Behind Larry Bird at his desk in Pacers’ offices in Indianapolis is the future, the hope. It’s a list by position of the top players in college and overseas. Bird has been studying them for months, traveling, talking and analyzing. And sometimes, just shaking his head.
Bird’s Indiana Pacers missed the playoffs this season, breaking a run of nine straight seasons and 16 of the last 17. They finished 35-47, and the speculation is coach Rick Carlisle could be out and star Jermaine O’Neal traded.
Few persons in the history of the NBA have known winning like Bird, a Hall of Famer with about every basketball success imaginable as a player and coach. And now, as general manager of the Pacers, he’s facing something he has never known.
“Never,” Bird said in a recent interview. “I’ve never been on a team that lost. I wasn’t on the varsity [at Indiana State] the year I broke my ankle and missed the whole season. They won five, six games, but I really wasn’t a part of it. I’ve never been involved in anything like this. It’s all new to me. It’s tough.”
And a quick Pacers turnaround appears unlikely.
If they don’t get a top-10 draft pick in the lottery, the Pacers lose their first-rounder to Atlanta from the Al Harrington deal. They don’t have a second-round pick. O’Neal has talked at times of wanting to be traded, and the big midseason deal for Mike Dunleavy, Troy Murphy and Ike Diago has the Warriors happily in the playoffs with Harrington and Stephen Jackson.
In fact, the Warriors were so giddy about breaking a 13-year playoff drought that Jackson, still facing probation violations for discharging a firearm during a preseason strip-club parking lot incident in Indianapolis, does a mock police frisk with his hands behind his head in pregame introductions with teammate Matt Barnes.
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“It’s a little joke for all the people who think I’m a bad guy, who don’t know me,” Jackson told the San Francisco Chronicle. “It’s like, ‘I got nothing on me, I just want to play basketball and have fun.'”
Bird and the Pacers aren’t laughing.
“We’ve had three tough years,” Bird acknowledged about a franchise many often pointed to as the NBA model for player satisfaction and community involvement. “I was sitting here before the season with (President) Donnie (Walsh, whom Bird is trying to persuade to stay with his contract expiring) and he said, ‘Let’s have some fun this year.’ I said, ‘Donnie, we’re not playing.’
“You have to go back to the [Auburn Hills] fight, unfortunately,” Bird said. “We never really recovered from that. The next year Stephen, Jermaine and Ronnie [Artest] are waiting for me after the [end-of-season] meetings with the guys. They say we want to stay together, give us one more chance, that they’ll make this work. If it doesn’t, we can get rid of all of them. Then Ronnie wants to be traded after 15 games. C’mon. Then we have to trade players because of the [strip-club] incident three days into camp. You can’t have that in a city like this.
“Our focus was playing basketball,” Bird said of his playing days. “When I coached here we had a committed group of guys. You could tell after practice the way they’d stay around. There’s not a lot of that anymore. You don’t see it, the commitment it really takes. Would I take a chance on a [questionable] guy? Yeah. But I wouldn’t with a top-20 pick anymore. You can’t have those guys on your team. It’s not worth the risk, especially after what we’ve been through.
“Take Chicago,” Bird said, admiringly. “Look what they’re doing. Getting guys from universities, guys who got the coaching from great programs. I’ve been watching them up there and what they’re doing, and you can see they’re turning the corner.”
Bird declined to talk about Carlisle, though local media reports indicate he’ll be out. Around the NBA, the talk is the Pacers will come hard after Raptors coach Sam Mitchell, whose contract expires after this season. Mitchell played three seasons in Indiana, and his hard-nosed, direct style was admired by management. He’s the kind of leader they’d like to rebuild with.
And though Raptors general manager Bryan Colangelo has said the right things about supporting and bringing back Mitchell, the belief is he remains uncomfortable with Mitchell, whom he did not hire. Also, it was no secret Colangelo was forceful in getting Mitchell to accept and play rookie Andrea Bargnani. There appears to be something of a power struggle going on with President Richard Peddie openly supporting Mitchell’s return, apparently to push Colangelo.
But the feeling is Colangelo will use the power of his turnaround of the franchise to bring in his own coach. Though Suns assistant Marc Iavaroni often is mentioned as a successor, rumors lately have Colangelo continuing the European style and bringing in a protege of Raptors assistant general manager Maurizio Gherardini from Benetton Treviso. A Raptors first-round playoff loss to the Nets would likely mute the public and media demands for Mitchell’s rehiring.
Indeed, a GM’s job is not as easy as playing.
“It’s a different league now,” Bird sighed. “Danny [Ainge] and Kevin [McHale] and all of us are having our struggles,” he said of his former Celtics teammates running the Celtics and Timberwolves, respectively. “I look at our team and say we’re better than [an opponent]. And they have a better record. I feel we’re a lot better than we played. We’ve had injuries, but we had more a couple of years ago and were better. You don’t want to make excuses. I really don’t think we’re that far away.
