor of future injury, then adding another capable guard for the stretch run of the season may not be a bad idea. As it stands now, George Hill, Monta Ellis, and Stuckey are combining to average 93.4 of the 96 possible back court minutes per game in a staggered rotation. Adding Lawson to the mix would provide head coachFrank Vogel with the flexibility to remove Hill from the increasingly exclusive 35-minute per game club and rely more heavily on all-reserve lineups when needed.
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