As the Indiana Pacers prepare for what should be their most successful season in years, there is one question that keeps popping up among those who take a long look at the team.

Have the Pacers gone as far as they can go with Danny Granger as their star?

“I don’t believe that,” Pacers GM Kevin Pritchard told HOOPSWORLD. “I don’t buy that at all.”

The way Pritchard sees it, Granger was forced to play a role he was not naturally fit for when the Pacers made him their focal point.

“Danny was put into a position a few years ago where he needed to score a lot, and now we don’t need his scoring as much, we need his overall game and he’s a heck of an overall player,” Pritchard said. “That’s what we need out of Danny and he gives it. He’s shown to be very unselfish, he’s given up a lot of his offense to be a better defensive player last year. We got the fifth-best record in the league last year, you don’t just say, ‘We don’t need him.’ That’s a bunch of baloney. I don’t believe that.”

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There’s a possibility that former CEO Donnie Walsh will return to the franchise in some capacity, multiple sources told The Star.

It’s uncertain what role Walsh will play with the franchise.

That question should be answered next week when team owner Herb Simon returns to Indianapolis for meetings to help clear up the team’s murky front office situation.

Wells goes on to note that Walsh has actually attended some of the pre-draft workouts.

This adds to a somewhat curious summer for the Pacer Front Office situation. Larry Bird’s status is still unclear, with reports of his departure running hot and cold. At the post-season presser, Bird looked and sounded for all the world like a man set to return. Days later, Dan Dakich was saying on his local radio show that Bird was definitely leaving.

Then, we hear from Adrian Wojnarowski that Bird’s plan was to fire the current General Manager, David Morway, and replace him Kevin Pritchard. This was later confirmed by Mike Wells, though with considerably different spin.

Woj portrayed Morway as the victim of some corporate backstabbing by Pritchard. While that may be true, at least to some degree, it’s important to note that Woj has a history with Pritchard, famously torching the former Portland GM back in 2010.

Wells’ sources with the Pacers, however, maintained that Bird’s relationship had soured with Morway on its own.

It takes awhile to earn Bird’s trust and once you burn that bridge he’s done with people. That’s the case right now with Morway.

The final straw with the Bird-Morway relationship, according to those close to the two, came during training camp when the Pacers failed to land O.J. Mayo and then lost out on free agent Jamal Crawford – option No. 2 to be the team’s first shooting guard off the bench – on the same day.

The Pacers had agreed to a sign-and-trade deal that would have sent Josh McRoberts to Memphis for Mayo because the Grizzlies were trying to shed salary. Sources say it was Morway that caused the deal to “fall apart” because he pushed the Grizzlies to take swingman Brandon Rush. Morway did a lot of talking to teams and some of the negotiating. Bird would then step in and make the final decision.

Bird was seething over the blown deal, according to sources. He had lost any remaining trust in Morway after that.

To make matters worse, Crawford and his agent got tired of waiting on the Pacers to make a decision that they told them the same day the Mayo deal fell apart that they weren’t going to sign with them.

Of course, this is probably true, as well, at least to some degree. Regardless of the specific details, this information being fed to Wells does seem to at least indicate that The Powers That Be in the Pacer organization are backing Pritchard, not Morway. All the while, Bird’s future was (is) waiting to be determined by a face-to-face meeting with Herb Simon that was to be held this past week, but now isn’t expected until sometime next week.

And now Donnie Walsh might be in the picture.

The Pacers are now six days from the 2012 NBA Draft, and less than two weeks from the start of a crucial free agent summer, and it is still unclear who will be steering the ship. So, is it time to panic? Are they all out of their minds?

No.

Well, at least probably not. Sure, it could all blow up, but there’s no real reason to expect it. The first thing to realize is that while the situation is unclear to us, it is not necessarily unclear to the people directly involved. It’s entirely possible that what looks like wide gaps from the outside are not considered to be large obstacles by those directly involved.

