Doyel: Larry Bird's remake of Pacers fast, furious — and effective
The job is complete. Now we await the results of Larry Bird’s rebuild of the Indiana Pacers from a big and slow yesterday to a sleeker, faster tomorrow.
After the addition of backup point guard Aaron Brooks on Monday, Bird has turned over 92.3 percent of the roster in three years. The Pacers president has taken apart a team that reached back-to-back Eastern Conference finals in 2013 and ’14 – a team whose best days were glorious, entertaining and behind it – and put it back together.
Just one Pacer remains from the roster that opened the 2013-14 season, and that player – Paul George – suffered a broken leg that cost him all but six games of the 2014-15 season.
And the Pacers kept winning.
Insider: Larry Bird builds his desired Pacers the unconventional way
Did they win big? No, point of fact, they did not. But teams that go through this kind of overhaul don’t win big. They don’t win at all. Starting in 2013, the Lakers – as they prepare for life after Kobe Bryant – have seen their victory total dip from 45 to 27 to 21 to 17 this past season. Kobe missed 76 games in 2013-14, the year the Lakers won 27 games.
The Cavaliers bottomed out after losing LeBron James in 2010, winning 64 games – total – in the three years after that. They bounced back and won the NBA title this year, thanks to LeBron’s decision to return home, but that’s what it takes these days to make a sudden turnaround in the NBA: for one of the greatest players of all time to show up on the doorstep.
The Celtics after rebuilding from the era of Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen? They went 25-57 in 2013-14. They’re on the way up behind Danny Ainge and Brad Stevens, but still ... The Celtics were 27th in the NBA just three years ago.
Doyel: Larry Bird is a bad, bad man
Same for the Knicks. On the way up as Phil Jackson has dismantled the cast around Carmelo Anthony. But only after going 17-65 two years ago. The Knicks won 32 games this past season, six wins fewer than the Pacers in their worst season – their only playoffs-less season – since Bird brought out the wrecking ball. And that awful season for the Pacers, unacceptable around these parts, saw the team win 38 games and not fall out of the playoffs until the last night of the regular season.
And that was the year Paul George missed 76 games with the broken leg.
This sort of stuff doesn’t happen, but it’s happening here. For just a minute let’s stop hammering Bird on the head for drafting Tyler Hansbrough over Jeff Teague in 2009, and for acquiring Evan Turner and Andrew Bynum in 2014, and for drafting All-NBA forward Kawhi Leonard in 2011 – only to trade him to the Spurs for George Hill.
Looking back at 5 key moves by Larry Bird
Mistakes? He’s made a few. But listen, Bird’s rebuild of the Pacers has been shocking for its speed. The team has to go out this season and win and win big, but on paper – which is all we have at the moment – the Pacers look like one of a handful of teams in the Eastern Conference who could finish second to the Cavaliers. Toronto and Boston are the other top candidates for that spot in a conference that is getting better. Detroit, Atlanta and the Knicks are coming along nicely.
It starts here with Paul George, of course, who is coming off the best season of his career in 2015-16. And he played his best in the playoffs, putting on his cape and carrying the seventh-seeded Pacers to a Game 7 against the No. 2-seeded Raptors.
But around George, Bird has dismantled the Pacers like Mr. Potato Head and put them back together in a way that looks to have improved every position. This offseason alone, the Pacers look better in the frontcourt – Myles Turner, Thaddeus Young and Al Jefferson over last season’s rotation of Ian Mahinmi, Turner and Lavoy Allen – and at point guard. Bird acquired Jeff Teague in a three-team trade that saw the Utah Jazz get George Hill and the Atlanta Hawks wind up with the No. 12 pick, who became Taurean Prince of Baylor.
There are variables, shooting guard Monta Ellis’ knees being the most pressing. The health of Rodney Stuckey and C.J. Miles is also a question mark. Al Jefferson played just 47 games last season. The defense probably has taken a step back. This team is not bullet-proof. Nobody’s saying that.
But this team is better than it was a year ago. Better than it was two years ago. Completely different than it was three years ago – new roster, new style, even a new coach. Nate McMillan replaces Frank Vogel, whose dismissal in May makes less sense than ever. Bird said he wanted a “new voice” in the locker room, noting that coaches can grow stale after three years. Only one player, Paul George, has been here three years.
But that sounds like a complaint, and today isn’t the day to complain about Bird. Today’s a day to acknowledge what he has done, and how furiously fast he has done it. Now we wait for the results. It calls for the one thing Bird hasn’t shown: patience.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at@GreggDoyelStar or atwww.facebook.com/gregg.doyel.