Pacers Extend O'Brien's Contract

Dunthreevy · Post #1 » by **Dunthreevy** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 5:34 pm

http://www.nba.com/pacers/news/obrien_extension_090925.html

The Indiana Pacers today announced that they have exercised the team option to extend Coach Jim O’Brien’s contract for one additional year.

Pursuant to team policy, terms of contracts were not disclosed.

“We are very happy to get the option done on Jim’s contract,” said Larry Bird, President of Pacers Basketball Operations. “When I interviewed Jim for this job, he was committed to everything we want to do. We both feel we’re moving in the right direction.”

“I appreciate (owner) Herb (Simon) and Larry’s confidence as we move toward getting this franchise back to where it belongs,” said O’Brien. “I love Indianapolis and all of the fans in Indiana, and I remain committed to bringing a championship to the Indiana Pacers.”

Not sure how I feel about this. I'll wait until the season starts to really form an opinion about it.

IrishLuck31 · Post #2 » by **IrishLuck31** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 7:06 pm

Not ecstatic about this, but it is probably a good move - it is just taking the option to extend it one more year, and means we are going into this year more stable. O'Brien will have more legitimacy with the players now, and he is not a terrible coach... ive questioned a lot of his stuff, but he has the team playing hard.

Post #3 » by **Miller4ever** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 7:15 pm

Don't know what to make of this. I guess I'm fine either way. The continuity thing is important in a young team.

Wizop · Post #4 » by **Wizop** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 9:49 pm

makes sense to me. keeps OB from being a lame duck this year and ignored. also pushes the coaching decision to the summer when all the contracts expire which makes sense. that summer we'll decide whether to keep our cap room for extensions for the young guys or to spend it in the high priced free agent and trade market. if we bring in new key players, a new coach comes with them.

jrandis04 · Post #5 » by **jrandis04** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 9:59 pm

You guys think what you want but this is the 2nd dumbest Larry Bird has ever done. 1st dumbest thing was hiring JOB. There are better coaches out there then this wanna be. Hope I am wrong about this cause I am ready to see our Blue & Gold back in the Finals but JOB isnt a winner and he never will be.

Dunthreevy · Post #6 » by **Dunthreevy** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 10:03 pm

jrandis04 wrote:You guys think what you want but this is the 2nd dumbest Larry Bird has ever done. 1st dumbest thing was hiring JOB. There are better coaches out there then this wanna be. Hope I am wrong about this cause I am ready to see our Blue & Gold back in the Finals but JOB isnt a winner and he never will be.

Really? Because his career winning percentage is above .500 and he has coached his team to a playoff birth 3 of the 6 full seasons that he's been a head coach.

jrandis04 · Post #7 » by **jrandis04** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 10:10 pm

Oh wow! a .504! Big LANGUAGE deal. Look at all of our previous coaches back to Larry Brown and he is the 2nd worst only behind Isiah. Hell, even Isiah had a better winning percentage then JOB and he was a terrible coach. We were a playoff team last year and blew it. Like I said, I hope I am wrong, but I am not a JOB fan.

Post #8 » by **Miller4ever** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 11:24 pm

^^Watch it. You have to realize that Obie has accumulated his .504 on rebuilding teams. 76ers post-Brown, Celtics pre-Doc (and big 3), and now a Pacers team who was missing it's 2nd best player for most of the season. O'Brien doesn't SUCK. The worst he could be is average. I think this move is very important in a time of great inconsistency.

Post #9 » by **count55** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 12:43 am

O'Brien coached a pedestrian Celtic team to the Conference Finals in 2002, and his Celtics were the ones that bitch-slapped the 2003 Pacers in the first round of Isiah's last year.

Calling him the second worst coach since Larry Brown is hardly damning, considering that it would include Brown, Bird, and Carlisle...all good coaches.

joeshmoe · Post #10 » by **joeshmoe** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 1:57 am

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Post #11 » by **Miller4ever** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 3:42 am

count55 wrote:Calling him the second worst coach since Larry Brown is hardly damning, considering that it would include Brown, Bird, and Carlisle...all good coaches.