Perhaps the most assuring fact in the situation is that everyone in the picture – Simon, Bird, Walsh, and Pritchard – are all pretty competent hands. It’s not like we’ve got a power struggle between Larry Brown and Isiah Thomas going on here. The most likely outcome is that everything will be fine.

Still, this isn’t really designed to fill the casual observer with confidence. There are some things here that you wish weren’t. Playing out the Morway-to-Pritchard transition in public is less than ideal. The continuing delays in meeting between Bird and Simon could be troubling, and the (re)introduction of Donnie Walsh’s name at this stage of the game does raise some eyebrows.

We could be seeing some red flags popping up, or we could just be witnessing sausages being made, it’s impossible to tell. The Pacers are victim of having this type of internal decision making being played out quasi-publicly. Keep in mind, that three of the major players – Simon, Bird, and Walsh – all have a history of making decisions on their own terms and their own timeline. This does not lend itself to a quick process.

Is this the way things should be done? No, but I’ll tell you I’ve worked for over 20 years in some of the largest and most successful companies in the world, and I can’t ever recall seeing any company or any one person consistently do things the “way they should be done.”

How will it play out? Don’t know, but I’m not particularly worried. We’ll find out soon enough. For now, there is just the waiting.

According to Mike Wells of the Indianapolis Star, reigning NBA Executive of the Year Larry Bird plans to return as the Indiana Pacers’ president. But once he is officially set to lead the franchise again next year, Bird reportedly wants to make a major change to the front office: replacing current GM David Morway with his former Celtics teammate Kevin Pritchard, who was hired as Pacers’ director of player personnel in the 2011 offseason.

The reason is reportedly more about Bird’s poor relationship with Morway as it is with his respect for Pritchard’s basketball acumen, although the two are presumably intertwined.

The relationship between Morway and Bird reportedly became strained when the GM failed to acquire OJ Mayo (in a sign-and-trade deal for Josh McRoberts) or Jamal Crawford (through free agency) before the season. In fact, according to Wells, the two now have “no relationship,” and Morway is a “soon-to-be ousted general manager.”

The final straw with the Bird-Morway relationship, according to those close to the two, came during training camp when the Pacers failed to land O.J. Mayo and then lost out on free agent Jamal Crawford – option No. 2 to be the team’s first shooting guard off the bench – on the same day.

The Pacers had agreed to a sign-and-trade deal that would have sent Josh McRoberts to Memphis for Mayo because the Grizzlies were trying to shed salary. Sources say it was Morway that caused the deal to “fall apart” because he pushed the Grizzlies to take swingman Brandon Rush. Morway did a lot of talking to teams and some of the negotiating. Bird would then step in and make the final decision.

Bird was seething over the blown deal, according to sources. He had lost any remaining trust in Morway after that.

Bird had tried multiple times over the years land Mayo, who he felt would be the one player on the roster that could get his own shot off the dribble.

To make matters worse, Crawford and his agent got tired of waiting on the Pacers to make a decision that they told them the same day the Mayo deal fell apart that they weren’t going to sign with them.

It also showed, as Bird was never really with Morway during the games.

Things were so bad that during the playoffs Bird took the coaching staff and training staff out to dinner on back-to-back nights during their playoff series against Orlando and brought Pritchard along and didn’t invite Morway, his general manager, sources say. It was Pritchard who often sat next to Bird during the games on the road while Morway usually sat several rows higher.

It was no wonder that Morway interviewed with the Portland Trail Blazers to take over as their GM, a position once held by Pritchard.. That job, however, went to former Los Angeles Clippers GM Neil Olshey. Now, it looks like Bird will return and Morway will be out of a job. Presumably, this will be the biggest “question” that Larry will have for his owner, Herb Simon, when they sit down soon (next week has been reported by Wells) to make Bird’s return official. And if Simon wants Bird to continue to be team president — especially for under-market pay — it would likely be a no-brainer for him to allow Larry to have complete control over who comprises the front-office team.

Philadelphia 76ers general manager Ed Stefanski, San Antonio Spurs assistant GM Dennis Lindsey, Indiana Pacers pro personnel director Kevin Prichard and former New Orleans Hornets GM Jeff Bower traveled to Toronto in recent weeks to meet with Colangelo, sources said.

