Doyel: Roy Hibbert trade is biggest win of Pacers' offseason

From something ugly, something beautiful is growing. You know the ugly. Paul George's gruesome broken leg, nearly a year ago, which triggered the Indiana Pacers' slide out of the 2015 NBA playoffs, which led to …

Something beautiful growing at Bankers Life Fieldhouse.

The Pacers have done so much right, and gotten a little luck as well, and the result is pretty much every single thing falling their way since Paul George fell so horribly, horribly wrong.

The departure of fraudulent center Roy Hibbert is the latest, greatest thing to happen to this team, the cherry on top of a sundae that will see the Pacers contend not just for a playoff spot next season, but for a top-four seed that would give them homecourt advantage in the postseason.

Hibbert is going to the Lakers, which takes his $15.5 million off Indiana's books. What will the Pacers get for Hibbert, and what will they do with the leftover money? As of this writing I don't know, and I don't care. Get a backup power forward, a third-string guard, a lump of used ankle tape. Whatever.

Hibbert leaving is addition by subtraction, only it's better than that. It's multiplication by subtraction. Hibbert wasn't going to play much this season, he wasn't going to be happy about it, and he was going to prevent the Pacers from replacing his salary with one or — more likely — two or three players who can fill the team's depth. A veteran point guard off the bench. Another power forward to spell Paul George.

The possibilities are endless for the Pacers, their future opening up like the free throw lane for a monster dunk. You know the kind of dunk that has a player swinging from the rim and then screaming joyously at the world? I'm picturing Larry Bird hanging up with the Lakers after consummating the best deal of his career and saying something like this:

Yahhhhhhhhh!

Bird didn't fleece the Lakers. In today's NBA, this was one of those deals where everybody wins. The Pacers unloaded an unhappy, underperforming, overpaid player. The Lakers acquired center depth and, of much more importance, a contract they can take off the books after it expires a year from now.

The Lakers didn't have to lose for the Pacers to keep winning, and these wins feel better — are better — because of the horrible place they started: with Paul George screaming under a basket in Las Vegas, where he landed wrong and broke his right leg while scrimmaging Aug. 1 for Team USA.

That injury forced the Pacers to ask more of Hibbert and George Hill. Hibbert did what he has done since late in the 2013-14 season — absolutely shrink from the moment. Hill, though, put together the best season of his career (16.1 points, 5.1 assists). The George Hill who plays next season will be 29 years old, entering his peak physically and psychologically.

Meanwhile, all that losing wore on 34-year-old power forward David West, who has played too long in this league to go through what he thinks is a rebuilding process. So West shocked the Pacers when he opted out of his $12.6 million contract, freeing up money the team used on one of the top scorers available, career 19.3-ppg scorer Monta Ellis. He's not without flaws, but Ellis will give the Pacers a monster No. 2 scoring threat behind Paul George.

In the front office, Bird watched the product on the floor last season — plodding Hibbert, plodding West — and changed the course of the franchise. No longer would he give coach Frank Vogel players designed to protect the rim at one end and try their best to put the basketball inside it on the other.

Nope, Bird wanted to get smaller, faster, more athletic. Some pieces from last season look ready for that. Small forward C.J. Miles (13.5 ppg, 34.5 percent on 3-pointers) was, and will be again, a great value at less than $4.5 million per year. Hill can score and create. Backup big men Lavoy Allen and Ian Mahinmi can defend the rim and run.

With the Pacers' No. 11 pick, Bird drafted Texas freshman Myles Turner, a 6-11 center with a 7-4 wingspan. Bird knew he needed Turner after watching another lost season of Hibbert. Whether he could unload his contract or not — and who knew the Lakers would whiff on their top targets and punt until next offseason? — Bird knew Hibbert was finished.

Turner? Well, it's summer league and this was just one game, but early returns get no better than this: In his NBA debut on Saturday in Orlando, Turner had 20 points and eight rebounds, both game highs, with 8-for-11 shooting from the floor.

To all of that good news for the Pacers this offseason, add this absurd and I promise you overlooked piece: They're adding a max-contract guy next season.

Well, they are.

His name is Paul George. He missed 76 games last season after the broken leg and played six games as a shell of himself, not Paul George or even Paul George Lite, but someone on the court just to prove he could get there. Which he did.

At some point this upcoming season, perhaps in the first month, Paul George will be Paul George. And he'll be playing alongside Miles, Ellis, Hill and Turner in a lineup that can play the way Bird and Vogel want to play.

In other words, the anti-Hibbert way.

Happy Fourth of July, Pacers. Does it feel like Christmas? Sure looks that way from here.

Find Star columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at@GreggDoyelStar or atwww.facebook.com/gregg.doyel