Pacers fron office drama explained

Carl Herrera · Jun 10, 2012

Interesting stuff. Thought the story sounded weird when it came out, guess there is internal drama that fans don't hear about on many teams:

Pacers: A poor relationship is the reason Bird wants to replace Morway
35 minutes ago | Written by Mike Wells | 1 Comments

I’ve heard Larry Bird use the saying, “a good deed never goes unpunished” a number of times over the years.

That saying is front and center right now.

Bird no longer has a relationship with soon-to-be ousted general manager David Morway, according to multiple sources.

Sources say the fizzled relationship is the one of the main reasons why Bird plans to replace Morway with Kevin Pritchard as general manager once Bird agrees to a new deal with owner Herb Simon to remain as president when the two meet later this week.

Pritchard was hired to be the Pacers’ director of player personnel last summer.

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 often negotiated with teams, and then Bird would 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 say day that the Mayo deal fell apart that they weren’t going to sign with the Pacers.

Bird and Morway’s relationship continued to go downhill as the season progressed.

Pritchard, a former general manager with Portland, played a part in the Pacers signing David West and then with acquiring Leandro Barbosa at the trade deadline.

Bird likes to Pritchard’s basketball knowledge. It helps that he has a relationship with him. The two were teammates with the Boston Celtics.

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.

Morway didn’t take part in the players’ exit interviews at the end of the season. Part of the reason was because he was interviewing for other jobs. The other part was because Bird didn’t feel the need to have him around because he knew he could no longer work with him.

I confirmed a Yahoo! Sports report that Bird asked Pritchard to be the general manager when it looked like Morway had a legitimate shot at being Portland’s general manager. Morway lost out to Neil Olshey for the Portland job, but it still gave Bird an opportunity to bring Pritchard on board as his general manager while replacing the person he no longer had faith in – Morway.

This situation isn’t about Pritchard pursuing Morway’s job. It’s about Bird wanting to bring in somebody he feels like he’ll have a better relationship with.
Click to expand...

http://blogs.indystar.com/pacersins...p-is-the-reason-bird-wants-to-replace-morway/

Dreamin · Jun 10, 2012

Shame they didnt land Crawford or Mayo. But they definitely upgraded in the GM department. Pritchard is one of the best.

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