There’s no clear frontrunner, but several sources have reason to believe Lindsey could hold an edge over the other three candidates.

If he ends up getting the job and ejecting from his role in Indiana’s front office, Kevin Pritchard’s time with the Pacers will go down in history with the unmemorable tenures he likes of Peja Stojokovic, Tim Hardaway and Kenny Anderson. Which would be quite an honor.

But according to a report from NBA beat writer David Aldridge, the recently hired Kevin Pritchard could be off to Toronto very soon. In fact, of the three names Aldridge lists as potential hires for the open Raptors GM job, Pritchard is the only one characterized as a “strong candidate.” (h/t Indy Cornrows)

Don’t expect any movement on the Toronto general manager’s search for a couple of weeks. Team president Bryan Colangelo was in Europe last week and won’t start whittling down his group of candidates until the middle of the month. Sixers GM Ed Stefanski, former Hornets GM and coach Jeff Bower and Spurs assistant GM Dennis Lindsey are among the candidates, but former Blazers general manager Kevin Pritchard is also believed to be in the hunt and is a strong candidate. Pritchard took a player personnel job with the Pacers earlier this summer, but has an out in his deal that would allow him to leave if a GM job became available.

I was unaware that Larry Bird gave Prtich an “out” but it makes sense. When Kevin was hired as a consultant/third-in-command for the Pacers, it seemed like a job that was sort of beneath him. So no one should be surprised that he wanted a clause that allowed him to still send out his resume for vacant jobs around the league.

Stay tuned, I guess.

Platoon was great though. So was Major League. Guess I’m just a sucker for Tom Berenger and Chuck Sheen buddy flicks.

Well, according to the executives already on staff, he has.

Bird, who played alongside both Pritchard and soon-to-be associate head coach Brian Shaw (until he was traded) on the 1991-92 Celtics, has stated adamantly that Pritch is not being brought in to replace Larry as the Pacers top exec.

Reports Mike Wells in the Indianapolis Star:

Bird and Morway recently spent several days having candid discussions with Pritchard about the direction the team is headed and how he could be a positive addition for them.

Bird said Friday that they are not bringing Pritchard in as his future replacement.

“That’s not the case at all,” Bird said. “I’ve known Kevin for a number of years and we’re in the position to improve, and his knowledge will help us.”

Bird makes his stance pretty clear here. But just because the stated, public plan is not to give Pritch a one-year apprenticeship under Larry before giving him the keys to the franchise, it doesn’t mean that won’t be the eventual outcome.

Kevin’s reputation has been sullied somewhat around the league given his fallout with Paul Allen in Portland. Some have called him arrogant, self-congratulatory and “green at managing people.” So perhaps he is just viewing this as a good opportunity to get back on an NBA team’s payroll and re-prove that he can still do what he does best, evaluate talent, better than most. He goes back very far with Bird, so Indiana, his home state, gives him a great chance to do just that.

We see former NBA head coaches take assistant roles all the time as they wait for new jobs to open. Dwane Casey and, quite likely, Lawrence Frank have both done exactly that of late. It’s not out of the question that Pritch is doing the same thing.

But it does seem hard to believe that Pritchard would stick around Indy for any longer than one year in anything but a lead decision-making position.

Either way, this would seem to put David Morway in an odd position.

There are now three chefs in the kitchen and all three will likely have some divergent views on how the franchise should spend the salary cap room Bird and owner Herb Simon have spent years patiently waiting for. How much weight will Pritchard’s “advice” have on the final decisions?

I’m not going to speculate what Morway is thinking right now about the direction of the team and his future in it, but here he is speaking on the hire. (via Pacers.com)

From Larry’s general public demeanor of late, however, I don’t think there are many people who would be surprised if this was the final go-around in a Hall of Fame NBA career that began in the 1970s.

So it is also no shock to learn that the Pacers are about to hire former Trailblazers GM Kevin Pritchard, according to multiple reports. Pacers super scoop Mike Wells broke the news of Indiana hiring Pritchard.