“The players we got in trade, they’re good players, knowledgeable, they know how to play. Maybe not All-Stars, but good character guys who’ve been in winning programs. We’re not going to win 55 games right away, but we have a chance to build it and get it back to where we want to be. Jermaine is a hard guy to replace. If he comes in here and says he wants to go, we’ll look. But he’s under contract. If we cannot get what we want, we won’t trade him. We’ll be the same as Memphis (with Pau Gasol). If we continue to have him, he’s got to be our focal point and we’ve got to get guys to complement him.
“When I went to Boston, I knew they won championships but didn’t really know the history. But the players always came around, you’d ask questions, they’d talk basketball. You didn’t want to let the guys down. They set the bar high. It’s not like that here, or around the league. We stay at the nicest hotels. In Minnesota we’re right across the street from the arena, maybe a 45-second walk. They’ve got a bus for them. You’ve got to be kidding me. Charter planes. That’s not flying. I always say guys deserve the money, but it changes some people.
“Somewhere along the line this is going to break and we’re going to have success. I know it. I’m not going to give up. I told Donnie we’ll see what we’re made of. We’ve got to change some things, get rid of some players. But you never want to give up when you are down. In the long run this may be better for me, but I doubt it. I never thought losing would make me better. I want one more chance to try to get back there and win this thing.”
Package deal?
As expected, Ohio State’s Greg Oden is entering the NBA draft. Teammate Mike Conley Jr. is, too, but isn’t hiring an agent yet in order to retain his eligibility.
He may as well get the agent. Conley is rocketing up on the radar of NBA teams and projects now around the top 10.
One of the rumors floating around with teams is whomever gets Oden will be pushed to deal a major player for a draft pick to select Conley because Oden, despite his mature look, is considered more a follower and a playful kid compared with Conley.
It provides a potentially interesting scenario for a team like the Bulls, who are ninth in the prelottery draft order after Friday’s drawing to break ties.
Say Memphis gets Oden. Would that expedite a deal for Gasol to get a top-10 pick and then Conley? Or Boston with Al Jefferson? It could put a team in an enviable position to get a veteran, and having a happy franchise center with a dynamic point guard would figure to be worth it for any team. This figures to be the most interesting draft in many years.
On the move
With taxpayer funding of a new arena rejected, the SuperSonics likely will leave Seattle for Oklahoma City by the end of next season. If they stay in Seattle another season, expect Lenny Wilkens to serve as a caretaker coach.
It’s likely coach Bob Hill is out, and perhaps also general manager Rick Sund, a respected NBA veteran of more than 30 years.
New owner Clay Bennett is close to the Spurs organization, and the talk is a future coach and general manager will come from San Antonio after the move. Spurs GM R.C. Buford or his assistant, Sam Presti, are possibilities for the GM job, and assistant coach P.J. Carlesimo could get the call to coach.
Jerry West, who said he’s retiring, is close with Sund and the two could be a dynamic front office pair somewhere. … Chris Wallace of Boston, Kiki Vandeweghe, Bob Whitsitt, David Griffin of Phoenix and John Gabriel, now in Portland, are executives whose names have come up in Memphis, where owner Mike Heisley says he’s keeping the team, at least for now.
Fallen Kings
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Eric Musselman’s demise in Sacramento was expected with the team going down and Musselman unable to control Artest. Former assistant and Bucks coach Terry Porter could be a candidate, though they could take a look at Bulls assistant Jim Boylan, who has been key in the Bulls’ turnaround the last three years. Also, former Bulls coach Bill Cartwright, now a Nets assistant, is a Sacramento native and popular in the area, where his family still lives.
Layups
To paraphrase Jazz owner Larry Miller, Dee Brown doesn’t stink. Perhaps the former Illinois guard, a long shot to even make the Jazz in the preseason, will get a chance after sitting out the disappointing Game 1 loss to the Rockets. He had 13 points and eight assists in the last meeting between the teams. “He’s played pretty well,” coach Jerry Sloan said. “He’s worked hard. And he’s gotten more comfortable shooting the ball.” … Former Magic assistant Clifford Ray is no fan of the way Orlando has used big men Dwight Howard and Darko Milicic. Ray told the Orlando Sentinel: “Seems like everybody is kissing Dwight’s butt over there.” Ray added he never has seen a player “misused” like Milicic, a free agent this summer. … Nuggets guard J.R. Smith was late for another shootaround last week and is very much on the wrong side of George Karl these days. … Maybe Donald Sterling should be coaching the Clippers. Sterling, the Clippers’ owner, overruled his coaches and general manager, who were feuding with Corey Maggette and wanted to trade him. Aside from Elton Brand, Maggette was the lone bright spot in the team’s disheartening late-season collapse. Over the last 15 games, Maggette averaged 20.5 points, 6.3 rebounds and 4.2 assists, and the Clippers say they’ll try to re-sign him.
Finally
Shame on the Timberwolves for effectively dumping the last two weeks again and sitting Kevin Garnett , though it was the Knicks’ Eddy Curry who assured the Timberwolves will keep their draft pick this season with his tip-in to win the final game over the Bobcats, moving Minnesota up to seven in the prelottery draft order and the Bulls to nine from perhaps five or six.
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