Larry Bird paused for a moment a year ago, during his retirement sign-off, and said, rather pointedly: “All I wanted was to leave the team in better shape than the way I got it.”
Well, now that Bird discovered that retirement wasn’t quite right for him, he’s coming back to a team that’s still in great shape. All thanks to Bird, of course. After weighing his decision for a month, Bird has decided to return to the Pacers front office and see his project veer towards, he hopes, a championship.
Pacers owner Herb Simon kept the door open for Bird to return and Bird finally accepted Wednesday, on the eve of the draft, even though reports say he will not be involved, since the front office has been working on a strategy for months. Still, his timing is curious, because it was Bird who drafted Paul George and Roy Hibbert, the young core of the team, and took a chance by drafting Lance Stephenson when others wouldn’t touch him because of character issues.
The Pacers are probably a player away from making the Heat worried, although Indiana did take Miami to seven games in the playoffs. The Pacers could use backup help at point guard and must either re-sign David West or find someone who can take his minutes at power forward. And they must do this on a rather limited budget, because Indiana isn’t in position to deal with luxury tax issues and must offer a huge raise to George in the summer of 2014.
This is good news for Indiana, and for Bird, too. He’ll never be identified more with the Pacers than the Celtics, but as a coach and administrator, Bird managed to find a comfortable post-playing-career landing spot, placing him far ahead of other all-time greats in that regard.