Larry Bird spoke with the NBA TV crew while down in Orlando for Summer League play.
At halftime of the Pacers’ fourth (of five) Summer League games down in Orlando, Pacers President of Basketball Operations Larry Bird stopped by the NBA TV broadcast table for a few minutes to discuss the status of the team and offer his thoughts on their plan to play faster.
His full comments can be read below:
On the team’s transition to a new playing style…
Well, we decided to play up-tempo a little bit. We’d like to score five or six more points a game. I think we’ve been in the bottom half of the league for a number of years of scoring. But that’s the way we wanted to play. We wanted to be able to slow down, and bang it a little bit and take it inside. Now that Roy and David are gone — maybe Roy down the road — we’re going to try to speed it up a little bit. All the deals we made and picks in the draft is trying to speed the game up a little bit.
On their draft picks…
Well, I played with Joe’s dad, Michael Young, so I had to take him in the draft. (laughs) No, he’s a great player and we watched him all year. At Oregon, they didn’t have a lot of talent on their team but they had some good players. He had to score the ball, which he can. He reminds me of Monta Ellis a little bit. But he’s got a long way to go. I think when he gets into our system, he’ll figure it out. He’s going to be a scorer. He can score the basketball.
On what he looks for in free agents…
We don’t have the numbers that some other teams have. I chose to go to a small market and try to run the Indiana Pacers. We know we don’t have the income of some of the major markets so we have to do our deals slower. The guys that we’ve picked to come in, they got to be able to produce for us right away. We can’t afford to have the misses that some other teams can. But, it is what it is and right now we’re making the changeover. We want to move the basketball up the court a little faster and we’re going to try to do that.”
On Paul George and how he’ll be used…
Well, he’ll play a lot of the power forward and small forward. He might defend some twos at times. But Paul is going to play a lot of different positions for us this year. I’m the one that thinks he can play the four position. I think the mismatches on the offensive end is far greater than the defensive liabilities sometimes he’ll have against the strength. I think he can handle it. Paul is very versatile. He’ll do anything that we ask him to do to try win basketball games, and he wants to play up-tempo. He likes to handle and pass and run with us. Hopefully it’ll work out and we’ll have the type of year that we expect.
Watch NBA TV’s interview with Bird in the embedded player below:
.@Pacers President Larry Bird discussed the state of Indiana and @Yg_Trece's recovery process #NBASummer http://t.co/lOy7b8bLxV
— NBA TV (@NBATV) July 9, 2015