Lavoy Allen – Allen was the third part of the Danny Granger/Evan Turner trade, but has barely improved in three years. He is still one of the most inefficient scorers in the league – he can hit a mid-range shot, but he only takes them, and there’s nothing efficient about a mid range jump shot. You have to hit 50% of them just to score a point per possession, with very few foul shots in the process, and Allen has yet to add the three point range to it. On the plus side, the rest of his game outside of scoring is very solid. He picked up his rebounding rate last year, still passes well, and defends through physicality, temperament and IQ rather than length or athleticism. Allen is said to already have agreed a deal to re-sign with the Pacers, which makes plenty of sense, because he is a very solid backup power forward. They can now waive Luis Scola, save money, and lose little. Eric Atkins – Atkins is very hardy, playing huge minutes in almost every game. In those minutes, he is a very steadying presence, sporting an assist/turnover ratio of slightly over 2.5 to one and making very few mistakes. The trade-off is an absence of dynamic play. Reasonably big for a point guard, but not especially fast or athletic, Atkins does not has the speed to consistently penetrate the first line of the defence and collapse it. He racks up his assists through feeding the post and moving it around without making bad passes, rather than through drawing the defence. Atkins is not a particularly bold or audacious ball handler, either, but he keeps the dribble alive and rarely loses it, partly because he rarely takes it into traffic but also because of the same […]
