It’s a big summer upcoming for Kevin Pritchard and the Pacers. He took the time to discuss their plan of attack for free agents, what the team needs to improve on, and Victor Oladipo’s timeline for return today with JMV.
“I think it’ll be a mixture,” Pritchard said regarding bringing their own guys back and going after free agents. “Those discussions really haven’t started. We know almost 40{42836eb61b4ca4ddd9ec45ae386c9311b687b2127b5746fc216d4c5f0c3c98e3} of the league is a free agent, so we know there will be a high degree of variability this summer…I think there’s going to be more players jumping from team to team than ever before, and we’re going to be right in the middle of that.”
JMV then asked about the national narrative that Indy isn’t a great spot to recruit high-priced NBA free agents to come play.
“It’s getting easier, I can tell you that…players talk, and they know that this is a good organization. Yeah, we don’t have the mountains and the ocean and the big city, but if you want to be about basketball, this is a great spot.”
In terms of what exactly the team needs heading into next year, Pritchard said,”We’ve got to produce a higher volume of shots, a higher volume of open threes, and play at a faster pace.”
He didn’t give any specific names, obviously, but that is the type of player you can expect him to be targeting.
“Sometimes the sexy names look great on paper, but we really pride ourselves on bringing guys in that are so productive, fit our culture, and are all about winning. Some of them you say ‘yeah it’s easy to figure that one out’. Some of them it’s not so easy.”
JMV then asked about an update on Victor Oladipo, and whether or not he knows when we can expect Vic to be back on the court.
“After I spent dinner with him, he looked into my eyes and said, ‘I’m gonna be 200{42836eb61b4ca4ddd9ec45ae386c9311b687b2127b5746fc216d4c5f0c3c98e3} better’. But that’s Vic. We missed his personality almost as much as we missed his gameplay,” Pritchard said. “You really don’t know a timeline until you get deep into physical therapy…right now it’s just getting the swelling out, getting the flexibility out…I want to give a timeline, but until you get into the nuances of physical therapy, you’re lying to yourself, and I don’t want to do that.”
Listen below for the full conversation and subscribe to JMV’s podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify.
