Pacers’ President Kevin Pritchard discusses Pacers’ pick, off-season moves, and more
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JMV is joined by Pacer’s president, Kevin Pritchard, as the two discuss all things Pacers. They talk drafting Goga Bitadze, where he believes he fits on the team and his potential role, on what Sabonis needs to improve, free agency and Pacers’ cap space, Victor Oladipo’s injury, his philosophies on load management, and more.
On Goga Bitzadze’s role:
“He gives us the luxury of pushing Sabonis to play some four minutes, but you know Myles can play the four too. Those guys can play together. I see those guys playing together. I see Goga playing a back-up role. One of the things I kind of got comfortable with in my mind, is the fact that Myles really defends the paint and defends the rim. He was the best in the business last year. If we put Goga in for him for those minutes, we can keep our defensive structure and our calls, and our play type exactly the same because we can keep a rim-defender in there for all 48 minutes and that doesn’t happen very often, I can tell you that.”
On an Oladipo update:
“I think we are all encouraged. If anyone can attack an injury like that, it is Victor. You don’t wish that on anybody but Victor brings a positivity and he believes a big thing is mind-over-matter. His positivity is going to overcome it. In my opinion, there is no doubt that he will come back and potentially come back at a higher level. When, how, and why, and all of that, I don’t like putting timelines on it. The reason is, we all heal differently and I don’t want to put any pressure on him to feel like he has to be back at a certain time or he feels like he didn’t ‘beat the timeline.’ That, to me, is the biggest mishap in the business. You have to keep an open end and re-evaluate it on a monthly basis. At the end of the day, his body, with his doctors, our doctors, and a collective group of people, will say ‘it is time.’ He will know, the light will go off and he will know, ‘I am good to go.’ Until that happens, I am not even going to attempt to put him out there because I care about the kid way too much to jeopardize anything that he has in the future. For me, it is a cautious approach and a methodical approach and it is something we take and we think about, examine, look at and process every single day.”
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