The Pacers are in the process of hiring former Portland GM Kevin Pritchard, according to multiple sources.

He added that Pritchard’s role was still uncertain given the fact that Bird already has an understudy in David Morway.

Its unclear what Pritchard’s role will be w the Pacers but he’ll work under President Larry Bird and GM David Morway, according to sources

This is another move that should excite Pacers fans.

For a time, Kevin Pritchard was the darling GM of the league. He became known for his talent evaluation skills and orchestrating savvy draft-day deals. “You got Pritch-slapped” was common NBA dork parlance at one point in reference to any GM who was foolish enough go toe-to-toe in a trade with Pritch.

His greatest moment undoubtedly came on June 28, 2005, the day of the 2005 NBA Draft in which Portland acquired the only two draftees that have so far made an All-NBA team. At the time, it seemed quite likely that he got the two best players available, Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge, despite only having one pick in the lottery. In hindsight, the concerns over Roy’s knee were real and Rajon Rondo, drafted at #21 by Boston, is probably better than Aldridge, but the team rebounded to relevancy largely based on what happened that night.

Two years later, however, the beginning of the end likely started. Pritch and the Blazers took Greg Oden over Kevin Durant. And we know how that turned out.

Stripped of golden boy status and increasingly, according to reports, caught up in squabbles with other high-level Portland personnel, Pritchard fell out of favor with billionaire owner and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Compensation and control became issues, reportedly, and eventually Allen felt that Pritch could no longer co-exist with the franchise. He fired Pritchard, leaving many NBA fans who were unaware of the growing internal turmoil scratching their heads.

That’s all in the past though.

Pritchard arrives anew with the Pacers and the future is all that matters to Hoosiers. Unfortunately, there are many questions. Will Bird groom Kevin to take over his job next season? Where does this leave David Morway? Is the team going back to the co-GM strategy employed during the Walsh/Bird days that so many fans loathed?

All these issues will play out in time. There could be conflict during the structural transition or it could all work seamlessly. Who knows really?

But, for now, the Pacers now stand as one of the biggest winners so far this offseason among those teams that lacked a top pick in the draft.

In George Hill, they have acquired a proven veteran who can produce on the court and bring a champion’s calm to a precarious, listless locker room. In Frank Vogel, they have secured the services of a guy who helped this team turn the corner towards hope more than a half-decade of flailing mediocrity. In Brian Shaw, they have acquired a veteran assistant who learned the coaching craft from the best to ever do it and was widely considered a front-runner to coach the Lakers. And in Kevin Pritchard, they have acquired an executive who has an excellent track record of finding creative ways to infuse a team with talent — the one thing this franchise truly needs.

To outsiders, there often seems to be little rhyme or reason as to why, for example, marquee offseason acquisition Darren Collison was often watching TJ Ford close out games early in the year (and even as recently at 1/2/2011 watch TJ get the bulk of the meaningful fourth quarter time against the Knicks). Or why a guy like Tyler Hansbrough can have a 20-point/9-rebound game (on 9/12 shooting) in 29 minutes during the Pacers sixth game of the season and then get 11 minutes (with 0 fouls) in the seventh. Or why Roy Hibbert’s crunch-time minutes were often jerked around early in the year. (It may be hard, but think back to the time when he actually, ya know, deserved minutes based upon his performance.) Or why James Posey (a) very often has been leaned on to play power forward in crucial situations only to (b) pick up 2 DNP-CDs in the past five games. Or why when Roy Hibbert got sick and couldn’t play against the Warriors on Wednesday, Josh McRoberts, recipient of DNP-CDs in 6 of his previous 7 games, got the start.

The rationale for the last decision, I’ve been told by 8p9s partner-in-crime Tim Donahue, was so Jeff Foster could “finish” the game without going over his 30-minute maximum.

