More Offseason Analysis: Coaching changes, news | Free Agency | Draft
Indiana Pacers president Larry Bird told reporters Monday that he hopes Lance Stephenson will be back with the team as a free agent, despite his disappointment in the guard's hijinks during the Eastern Conference Finals. From the AP:
"I think his ceiling is what he wants it to be," said Bird, the Pacers' president of basketball operations. "I always want him back. You just don't let talent like that walk away if you can help it."
"I was very disappointed that in Game 5, Paul George put on a spectacular display, hit every big shot and after the game, everyone was talking about all the nonsense," Bird said. "That's not what we're about, and it's not professional."
"Clearly, he's a free agent, and I'm certainly hoping that he's back," Vogel said, later acknowledging he played the role of team psychologist more this year than any previous year.
Indiana is expected to start the offseason $8 million to $12 million under next season's projected luxury tax threshold and already has its four other starters under contract. Bird has made it clear the Pacers will not pay the luxury tax.
All of which leads to one question: What are the Pacers willing to pay to keep Stephenson?
"We've talked about it briefly, but I haven't sat down with the owner (Herb Simon) yet," Bird said. "There's going to be a price and we're not going to go over that."
That's the trick. The Pacers aren't going to break the bank to keep Stephenson. The question is what his value is now, after everything. Stephenson had a phenomenal season and had some great postseason games. He also showed a startling lack of maturity with a litany of incidents, including blowing in LeBron James' ear and repeated entanglements with opponents.
There's some speculation that his behavior could cost him a sizable contract offer, but there's also the possibility that a GM with cap space simply overspends to land a player of Stephenson's talent, risking the attitude issues. The likelihood is somewhere in between, where Stephenson receives a significant offer that is too high for the Pacers to top and keep him, but not so high as to break all limits of reason.
Stephenson could have had a massive payday, if he hadn't let his hijinks get in the way. And any team that signs him has to consider what he pulled on a structured, disciplined contending team and how that could change if their team doesn't have that structure.
Will Lance Stephenson return to the Pacers next year? (USATSI)
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Report: Lakers to reach out to Larry Brown, Scott Skiles about coaching vacancy. Yes, that Larry Brown.
Can you picture Kobe Bryant and Larry Brown getting along as Lakers’ star player and coach? Me neither.
But as part of the Lakers far-reaching coaching search they could speak to those two — in addition to the handful of veterans such as Byron Scott and Alvin Gentry they would already spoke to. That according to Marc Stein and Ramona Shelburne report at ESPN:
The Lakers, sources add, have also internally discussed reaching out to Scott Skiles and former NBA championship-winning coach Larry Brown, who has spent the past two seasons in the collegiate game at SMU.
Brown was the coach of the Pistons in 2004, a team that upset the Lakers in the Finals in the last year of the Shaq/Kobe era. He was also the coach of the Allen Iverson led Sixers team that lost to the Lakers in the 2001 Finals. He is the only coach to win an NBA and NCAA title (1988 at Kansas with Danny Manning).
While those two are long shots — neither of those guys fit the Lakers culture — they fit with the Lakers pattern of talking to veteran coaches. So far they have spoken to Scott, Gentry, Kurt Rambis, Mike Dunleavy and Lionel Hollins. The Lakers likely will speak to Derek Fisher as well, but they are not focused on him like Phil Jackson and the Knicks.
The other key here is the Lakers are in no rush to make a decision, as Ramona Shelburne points out on twitter.
Lakers determined to cast very wide net and take their time w/ coaching search. This could take weeks still. And really, what's the rush?—
Ramona Shelburne (@ramonashelburne) June 02, 2014
As I mentioned first night D'Antoni resigned, it does make sense to use carrot of input on coach to free agents.—
Ramona Shelburne (@ramonashelburne) June 02, 2014
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