Danny Granger could eat into Paul George’s minutes
By Bryan Rose
The Indiana Pacers have been eagerly awaiting the season debut of Danny Granger, a debut which is tentatively scheduled for Friday night.
One could reasonably assume the Pacers will slowly work Granger back into the rotation given his missed time, lack of game conditioning and overall struggle to stay healthy. And they likely will, but it is expected that Granger could eat into the minutes of Paul George in the coming weeks, assuming Granger remains healthy:
"On Monday night, Indiana Pacers coach Frank Vogel disclosed his plan to not exclusively play Granger as the replacement small forward, but allow him the bulk of the minutes that have rotated among several role players this season. “We’ll take all the backup wing minutes and give those to Danny and let him work his way in and we’ll take it from there,” Vogel said. “Just playing Danny Granger 10 minutes a game is probably not enough.”"
Vogel explained that he didn’t want George playing around 40 minutes a game, an understandable stance considering the last thing Indiana wants to do is wear down their best player.
Of course, how effective Granger will be and the type of health he’ll be able to retain is unknown, so it’ll be a fluid situation to keep an eye on.