Pacers shore up bench by acquiring Luis Scola

The offseason is just over a month old and the Indiana Pacers are already reloading and getting ready for their 2013-2014 season.

Indiana made a trade that brought Luis Scola to the team to help the Pacers bench with his low post play.

Indiana started its offseason with two important tasks at hand: re-sign forward David West to a contract he is happy with and to shore up their bench in any way they could.

The first task was taken care of quickly as West agreed to a new contract of three years in early July. The second task however, is ongoing.

The team’s rotation at the point guard position was helped by the additions of both Donald Sloan and C.J. Watson and D.J. Augustin’s exodus.

The qualifying offer for Tyler Hansbrough was rescinded when the wheels started turning for Indiana to sign Chris Copeland a very good shooter. Copeland will help the sometimes stale offense the Pacers are known to have at times, especially when the bench is playing with the starters resting.

Danny Granger is recovering from the  knee injury he suffered during the 2012 playoffs, which kept him out of virtually all of last season, and will be ready to help the offense as well.

On Saturday, the team made one more addition to the bench when they agreed with the Phoenix Suns to trade Miles Plumlee, Gerald Green and a lottery-protected first round pick in 2014 for Scola.

Since his prime years with Houston, Scola’s game has dipped, but he will fit well with the power-posting Pacers offense and have an advantage over opposing teams’ second unit big men.

Even if he does not score the way he used to, he is a better version than the exiting Hansbrough and will play more of a direct role in the offense for Indiana.

Scola, even though his best years are behind him, can score better, go to the basket better and finish better than Hansbrough.

Scola does have a problem on defense. Scola plods along on defense but the rest of the Pacers should be able to compensate for his slow feet when on the defensive end.

His rebounding is still good enough that when teamed with the likes of Ian Mahinmi or Roy Hibbert he could prove to be quite valuable to the team.

Of course, adding Scola and trying to find time for him, could mean Copeland who was just acquired as well, could be sitting more than playing.

However, those are the sorts of problems Frank Vogel the Pacers’ head coach wants to have.

What now seems to be gone are the days of trying to extract every last minute out of the starters so the hapless bench was not needed that often.

The trade for Scola was costly, giving up a first round pick in what might be the deepest draft in quite some time next year, but if Scola can give the Pacers the minutes they expect and hope for, then his acquisition might be the last piece of the puzzle the team needs to get to the next level.