That is a good point. I think we are spoiled on good coaches so we can't take one who's only above average.

xxSnEaKyPxx · Post #12 » by **xxSnEaKyPxx** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 3:53 am

Terrible move. Obie is an awful game coach. I love how he has brought this team together, but he makes the dumbest moves during games. Anyone remember Jarrett Jack playing SF for stretches last year? The guy wasn't even a SG and he spent a whole lot of time there. His subsitutions were awful, his last second plays were horrific, along with many other things.

I like the guy, he seems like a good person, and he deserves a lot of credit for bringing the team together, but that doesn't mean he can coach. I would love a guy like him as an assistant, but he really should have lost the job after his 1st season, not 4th.

If the only requirement to coach the team, is to bring the team together and motivate them, then I would honestly rather hire Mike Singletary...at least he coaches defense.

Post #13 » by **Miller4ever** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 4:42 am

^^How many wins will it take for you to accept Obie?

CircleCitysportsfan · Post #14 » by **CircleCitysportsfan** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 1:26 pm

That's fine with me. He expires in the summer of 2011, we should be able to attract a bigger name coach, we'll have cap space. The extension is just to get us through this purgatory period. Better times are coming!

xxSnEaKyPxx · Post #15 » by **xxSnEaKyPxx** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 4:12 pm

Miller4ever wrote:^^How many wins will it take for you to accept Obie?

It would take for him to become a good game coach. I don't think he deserves credit for our wins.

I will say, he seemed to improve over the last half of the season last year, and if he continues to improve I'm fine with keeping him, but until he proves to be a good game coach, we should be looking for more options. Especially since Mark Jackson and Avery Johnson are still available.

Post #16 » by **Gremz** » Sun Sep 27, 2009 9:04 am

DGrangeRx33 wrote:
Miller4ever wrote:^^How many wins will it take for you to accept Obie?

It would take for him to become a good game coach. I don't think he deserves credit for our wins.

I will say, he seemed to improve over the last half of the season last year, and if he continues to improve I'm fine with keeping him, but until he proves to be a good game coach, we should be looking for more options. Especially since Mark Jackson and Avery Johnson are still available.

Perhaps the available candidates are looking for longer deals. I wouldn't want to lock in a coach past 2011, if we don't know what our team will look like.

LadiesLuvPGs · Post #17 » by **LadiesLuvPGs** » Sun Sep 27, 2009 1:05 pm

DGrangeRx33 wrote:I don't think he deserves credit for our wins.

So he deserves credit for some of our losses, but not any of our wins? hmmm...

xxSnEaKyPxx · Post #18 » by **xxSnEaKyPxx** » Sun Sep 27, 2009 3:18 pm

LadiesLuvPGs wrote:
DGrangeRx33 wrote:I don't think he deserves credit for our wins.

So he deserves credit for some of our losses, but not any of our wins? hmmm...

Pretty much. If we picked a random 5th grader and had him coach the Lakers, I can promise you he wouldn't have won the games that the Lakers win with him as coach.

How has Obie won a game? The only strategy we have ever seen him use is "Shoot!"

Post #19 » by **PR07** » Sun Sep 27, 2009 4:18 pm

You never like to have a lame duck coach because that can be a distraction for the team, so I'm not too mad about the move. OB is a pretty good rebuilding coach, and we're probably at least two years away anyways.

LadiesLuvPGs · Post #20 » by **LadiesLuvPGs** » Sun Sep 27, 2009 4:37 pm

The way i view it, our offense has won us several games in the last few years... the offense that OB runs. i agree our defense has crumbled, but you can not deny how much easier we can score points in this new system.

Can we do better than OB? sure we can ... but we could also do much worse than OB. We could go out and pay a lot more money for higher profile coach, without any guarantee that it would get us back to the finals. Let's just let it ride with OB until summer 2011 and see where that brings us.

I just think that anytime you blame someone for the problems but remain unwilling to acknowledge any of the successes, you are being inflexibly unfair and juvenile.