Despite losing star forward Paul George prior to the season to a serious leg injury the Pacers have still been competitive this season, and team president Larry Bird expects his team to make the playoffs, Mike Mazzeo of ESPN.com relays. Bird spoke with Mazzeo on a number of subjects, and here are some of the highlights of their chat:
Discussing the concept of tanking and what comes to mind when it is mentioned, Bird said…
“It makes me sick to my stomach. For somebody that’s been in this league for over 30 years, I don’t think that’s the way you do things, but that’s my opinion. Everybody else has got their opinion. I’ve read in the past here where people thought we should lose on purpose. I don’t believe in that. I’ve never believed in that. If I ever get that way, I’ll be out of the game.”
When asked if the team prefers to draft players who have stayed in college for multiple seasons, Bird said…
“I don’t think it’s a direction. I do like four-year guys, though. They’re low maintenance. They already know what the league’s all about. We’ve taken some young guys — Paul George, Lance Stephenson, and both of them are very good players. I don’t think every draft we go in and say we’ve got to get a four-year guy or a three-year guy. It’s really who’s there. I know in Danny’s [Granger] situation, we followed Danny’s career pretty closely. And I know when he came in here to work out for us, it was more of a favor to come in here than it was that we had an opportunity to draft him. I think we were at [pick No. 17] that year [2005], and we thought he was gonna be taken in the top six. But he slid to us and we knew about his knee injury and everything. It was pretty easy. If you saw the way Roy [Hibbert] played his freshman year, you would’ve never dreamed he’d be on an NBA court. But the improvement, the work ethic he displayed, showed us that he’d be the best player he possibly could be by sheer work and force. Then, you take a lot of the other guys on our team — David West was a four-year guy. It’s just so much easier.”
On why he decided to keep the Pacers’ core intact at the trade deadline this year…
“I wanted to keep our group together because in the summer, if David and Roy opt out, we’re back to zero, really. We don’t have that much, so you leave your options open. If we did make a trade, I didn’t want to take on a lot of contracts — because that’s what usually happens. Plus, I liked my guys. They’re playing well. If we keep the core together and Paul comes back healthy, we’ll be right back to where we were.”
On which Pacers player has been the biggest surprise this season…
“I’ve been watching Rodney Stuckey for eight years now, and when you watch players from other teams you know how good they are, but you see them every day and you know they’re really good. And I think C.J. Miles has had problems with injuries throughout his career, but our training staff is getting him pretty healthy and he’s going to be here all summer, so I look forward and I look out for the big picture. We are going to have a good draft pick — whether we’re in the playoffs or not, we’re gonna get somebody that can help us. And we’ll just go forward with that, and we think we’re gonna be pretty good next year.“