Kevin Pritchard Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Pacers’ Pritchard: We Hit Jackpot With Oladipo

May 8th, 2018 at 9:30pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Pacers president of basketball operations Kevin Pritchard lavished praise on Victor Oladipo and revealed he consulted the team’s current star on potential moves, Dakota Crawford of the Indianapolis Star relays. Pritchard’s comments were made during radio interviews with ESPN’s Dan Dakich and CBS Sports Radio’s Kent Sterling. Pritchard said Oladipo changed the organization after being acquired from the Thunder in the Paul George deal last summer, not only with his breakout season but with his personality.

“We feel like we hit the jackpot,” Pritchard said. “No offense to Paul George, he’s having success and he’s going to go wherever he wants this offseason …”

Pritchard texts regularly with Oladipo and indicated he’d ask for the guard’s input on future decisions. Pritchard began doing that at the trade deadline.

“We looked at two or three deals. Two of them were just OK. But one of them, we really looked at. We went to Victor … he said some things, and we (kind of decided to leave it on the table).”

In other nuggets from the interviews:

Pritchard said he’d like to retain forward Thaddeus Young, who has a player option on his contract. “He didn’t talk a lot in the locker room, but when he did it was powerful. Thad was amazing. We hope he comes back.”
Pritchard hinted he wasn’t interested in pursuing George in free agency. Front office executives aren’t allowed to speak specifically about opposing players. “One of the things we’re about, we don’t care about big names, we don’t care about big personalities we don’t care about big brands. What we care about is being humble … Anybody that fits in, yeah, we’re interested … But if they don’t fit that, I’m not interested. It’s that simple.”
Pritchard liked the way the contracts of Darren Collison and Bojan Bogdanovic worked out and indicated he might take the same approach this offseason. Both were signed to two-year deals with a team option. “We think big, but the challenge is, if we lose a lot of our pieces to go big … are you better off with a couple major players, or are you better off with a really good group of players that don’t make the $30 million? That (instead) make the $10 or $12 million.”

Pacers Notes: Sabonis, Turner, Young, Offseason, Pritchard

May 3rd, 2018 at 9:41pm CST by marksuleymanov

With the Pacers eliminated from the postseason, the focus turns to next season and how the team can improve. With several roster options to consider during the offseason, the Pacers figure to weigh the pros and cons of potentially starting both Domantas Sabonis and Myles Turner, Mark Monteith of NBA.com examines.

While neither player is a finished product, both possess attributes that helped Indiana this season. Turner is a good three-point shooter and shot blocker, whereas Sabonis is the better rebounder and mid-range shooter. Although neither player is a traditional center or power forward, team president Kevin Pritchard believes that both Turner and Sabonis can help the team if they are on the floor together.

“Players who play with each other a couple of years, they know where they’re going to be,” Pritchard said. “That makes the game come slower. Domas, the game already comes slow. He can make reads. Myles, he gets a little frantic. And that makes a difference. He’s got to calm down a little bit.”

Check out more Pacers notes below:

Both Cory Joseph and Thaddeus Young, who have options in their contracts, could leave Indiana this offseason. However, during his end of season media session, Pritchard indicated that both men expressed interest in returning during their exit meetings, J. Michael of the Indianapolis Star writes. Since then, a report has indicated Joseph will pick up his option.
Pritchard addressed several aspects of the Pacers’ season in his media session, including the team’s somewhat improbable run to the postseason, roster, and impending offseason decisions, NBA.com’s Mark Monteith writes. “In my 26 years (in the NBA) I’ve never been around a team that brought it like they did this year. They had each other’s backs,” Pritchard said.
Bobby Marks of ESPN Insider (subscription required) looked at the Pacers’ impending decisions this summer. Marks examines whether Turner should be signed to a long-term deal, whether the Pacers will keep their roster together, and more.

Pacers Notes: Young, Offseason Outlook, Barton

May 2nd, 2018 at 10:28pm CST by clarkcrum

As we relayed earlier today, Cory Joseph will opt in to his contract for next year, leaving Thaddeus Young as the only Pacers player with a decision to make on a player option for next season. J. Michael of The Indianapolis Star reports that GM Kevin Pritchard indicated in exit meetings that both Joseph and Young would like to return. As it turns out, he was correct on his assessment of Joseph, and we’ll soon find out whether Young will join Joseph in exercising his player option for 2018/19 worth about $13.8MM.

