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Player Review 2015: Solomon Hill

Age: 24
Years Pro: 2
Status: Has one year at minimum remaining on his rookie contract, with a team option for an additional year.
Key Stats: Only Pacers player to appear in all 82 games. Led team in minutes (2,381), while averaging 8.9 points, 3.8 rebounds, and 2.2 assists per game.

As a slew of injuries ravaged the Pacers roster throughout the 2014-15 season, no player saw his role change more dramatically than Solomon Hill.

The 23rd overall pick in the 2013 NBA Draft barely saw the floor as a rookie. Buried on the depth chart behind Paul George, Lance Stephenson and several veteran backups, Hill played a measly total of 226 minutes in the 2013-14 season.

Hill had already played more minutes by the end of the first quarter of the eighth game of the year in 2014-15.

Head coach Frank Vogel and President Larry Bird had already said they expected Hill to be a part of the rotation in his second year in the league, but George's injury and Stephenson's departure in free agency accelerated his development.

Hill took on a major role from the very start of the season. Injuries to George, George Hill, and David West left the Pacers without three of their main scoring options for the first month of the year and veteran wing players Rodney Stuckey and C.J. Miles were also in and out of the lineup in the early going.

As a result, Solomon Hill, who entered the year with a reputation as a defensive-minded player, was forced to become a primary scorer in the early part of the season. He mostly rose to the challenge, averaging 13.1 points per game in the month of November. He exploded for a career-best 28 points on Nov. 8 against the Wizards, going 10-for-19 from the field and 7-for-11 from the free throw line. A week later, he recorded his first career double-double, tallying 21 points and 12 rebounds to help lead undermanned Indiana to an upset victory in Chicago.

Hill also had one of the plays of the year on Nov. 19, when he put back Stuckey's errant shot at the buzzer to beat the Hornets at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. Hill started the play in the left corner, but hustled around around two defenders when he saw Stuckey's shot was going to come up short and made an athletic play to collect the rebound and put it back up and over the rim in one motion.

As players like West and George Hill made their way back into the lineup, Solomon's workload decreased somewhat, but he remained a vital cog in the lineup for the entire season. In fact, the former University of Arizona standout was the only Pacers player to play in all 82 regular season games, starting all but four of them. He played 2,381 minutes, over 400 more than the next-closest Pacers player and over 10 times the minutes he logged as a rookie.

In Hill's mind, that experience was invaluable to his development.

"It's one thing to want to be out there and want to make a difference, but then it's another to be starting and understanding the game schemes and understanding how certain teams play," he said at the end of the season.

With Paul George, one of the NBA's best perimeter defenders, out for all but the last six games of the year, Hill was thrown to the fire on the defensive end. Whenever the Pacers played against an elite wing player like LeBron James, Hill always got first crack at guarding them. It was definitely a learning experience for the 6-7 forward, who doesn't have the same length as George, but does possess above-average athleticism and instincts.

On the offensive end, Hill perhaps exceeded expectations. After working with multiple shooting coaches over the summer, he shot 32.7 percent from 3-point range, not a great percentage, but a slight improvement from his .308 clip as a rookie. But Hill made noticeable strides in other areas, particularly attacking the basket.

The sophomore showed a particular fondness for making runs at the rim in the halfcourt offense, both off the dribble and off of cuts. He threw down several emphatic dunks in the lane over the course of the year that ignited the Bankers Life Fieldhouse crowd.

"Every time I went to the lane, I was looking to get above the rim as much as possible," Hill recalled.

Hill's attacking nature also allowed to get to the free throw line on a pretty consistent basis. He attempted 193 free throws over the course of the year, fourth-most on the team. Hill was excellent at the foul line, shooting 82.4 percent from the charity stripe.

With George presumably back healthy next season, Hill's role will likely change once again. Bird said at his end-of-year press conference that he expects Hill to move back into a reserve role, backing up George and Miles on the wings.

Still, at 24 years old, Solomon Hill is the closest thing the Pacers have to a young asset on their current roster. He should continue to develop and figures to play significant minutes, particularly if the team experiments with more small-ball lineups with George playing power forward, something both Bird and Vogel expressed interest in after the season. Hill, listed at 225 pounds, is well aware of those plans and said his primary goal for the offseason is to "slim down" to be better equipped to play at a faster pace.

"I think we're going to run a lot more," Hill said. "That's what we're trying to do. We've had some success just trying to push the ball and I think it has a lot to do with just me getting out on breaks, trying to get some easy points."

After his rookie season, Solomon Hill was still an unknown commodity. But after this year, the Pacers know what they have: a capable contributor with a bright future.