O'Briens days are numbered

[Miller4ever]

Morway is the GM, technically.

Bird shouldn't coach. He should find an extension of himself to do it. It won't be O'Brien, who definitely differs from Bird's winning philosophy. My money is on someone who played in the 80's that he respects.

[Grang33r]

Ric Bucher on the next GM/Coach in his chat -

Jon (Indy)

If / when the Pacers do remove O'Brien as the coach who do you think they will try to go after? Mark Jackson? Mike Brown? Any rising coaching prospects that would want to try and coach this mess?

Ric Bucher (1:14 PM)

I hear that both O'Brien and David Morway could be gone in a clean sweep and that Kevin Pritchard is high on their list to take over as GM. Does KP lure Nate McMillan away from the Blazers? That would be a crazy two-run homer for the Pacers if it happened.

Link- http://espn.go.com/sportsnation/chat/_/id/36661

[8305]

Nothing better than asking the GM, who has made it very clear that he doesn't want to coach again, to come down and coach, while still expecting him to work the phones constantly all day and make the home run trade to improve the roster long-term.

1) Get a guy disinterested in teaching young players to have to try and teach young players
2) Take away the GM's time to actually make phone calls and trades since he'll have to game plan, coach, and teach said young guys
3) Profit!


Sounds like a plan to me!

All good points but, given the constraints that come with replacing a coach in the middle of the year I'd see little potential for succes with anyone other than Bird taking on the job. This next stretch of games against easier teams could tell you one way or another if the team has quit on O'Brien. If we don't win more than we lose against the teams on the schedule between now and the allstar break I think O'Brien has to go. After the trade deadline Bird could take on coaching duties without impairing his capacity to make personnel moves.

[chrbal]

From an outsider (Pistons fan who has seen some Pacers games) it seems like how you would handle a team in the preseason. No one gets too many minutes. 3 guys get about 30, Granger plays 36, and no one else gets more then about 27. Game logs are nuts with constant fluctuation in playing time.

And is Dahntay Jones injured? How do you go from being a key role player one season, to having 63 minutes this far into the season...the next season?

[Miller4ever]

^^It happens to you when you can't make threes in the O'Brien system.

[DougInOz]

Ric Bucher on the next GM/Coach in his chat -

Jon (Indy)

If / when the Pacers do remove O'Brien as the coach who do you think they will try to go after? Mark Jackson? Mike Brown? Any rising coaching prospects that would want to try and coach this mess?

Ric Bucher (1:14 PM)

I hear that both O'Brien and David Morway could be gone in a clean sweep and that Kevin Pritchard is high on their list to take over as GM. Does KP lure Nate McMillan away from the Blazers? That would be a crazy two-run homer for the Pacers if it happened.

Link- http://espn.go.com/sportsnation/chat/_/id/36661

That would be pretty nice. KP has a good record of drafting, which hopefully becomes more important as we move forward since, you know, we want to be picking the 20s. And his trade record from a quick look back seems good (unless there is some awful trade I missed). The only knock on his GMing I could think of readily was extending Roy, but they kind of had to do it, and how much of that is on the medical staff.

Nate McMillan seems to get almost always good reviews from what I've read, and he has managed to keep a horribly unlucky squad winning consistently in the tough west.

Maybe the home run trade we are waiting for is:
Pacers trade: Jim O'brien (expiring) + Daryl Morway + cash + a pinata + the racks from the 3 pt shootout for practice
Blazers trade: Nate McMillan (extended) + KP (resigned)

[Scoot McGroot]

Ric Bucher on the next GM/Coach in his chat -

Jon (Indy)

If / when the Pacers do remove O'Brien as the coach who do you think they will try to go after? Mark Jackson? Mike Brown? Any rising coaching prospects that would want to try and coach this mess?

Ric Bucher (1:14 PM)

I hear that both O'Brien and David Morway could be gone in a clean sweep and that Kevin Pritchard is high on their list to take over as GM. Does KP lure Nate McMillan away from the Blazers? That would be a crazy two-run homer for the Pacers if it happened.

Link- http://espn.go.com/sportsnation/chat/_/id/36661

That would be pretty nice. KP has a good record of drafting, which hopefully becomes more important as we move forward since, you know, we want to be picking the 20s. And his trade record from a quick look back seems good (unless there is some awful trade I missed). The only knock on his GMing I could think of readily was extending Roy, but they kind of had to do it, and how much of that is on the medical staff.

Nate McMillan seems to get almost always good reviews from what I've read, and he has managed to keep a horribly unlucky squad winning consistently in the tough west.

Maybe the home run trade we are waiting for is:
Pacers trade: Jim O'brien (expiring) + Daryl Morway + cash + a pinata + the racks from the 3 pt shootout for practice
Blazers trade: Nate McMillan (extended) + KP (resigned)

KP is looking worse every day as more info is coming out. Apparently, Martell Webster, Greg Oden, and Brandon Roy all received "Don't Draft" health ratings from the medical staff, and KP ignored them all. Now, they got a great 4-5 years out of Roy, but are now dealing with his degenerative knees. But I can't blame the medical staff there. They made their cases well known, and each time KP decided to flatly ignore their recommendations.

[Boneman2]

Maybe we're being a bit hard on JOB because a few years ago he accepted a job no other coach wanted. He was old-school enough to come in and stand up to all the drama, I enjoyed him bitching about JO shooting too many jumpers. Stood up to Jax, Tins... everybody, and yes he called them out in the media too.

His tenure here has straddled a transition for us as a franchise. I sure didn't expect him to last beyond three seasons, and he made it four, lucky bastard.

This team is ready for a new updated coach, and this time we may be able to lure a good one here.

[Scoot McGroot]

Maybe we're being a bit hard on JOB because a few years ago he accepted a job no other coach wanted. He was old-school enough to come in and stand up to all the drama, I enjoyed him bitching about JO shooting too many jumpers. Stood up to Jax, Tins... everybody, and yes he called them out in the media too.

His tenure here has straddled a transition for us as a franchise. I sure didn't expect him to last beyond three seasons, and he made it four, lucky bastard.

This team is ready for a new updated coach, and this time we may be able to lure a good one here.

Yeah. Most of us only saw it as 2 or 3 years at most. Some thought that you simply always only hire the guy that will lead you to championships, and didn't recognize that we were in it for a rebuild.

The 4th year stung us all, but I doubt anyone can look at it and say there's any way he gets a 5th.

[dennis_mora91]

Today is the day