Bird disappointed in season, wants more consistency — plus, trade lines are open

Larry Bird spoke with the local media Tuesday morning after practice in a wide-ranging interview. Because of Paul George’s gruesome injury suffered back on August 1, the season has not been anything close to what the team had hoped.

The Pacers are 17-32 with five games before the All-Star break. We’ll call this Bird’s mid-season report.

As he talked for nearly nine-minutes, the first thing that was odd to me was that he chose to do it seated. With the exception of formal press conferences or his post-draft talk with the media, Bird is always standing. Just as he was back on October 28th just ahead of opening night.

Like a parent, he so far has been disappointed in the group he assembled, given that the number injuries they’ve dealt with was unpredictable.

“Personally, I’m a little disappointed in how we’ve been playing,” he said. “I thought we would come together as a group a lot sooner than we have. With the injuries guys are in and out, but still, there’s a lot of opportunity out there for other players to step up and get an opportunity to play and play well.”

The team’s numbers are way down this season. Their defensive efficiency rating is 19th and they have given up almost eight more points per game (sixth).

There were going to be struggles this season. That was obvious after the team lost its two best players, Paul George (to injury) and Lance Stephenson (to free agency). Then, George Hill went down for an extended period of time. David West, too.

“It’s just that we haven’t been consistent,” Bird continued. “If you’re not consistent in this league, you’re going to get beat.”

The Pacers, who won the Central Division crown in each of the last two seasons, are at the bottom of the division standings and are 12th in the Eastern Conference standings, only above Orlando, New York, and Philadelphia.

That has many looking to the future.

First, what are the goals? Paul George will be back next season but who else? Bird was determined to let the core go for another run this season. Does he feel strongly enough that this core can return to the top of the conference next season and compete for a title?

“I don’t know,” Bird answered honestly. “We’ll have to see where we’re at. Obviously, we feel that we’re going to get a player through the draft. We got both our picks, and hopefully we can pick up another. I think it is a good draft. Even though the players that’ll come in will be young, I think they’ll be able to help us right away. We got a lot of free agents, a lot of decisions to be made and we’ll put together the best team we can.”

Two of those decisions are personal ones needing to be made by veterans David West and Roy Hibbert. Both have player options, meaning they can opt out of the final year of their deal and sign elsewhere. But that would be leaving $12.6, and $15.5 million, respectively, of guaranteed money on the table.

To this point, Bird has not received word what they plan to do. (That’s normal. They’ll wait to reevaluate at the end of the year.)

“That’ll be up to their agents and that’ll probably depend on what we do, too,” Bird said, hinting that something may be on the horizon. “If they both opt out, there’s no telling what we’ll do. We could go another direction. Right now we’re anticipating them to be here and we’ll just push forward.

“With David and Roy and everyone, you’d like to try to make another run and get Paul healthy. But, in the same time, you want to get younger. I think you’ll see us sign guys that are going to be our 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th man, that are younger, and hopefully a couple of them will blossom. We’re very high on Whittington. We think that he’s going to be able to play some for us next year. Solomon Hill we think will continue to improve.”

As quoted above, Bird hopes to pick up another pick in this year’s draft, and bring on younger players. One way to do that is through through trade. The trade deadline is a little more than two weeks away, Feb. 19 (at 3 pm ET).

“Well, you never really know what’s going to happen until the time comes,” Bird said. “We’re just now getting into that period. We’re always looking to improve the team and obviously, there’s a lot of improvement needing to be done. We’ll look around the league and talk to a lot of different people and see what’s out there. Hopefully we can do something that makes us better. If not, we’ll stay pat and then this summer, we’ll do the rest of the work.”

And this summer, the Pacers will have some money and roster spots to work with. They have six players coming off the books at the conclusion of this season: Luis Scola, Chris Copeland, C.J. Watson, Donald Sloan, Lavoy Allen, and Rodney Stuckey. They have two draft picks (for now), and are especially in need of a shooting guard.

The Pacers will be active on the phones, especially general manager Kevin Pritchard, seeing who’s available and looking for willing trade partners. Ultimately, it comes down to one thing.

“We’ll see what the value of our players are and we’ll go from there,” said Bird.

I’d be surprised if the Pacers did not make a move or two. They have assets and expiring contracts. West, who is chasing his first NBA title, is a veteran that could help a locker room and give a winning team an extra push in the postseason. And the Pacers could receive a young player that needs to develop, plus a pick.

Frank Vogel: Lavoy Allen’s going to be out for a little while

No matter who’s out with injuries, the ever-competitive Hall of Famer says he’s still is in ‘win-now’ mode. (But really, what else is he supposed to say? Nah. I’m over this season. Doesn’t matter much to me what they do the rest of the way.)

“I’m always in a win-now mode,” Bird said. “I want to win, and I want to make the playoffs. That’s been my goal to try to get into the playoffs. Hopefully down the road we’ll see where Paul’s at. We still have no idea whether he’s coming back or not but it seems like every week he’s getting better and better. If we do have an opportunity to get in the playoffs and he can get some games under his belt and get ready to go next year.”

That’s another subject altogether, which I covered here.

“I think we put ourselves behind the 8-ball a little bit by not winning the games we’re supposed to win,” Bird continued. “But going forward, we do have a lot of home games. It’s just whether or not the players will step up and take the challenge.”

Players, you’re up. Bird tries to send a message when he speaks publicly.

The question is whether they will answer their boss’s request.