David West agrees to 3-year deal to stay with Indiana Pacers

The good news is that West’s game ages well. With the exception of a brief stretch early in 2011-12 as he was recovering from a torn ACL, West has given his teams the same steady production on both ends of the floor for the last eight years. He’s averaged between 17 and 21 points and 7.5 and 8.5 rebounds a game in seven of the last eight years. His PER has fluctuated between 18.9 and 20.4 over that same time frame in every year except 2011-12. He’s a reliable low-post scorer, a proficient jump shooter, an excellent passer, an underrated assassin late in games and a locker-room leader. Very little of that should change over the next three years.

It’s going to be very difficult to improve the team given that little flexibility. Indiana may need to surrender assets to get Green and Mahinmi, who will make a combined $7.5 million in 2014-15, off their cap.

That’s not a significant raise for a player SB Nation’s Tom Ziller ranked as the No. 7 free agent of the offseason, but a three-year deal for a player that will begin next season as a 33-year-old is certainly nothing to scoff at.

West was instrumental as a hard-nosed leader on the surprising Pacers this past season, but his production nearly matched the intangibles he brought to Indiana. West averaged 17 points and nearly eight rebounds in 73 starts for the Pacers this past regular season before putting together a few big games in the Pacers’ run to the Eastern Conference Finals.