I’m sure there are also some reasons for the others listed (and the other curiosities that I didn’t mention). I imagine many of them have to do with players blowing defensive assignments, players not running the floor poorly, players not understanding the offense, players not spacing the floor properly and players simply just not doing their jobs. There are all sorts Xs-and-Os particulars that I have no problem admitting in public that are simply over my head.

And some things are more explainable, like AJ Price leapfrogging the struggling TJ Ford (shooting 30.6% in the new year) as the first point guard off the bench in Wednesday’s loss to the Warriors. (AJ’s poor play may have made that a quick experiment in trial and error, however.)  Similarly, it’s hard to fault anyone for Roy Hibbert’s inconsistent role in the rotation since his post-November productivity swoon reached crisis-level status (some of which has also been “can’t-stop-fouling-related,” it’s important to note).

Still, even with that caveat and another HUGE one (the complete understanding that I have of this roster’s relative parity of talent after Danny Granger, Collison and Hibbert), the rotation is weird — and it has been all season. I also fully get it that aside from Granger, Dunleavy and Rush, there has been almost no consistency from the rest of the roster this year. (Because so much of Dunleavy’s value in a game is decided by whether or not he misses or makes shots and because I’m talking about Brandon frickin’ Rush, let me doubly punctuate my empathy for a coach having to rely on anyone on this roster every night … Danny included. UPDATE: Also Jeff Foster, who I forgot to include originally as an oversight.)

But, really, at some point things need to settle down. A lot of these players we are discussing are suited to be 8th and 9th men in this league. They have some skills but they are just not super talented. Used effectively, they can help out, (I think … most of the time at least) but if they don’t have any idea what their actual roles on this club are, then is it really surprising that they so often fail to fulfill them? Don’t players, particularly mediocre players, need a defined job to do before anyone can really expect them to do it well?

Perhaps most importantly in regards to the title of this post, does the coach even know what those roles are? Because, ya know, it is almost February.

According to a report last night on TrueHoop by Chris Broussard, I’m not the first to start asking these questions. (And, yes, fans, I know many of you have been beating this drum for like three years now.)

Indiana Pacers brass is not pleased with the performance of head coach Jim O’Brien, according to several league sources.

That said, O’Brien, who is in the last year of his contract, is likely to remain as coach the rest of the season. Part of the reason is that no one on O’Brien’s staff — Dan Burke, Frank Vogel, Jay DeFruscio, Vitaly Potapenko and Walter McCarty — is viewed as a suitable replacement.

One complaint about O’Brien is the strange way he divvies up minutes: Tyler Hansbrough plays 36 minutes one night, posting 23 points and 12 rebounds, and just 23 minutes the next; Paul George plays 21 minutes one night, four the next.

GM David Morway could also be in trouble after the season, and league scuttlebutt has former Portland GM Kevin Pritchard as a likely replacement. Pritchard was close to being hired as the replacement for Rod Thorn in New Jersey, but the Nets, of course, settled on Billy King.

As an outsider, I have no inside information, so I’ll leave it at that other than to point out that it’s not just the rotation stuff that has been curious at times, but also the coach’s tone in the press (mostly earlier in the year).

And I will also say that I’ve always been a big fan of Kevin Pritchard and am curious as to why he doesn’t have a job yet. The rumors surrounding his exit from Portland made it seem as though he was a strong-headed decision-maker who enjoyed his authority. That could mean he might have trouble meshing with a guy like Larry Bird (who is also on the last year of his contract, something not noted here by Brossard).

UPDATE: Forgot to note that Pritchard was traveling with the Pacers for the start of this road trip.

Ben Golliver of CBS Facts and Rumors added this about Pritch:

A Moneyball-style GM like Pritchard would make a ton of sense in Indiana, as his understanding of advanced statistics, analytics and cap management is generally seen as the surest way for a small-market team to get the maximum bang for their buck and narrow the gap between the LA’s and New York’s of the world. Pritchard’s name will likely generate a lot of interest this summer, as he and TNT commentator Steve Kerr are the two biggest names among former GMs that are not currently employed in that capacity.

I listened to him speak last year at MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference (and briefly talked to him personally on the matter), and he certainly does know his advanced stats.