Herb Simon on Pacers (from IndyStar)

cdash · Post #1 » by **cdash** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 11:08 pm

http://www.indystar.com/article/20090416/SPORTS04/904160435/1088/SPORTS04?GID=Qn3Oa+8LW8uevZ4TKNLs+cumdfemNZ/bpq2t9+Q7ATM%3D

Basically, he said he's happy with Bird and the team this year. He wants to sign Bird to an extension. He's happy with Obie but was mum on extending him, says its up to Bird.

He also said that he believes the Pacers would have made the playoffs if Dunleavy was healthy. I'm a little more skeptical, but it's not unheard of.

glasket · Post #2 » by **glasket** » Thu Apr 16, 2009 11:38 pm

I agree about the playoffs if Mike was healthy all season.

We only missed out by around 4 or 5 games (from memory) and even though Brush's production pretty much replaced Mike's in the last quarter of the season and Quisy's production was similar to Mike's in the 1st quarter of the season that still leaves half of the season where we really could have used Mike and would have won more games and probably would have made the playoffs.

Note I am obviously comparing Quisy's and Brush's production this year to Mike's production from the previous season.

chatard5 · Post #3 » by **chatard5** » Fri Apr 17, 2009 4:55 am

It sucks Dunleavy got hurt, but in the end it just bumped Rush's progress up a year. If Dunleavy was healthy Rush wouldn't have gotten near the minutes he did. We would've been out of the first round most likely, anyways.

Edit: I still would've loved to have made the playoffs and wish Dunleavy was healthy, I just mean it might have taken Rush a couple more years to show us what he has in the past month and a half.