Roy Hibbert’s time is coming.

It could be this season. It might be a season away.

But those associated with the Indiana Pacers’ 7-2 center are convinced he’s on his way to becoming a low-post force.

“In the very near future, if not right now, he’s going to be a dominant low-post scorer, a guy you can count on throwing the ball to and getting you points,” Pacers veteran center Jeff Foster said.

“He will be a presence,” his college coach, Georgetown’s John Thompson III, said, “at both ends of the floor in that league for a long time.”

Just four games into his second season, Hibbert has shown flashes of improvement.

He is averaging 10.8 points and a team-high 10.3 rebounds. He is coming off the first two double-doubles of his career, in consecutive games. That after a preseason in which he scored 20 points or more three times.

As a rookie, Hibbert never had more than 19 points or nine rebounds in a regular-season game.

During the preseason, Hibbert described his offensive game as a “work in progress,” specifically noting that he needed to finish stronger and fight through contact.

Now?

“I am feeling more comfortable down low,” he said after scoring a season-high 15 Wednesday at New York. “I just need to know the time when to score because I want to be that presence down there. I just need to stay aggressive and more confident when I get the ball.”

His offensive work during the summer included polishing jump hooks with either hand and improving his already solid jump shot.

“You haven’t seen my turn-and-face game, yet,” he said with a grin. “You’ll see it this year.”

The Pacers aren’t counting on Hibbert to be their second- or even third-leading scorer. Just six centers averaged more than 15.0 points last season.

But if Pacers coach Jim O’Brien wants success from his up-tempo offense — which essentially is a point guard, three shooters and one post player — against the league’s better teams, the guy in the middle has to be able to score enough to keep defenses honest.

So far he has.

“He’s already one of the better back-to-the-basket low post scorers in this league,” Foster said. "Any time you have a guy that’s 7-2 and you spread the court as much as we do, a lot of what he’s going to have to do is roll to the basket or go stand in front of the basket, and he’s going to get a pass and lay it right in.

“And there will be times coach calls a play for him and he gets us points.”

For Hibbert to have a chance to blossom into an offensive force, he has to be on the floor. That means he must be able to defend without fouling. He averaged 3.1 fouls while playing 14.4 minutes per game as a rookie, which translates into fouling out in fewer than 30 minutes.

He played 29 minutes without a foul against the Knicks.

Foster has worked with Hibbert on the nuances of post defense: Meeting your man as he comes down the floor, staying low, fighting to keep him a couple of feet off his scoring spot, knowing each player’s primary scoring moves. Hibbert is seventh in the NBA in blocks, averaging 2.25 a game.

“You can talk about it as much as you want, but until you get into a game situation and guard some of these elite guys, you don’t get the experience of doing that,” said Foster, who has guarded Shaquille O’Neal, Dwight Howard, Yao Ming and other top centers during his 10-year career.

“There’s a pretty big gap between the good post players in this league and guys that do other things. Learning how to play in the post is trial and error.”

Point guard and center are generally regarded as the most difficult positions for a rookie, a sentiment with which O’Brien agrees.

While acknowledging Hibbert has “an immense amount of work to do,” O’Brien said he was thrilled his second-year center spent so much time in the offseason working on his deficiencies and listening to a veteran such as Foster.

“As a result, the growing pains he had as a rookie are not going to be there. He’s going to be playing at a higher level right from the beginning,” O’Brien said.

“I think he has the ability to consistently improve for a number of years, and if that’s accurate, he’s going to be a terrific basketball player.”

Call Star reporter Jeff Rabjohns at (317) 444-6183.