Indianapolis – After a whirlwind of a week riddled with off the court drama for the Pacers, select members of the media were invited to sit down with Pacers Owner Herb Simon and talk about the current state of the Pacers. The Athletics’ Bob Kravitz was one of the reporters that spoke with Simon and detailed some of the most interesting parts in a jaw dropping interview with JMV on his show Wednesday afternoon:
On if he thought that Herb Simon had a pulse on the Pacers fanbase currently:
Kravitz: “Not really…I have the transcript in front of me. I asked him about a rebuild and he said ‘I don’t want to see it and I’m sure our fans don’t want to see it either, why would we go through a rebuild when we can build on the go.’ The idea that fans don’t want to see a rebuild is completely wrong…I can tell you that this town wants changes desperately and I think they’re voting with their pocketbooks because their attendance is horrendous this year.”
On if he believes that the Pacers can bring in top tier free agents:
Kravitz: “He (Herb Simon) said a couple of things that blew me away. He said ‘we can get virtually any player we want here’. So I said ‘why haven’t you?’ He responded with David West but he was coming off of surgery and was not a tier 1 free agent by any stretch…They’re not going to be able to rebuild if they are continually choosing 16th in the draft or whatever number and if they can’t get free agents in here which Herb seems to think they can get!”
On the current streaming issues that block many Pacers fans from having the ability to watch the games:
Kravitz: “We were talking about the TV situation so I asked him if he considered doing anything like Mark Cuban. Cuban worked out a deal with DIRECTV STREAM so people could watch the games at a nominal price. Herb wasn’t even aware of it, he didn’t even know it existed. He said ‘well we’ll look into that’ and I got a call later from one of their representatives saying that wasn’t something they were going to do. How are you not aware that the TV issue is such a big issue for your franchise and no one has thought to look into it?
To hear the rest of JMV’s conversation with Bob listen to the full conversation below!