Michael opines that Young will likely opt out of his salary for the opportunity to sign a long-term contract, while Bobby Marks of ESPN estimates that a starting salary for Young on the open market would likely fall short of his salary for next season should he choose to opt in. Per Marks, Young will need to determine whether the future financial security of a long-term contract with a lower annual salary outweighs earning a higher salary for one season. Ultimately, Marks thinks Young will opt in, leaving the Pacers right at the salary cap come this summer.

There’s more out of Indianapolis:

Pritchard and the Pacers face an important offseason this summer, writes Gregg Doyel of The Indianapolis Star. Gone are the days when the Pacers can sneak up on opponents with their new-found success, with head coach Nate McMillan saying, “We won’t go under the radar, so to speak, next season.”
Mark Montieth of Pacers.com takes a look at the options facing Pritchard and the Pacers’ front office this offseason. The overarching question that must be answered is whether Indiana will risk their new-found positive locker room culture by bringing significant new players or leave the status quo and rely on improvement from young players such as Victor Oladipo, Myles Turner, and Domantas Sabonis.
As we touched upon a couple of weeks ago, one potential free agent target for the Pacers could be Nuggets swingman Will Barton, who is an unrestricted free agent this summer.

Central Notes: Pacers, Van Gundy, Pistons, LaVine

April 11th, 2018 at 12:27pm CST by Luke Adams

Victor Oladipo is the strong frontrunner for the NBA’s Most Improved Player award, and his play this season may indirectly result in another award landing in Indiana. As Dakota Crawford of The Indianapolis Star writes, Pacers president of basketball operations Kevin Pritchard has a strong case for Executive of the Year, in large part due to how his much-criticized trade for Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis has worked out.

Here’s more from around the Central division:

Pistons owner Tom Gores is scheduled to meet after the season with president and head coach Stan Van Gundy. While Gores is still said to be mulling Van Gundy’s future, the Pistons owner has treated Van Gundy as a partner during his time in Detroit, and figures to give the veteran coach an opportunity to make his case to stick with the team, says Vince Ellis of The Detroit Free Press. Ellis wonders if Gores and Van Gundy could agree to bring a new voice into the front office to help with salary cap management, since the Pistons have had a habit of overpaying role players in recent years.
Although the Pistons fell short of the postseason this year, Blake Griffin believes the club has the talent to “make a run” in the East in 2018/19, per Rod Beard of The Detroit News.
Bulls guard Zach LaVine may not have the leverage to land a maximum-salary contract this offseason in restricted free agency, but he wants to continue to work toward being a “max player.” Vincent Goodwill of NBC Sports Chicago has the details.
Don’t expect a whole lot of roster turnover for the Bulls this summer, writes Mark Schanowski of NBC Sports Chicago. As Schanowski observes, it’s still probably too early in the club’s rebuilding process to make a big splash in free agency.

Central Notes: Oladipo, Pistons Rotation, Griffin

February 19th, 2018 at 5:34pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Victor Oladipo knew a breakout season was possible after speaking with Pacers GM Kevin Pritchard on the team’s private plane prior to his introductory press conference last summer, as Lee Jenkins of Sports Illustrated divulges in a feature story. Pritchard assured Oladipo that the club truly coveted his services, rather than just matching up salaries to facilitate the Paul George blockbuster with the Thunder. Indiana wanted to play faster this season. “This wasn’t a dump. We targeted you,” Pritchard told Oladipo, according to Jenkins. The All-Star shooting guard is averaging a career-high 24.4 PPG for the surprising Pacers. “It was the first time in my career I felt like a team really believed in me,” Oladipo told Jenkins. “I was just thinking, Don’t mess this up.”

In other nuggets involving the Central Division:

Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy will likely go with a 10-man rotation once Reggie Jackson returns from his Grade 3 ankle sprain, according to Ansar Khan of MLive.com. Jackson would join a starting unit of Andre Drummond, Blake Griffin, Stanley Johnson and Reggie Bullock. Ish Smith would return to his usual role as leader of the second unit with center Eric Moreland and forwards Anthony Tolliver and James Ennis getting steady minutes, Khan speculates. Luke Kennard and Langston Galloway would split time as the backup shooting guard, Khan adds.
Pistons owner Tom Gores invited Griffin and his business partners over to his California home immediately after the blockbuster deal with the Clippers, as Keith Langlois of Pistons.com details. Gores wanted to assure Griffin how badly the Pistons wanted him and address any concerns the five-time All-Star power forward might have, Langlois continues. The Pistons are 5-3 since Griffin joined their lineup. “We were very quickly on the same page with the same view of what we want to achieve and the approach to get there,” Gores told Langlois. “He’s definitely hit the ground running. It’s been great to see how his teammates, the whole organization and the fans have embraced him.”

