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I'm as perplexed as you are.

Maybe even moreso.

(NBAE/Getty Images)

We all saw the same thing last March and April, didn't we? Brandon Rush took off, looked like the most talented guy on the team, produced consistently and played aggressively.

And we all couldn't wait to see what he was going to do this year, right?

What we didn't expect was this: 8.3 points, .364 shooting overall, .304 from the 3-point line. Beyond the numbers, a general lethargy, a willingness to settle into the background rather than step into the limelight.

Jim O'Brien has stuck with Rush, leaving him in the starting lineup for all 12 games. It couldn't have been an easy decision to send Dahntay Jones to the bench when Troy Murphy returned to the lineup. But with Danny Granger moving from power forward to small forward, either Jones or Rush had to move to the second unit.

"I think Dahntay deserves to start, but I think it’s better for our rotation if Dahntay comes off the bench," O’Brien said. "Dahntay knows I think he’s a starter.

"The whole plan throughout the preseason was to pretty much play the team that we had success with at the end of last year, but we weren’t healthy enough to do that."

In eight starts, Jones averaged 18.8 points and shot 50 percent and the Pacers went 5-3. In 12 starts, Rush has yet to score more than 16 and has made at least half his shots just twice.

This is not to place the blame for the Pacers' erratic start on Rush. It's more a matter of looking forward. For the Pacers to move beyond where they've been, they need Rush.

"The beautiful thing about basketball is there's a lot of phases to it," said O'Brien. "Sometimes your shot is not falling. He might want to take other guys like Earl (Watson) and T.J. (Ford) as role models. If their shots not falling they're finding ways to defend and be very, very aggressive.

"So Brandon will find his way. He'll find his stride. How he'll find it, what we have to do to find it, I clearly don't know because if I did he would've found it right now. It's really up to the individual and he knows he has the confidence of everybody."

Rush has acknowledged occasional confidence issues and has said it's been tough to develop a rhythm. But essentially, his game boils down to aggression. When he brings that to the court, everything else follows.

In the meantime, we will continue to scratch our heads and wonder why Rush hasn't taken the big leap, why he doesn't have the NBA buzzing about his athleticism, his sweet shooting stroke, his improving defense, his all-around talent package.

But we will continue to believe (hope?) that it will happen, and then prove worth the wait.