The Indiana Pacers are heading into the 2013-14 season with NBA championship aspirations after taking the Miami Heat to the wire in the Eastern conference playoffs and after doing it all without Danny Granger in the lineup, will the team think about possibly moving him before the season begins like the Oklahoma City Thunder did with James Harden to the Rockets?
Head coach Frank Vogel said he did not know whether Granger would start or not and the team wants to see if his knee is fully healed before making a move. The team played so well without Granger that there is a chance he could be moved and so far things have been quiet on the market. A Hoops Hype report said that the LA Clippers, Cavaliers and Raptors could fit based on the money that they could trade away, but right now no deal is imminent.
Granger missed basically the whole season while dealing with knee injuries and played in just five games, leaving Lance Stephenson to improve mightily and the team had its best season in years while making it to the Eastern conference finals. Granger will be coming back from two serious knee injuries and while he said that he expects to be in the starting lineup when next season picks up, head coach Frank Vogel responded that he "probably" will, which isn't always a ringing endorsement.
Vogel is the perfect coach for the Pacers and he will figure out what is best for his team, but after the way the team played this season, he could see Granger as someone who may come off the bench more. There were times that it seemed the Pacers desperately needed a scorer like Granger, including in the Game matchup against the Heat, but the team played so well at times that Vogel may not want to mess with that. Stephenson played well in the playoffs and for most of the season and according to the Indianapolis Star, Vogel said that he wants to see how Granger returns from the injury before deciding on what to do, especially with the way Stephenson played.
Granger is getting older and with his knees looking like problems just waiting to happen, the Pacers need to be ready for the possibility that he won't be 100 percent when he returns and clearly Vogel is ready for that with Stephenson. Vogel has the cache to make a decision like that after getting to the Eastern conference finals and possibly for the beginning of the season, Granger may come off the bench.