Central Notes: Jordan, Bucks, Pacers, James

January 17th, 2018 at 11:15pm CST by ChrisCrouse

The Bucks remain interested in acquiring DeAndre Jordan and it was reported last week that Milwaukee was the team most likely to land the center. However, Gery Woelfel of the Racine Journal Times (Twitter link) hears that the Bucks are no longer the frontrunners for Jordan’s services. The scribe did not specify which team is the most likely to acquire the 29-year-old.

Jordan can become an unrestricted free agent if he turns down his player option, which is worth slightly over $24.1MM, and he has been the subject of trade rumors with the Clippers having an up-and-down season. He’s currently nursing a left ankle injury and has missed the team’s last three contests.

Any team looking to make a deal for the center will likely want to see him come back at full strength before pulling the trigger on a trade and with this season’s early trade deadline (February 8), time is ticking.

Here are some other notes from the Central Division:

Pacers president Kevin Pritchard is thrilled with the trade that netted the team Victor Oladipo, as Clifton Brown of the Indianapolis Star passes along.“From our perspective, we targeted Victor and [Domantas Sabonis]. It wasn’t by chance. They are two young players we wanted. Victor has been like a breath of fresh air. What’s that saying, High tide lifts all boats? That’s what he’s been for us,” the executive said. Indiana owns a record of 24-20 this season and is in the thick of the Eastern Conference’s playoff race.
The Cavaliers need to trade for a rim protector, Bill Livingston of The Cleveland Plain Dealer contends. Livingston names Jordan as a player who would help Cleveland with their defensive woes.
LeBron James, who is expected to turn down his player option worth over $35.6MM and become a free agent at the end of the season, may be having his most impressive season to date, Nate Wolf of NBAMath contends. Wolf crunches the numbers and also finds that LBJ is having the best season ever for anyone at the age of 33.

More Notes On Tampering Investigation

September 1st, 2017 at 9:28pm CST by Austin Kent

As we discussed yesterday, the Lakers were fined $500K by the NBA for tampering with 2018 free agent Paul George. Sports Illustrated’s Michael McCann quickly explored the penalty in detail, noting that the league in general has a “decidedly low-bar” for the prohibited act.

Considering the wording of the league’s constitution, there is no specific means of contact that’s permissible or not. Teams are, the constitution says, “forbidden from any kind of attempt to persuade” either individuals or team personnel, emphasis mine.

Another troublesome point of ambiguity McMann highlights is the fact that there need not be any proof that the tampering attempt actually swayed the individual, it’s solely the attempt that the league is concerned about.

All told, the Lakers have little choice but to pony up the cash for the fine but McMann doesn’t think that the penalty will dissuade teams from repeating the behavior in the future.

That’s not all we have about tampering this evening:

If you’ve heard the Pat Riley Heat/Knicks tampering example offered up as a precedent for the Lakers’ recent situation, note that there is one critical difference. Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders tweets that the $1MM the Heat paid the Knicks in 1995 was a settlement and not a league-enforced penalty.
The Lakers may have bought themselves a year of contact with LeBron James‘s agent ahead of the 2018 free agency period, Dave McMenamin of ESPN writes, and all it cost them was the $18MM they committed to another Rich Paul client, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.
Don’t expect Pacers President of Basketball Operations Kevin Pritchard to put up a fuss about the league’s ruling on the tampering investigation. “We accept the league’s findings,” he told Tania Ganguli of the Los Angeles Times.
…do expect the Indiana media. Gregg Doyel of the Indianapolis Star suggests that the relatively small fine is but a slap on the wrist for a Lakers franchise worth $3B. The scribe offers alternative penalties that he says would have had more of an impact.

Central Notes: Irving, Drummond, Pritchard

August 4th, 2017 at 7:32pm CST by Austin Kent

Although they didn’t make Cavaliers All-Star Kyrie Irving‘s specifically curated list of preferred destinations, the Suns have come up as a potential landing spot for the disgruntled point guard. Details of a supposed Phoenix offer have come to light, an azcentral report writes.

The Suns are said to have offered the Cavaliers Eric Bledsoe, Dragan Bender and a first-round pick, the article says, attributing the initial report to an ESPN radio station in Minnesota.

It’s not hard to see why the Cavaliers didn’t immediately accept the offer. While Bledsoe is a serviceable veteran guard, his injury history only reduces his already limited value (relative to Irving, that is).

Further, 19-year-old Bender was quite raw during his first NBA season and wouldn’t likely impact the Cavaliers’ chances of contending with the Warriors next season.

There’s more from the Central Division:

After a sinus operation, Pistons center Andre Drummond is breathing easier, sleeping better and growing less tired on the court. Rod Beard of the Detroit News documents the big man’s offseason, noting that the soon-to-be 24-year-old has taken trade rumors to heart.
When the Pacers let Kevin Seraphin go, they freed up more cap space, Bobby Marks of ESPN tweets. His contract would have become guaranteed on August 1.
Although it’s hard to truly gauge the Paul George trade, Pacers president of basketball operations Kevin Pritchard has had a successful offseason since, Gregg Doyel of the Indianapolis Star writes. Unfortunately, he suggests, the franchise may have been better off temporarily bottoming out.

Cavaliers Were Close To Acquiring Paul George

July 23rd, 2017 at 9:50am CST by Arthur Hill

The Cavaliers nearly landed Paul George in a three-team deal in late June, according to ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne, Dave McMenamin and Brian Windhorst.

The trade would have sent Kevin Love to Denver and Gary Harris and other assets to Indiana, but Pacers president Kevin Pritchard reportedly backed out before everything was finalized.

Prior to the draft, Cleveland made trade offers to the Pacers for George and to the Bulls for Jimmy Butler. Once the Wolves acquired Butler on draft night, the Cavs stepped up their efforts for George, with the Nuggets agreeing to send Harris and the No. 13 pick to Cleveland, which would include those assets in a deal with Indiana. However, the Pacers put the trade on hold as they talked to the Trail Blazers about a deal to acquire all three of Portland’s first-rounders in exchange for George. Both proposals eventually fell through.

The Cavs continued to work on the trade following the draft, and an agreement was reached on June 30th. All three teams tentatively okayed to the deal on a conference call, and Cleveland began targeting free agents to fit with George. However, Pritchard changed his mind and the news broke soon after that George was headed to Oklahoma City.

The failed trade was part of a tumultuous offseason for the Cavaliers, as the ESPN authors examine in a lengthy piece. Cleveland also parted ways with GM David Griffin and was unable to land Chauncey Billups, who interviewed twice as a potential replacement. The team missed out on marquee free agents and had to settle for Jose Calderon and Jeff Green. Then star guard Kyrie Irving held a meeting with owner Dan Gilbert on July 7th where he issued a request to be traded.

Irving was reportedly angry that his name had been included in offers for Butler and George, and has been unhappy for some time with how much James dominates the ball. He also believes the team defers too much to James, noting that LeBron’s friend, Randy Mims, was given a position as executive administrator and flies on the team plane, while none of Irving’s friends has a similar arrangement.

The front office and the players have been aware of Irving’s intentions for two weeks, and there is confidence in the organization that the team can get enough assets for Irving to remain a contender. The Cavs have been inundated with calls from interested teams since the story broke on Friday.

Central Notes: Love, Bird, Caldwell-Pope

May 12th, 2017 at 7:49pm CST by Austin Kent

Matchups in the first two rounds have limited Kevin Love‘s role throughout the playoffs thus far but that could change in the Eastern Conference Finals, Tom Withers of the Associated Press writes. Currently the Cavaliers await the winner of the Wizards and Celtics.

After having averaged 19 points per game during the regular season, Love’s average dropped to 12 in the Cavaliers’ four-game sweep of the Raptors. What’s more, the power forward didn’t even play in the fourth quarter in two of those victories.

“Some of it’s my fault because we haven’t really featured him a lot because of the matchups we had on other teams,” Cavaliers head coach Tyronn Lue said. “He has been great. His whole mindset is winning and that’s what it’s all about in the playoffs.”

There’s more from the Central Division:

Although there’s been a transfer of power in the Pacers‘ organizational chart, Larry Bird remains involved in the offseason planning at the behest of newly appointed team president Kevin Pritchard, Nate Taylor of the Indianapolis Star writes. Bird serves as an executive advisor with the franchise.
The Pacers will work out a batch of draft prospects early next week, the team announced on its website, including college stars Jordan Bell and Josh Hart.
The Pistons are in a tough spot with Kentavious Caldwell-Pope‘s pending restricted free agency, Bobby Marks of the Vertical writes. The 24-year-old could sign a lofty offer sheet with another organization, forcing the club to flirt with the luxury tax if they wish to retain him. Choosing not to retain him, however, won’t free up enough cap space for a suitable replacement.