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Central Notes: Pistons, Robinson, Pacers, Cavs

October 27th, 2012 at 9:33pm CST by Sean Highkin

Here are the latest updates from around the Central Division on Saturday night:

  • Brendan Savage of MLive.com writes that the Pistons have grown during the preseason and are ready for the challenges the regular season will bring.
  • Terry Foster of the Detroit News talks to several Pistons players who believe the team will finish with above a .500 record in 2012/13.
  • K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune writes that new Bulls signee Nate Robinson is working on his ballhandling and decreasing his turnovers during training camp.
  • Mike Wells of the Indianapolis Star writes that the Pacers are more confident in their bench this season than they were last year.
  • Terry Pluto of the Cleveland Plain Dealer believes that the Cavaliers are headed in the right direction, even if they don't make the playoffs this season.
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Odds & Ends: Smith, Dorsey, Suns, Pacers

October 26th, 2012 at 2:17pm CST by Luke Adams

There seems to be an increasing reluctance to lock fourth-year players up to extensions prior to their restricted free agency, Sean Deveney writes in his latest piece for The Sporting News. With this year's extension deadline looming, only Blake Griffin and Serge Ibaka have re-upped with their respective teams so far. As we wait to see which other extension candidates may sign new deals in the next few days, let's tackle a few odds and ends from around the Association:

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Central Rumors: Bulls, Sloan, Pargo, Dunlap

October 23rd, 2012 at 7:28pm CST by Chuck Myron

NBA GMs were polled recently about their thoughts on the upcoming season, and one of the more intriguing revelations is that the Pacers received more votes to win the Central Division than the Bulls, who have finished with the league's best record two seasons in a row but are now without Derrick Rose. Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau is unfazed by the prediction, as Jesse Rogers of ESPNChicago.com notes. Here's more from around the Central.

  • It doesn't look like both Donald Sloan and Jeremy Pargo will make the opening-night roster for the Cavs, according to Bob Finnan of The News Herald, who believes Sloan has the best chance to survive cuts (Sulia link). That's a little surprising, since Sloan's deal is without a guarantee, while Pargo has a fully guaranteed deal for $1MM this season.
  • With the Cavs' first regular season game just a week away, coach Byron Scott said the only players guaranteed a starting spot are Kyrie Irving and Anderson Varejao, Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal reports.
  • Mike Dunlap seemed like an out-of-nowhere hire when the Bobcats tabbed him as their new coach this summer, but Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer tweets that the Bulls interviewed Dunlap for their coaching job in 2008, when they hired current Clippers boss Vinny Del Negro.
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Pacers Won’t Look To Move Danny Granger

October 22nd, 2012 at 7:07pm CST by Zachary Links

The Pacers are set to enter the 2012/13 season with their strongest lineup in the post-Malice at the Palace era, but some around basketball still question how far the team can get with Danny Granger as their star player.  However, General Manager Kevin Pritchard told Bill Ingram of HoopsWorld that he believes the team can accomplish much more with the forward in the fold.

“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…He’s shown to be very unselfish, he’s given up a lot of his offense to be a better defensive player last year," the GM said. 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.”

Granger, 29, has two years remaining on a five-year, $60MM contract extension inked on Halloween of 2008.  The deal was backloaded with 10% escalation in each season, putting Indiana on the hook for $13.06MM this season and $14.02MM in 2013/14. 

Granger has seen his PPG average steadily dip across the last four seasons, from 25.7 in 2008/09 to 20.2 last season.  However, as Pritchard eluded to, the current makeup of the club demands less shooting out of the forward.  In 2011/12, Granger averaged 16.4 shot attempts per game versus a career high of 19 in 2008/09.

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Pacers Exercise Option On George, Release Three

October 22nd, 2012 at 11:30am CST by Luke Adams

The Pacers announced a series of roster moves today in a press release, formally exercising their 2013/14 option on Paul George and releasing three players: Luke Nevill, Sundiata Gaines, and Blake Ahearn.

The three cuts reduce the Pacers' roster to 15 players, though it's unclear if the club will carry a full 15-man roster into the regular season. Camp invitee Ben Hansbrough is still on the roster, on a fully non-guaranteed contract, and wasn't considered likely to make the team. Sam Young also has a contract that only has a small guarantee, though he appears a much stronger bet to stick around.

While Nevill had a fully non-guaranteed deal, both Ahearn and Gaines had $25K guarantees on their contracts, so the Pacers will take a very small cap hit for both players.

As for George, he was the only Pacer with an option decision pending for 2013/14. That will be the final year of his rookie contract, and he'll earn a guaranteed $3.28MM salary before potentially becoming a restricted free agent in the summer of 2014. The Pacers will also have the opportunity to sign him to a long-term extension in the 2013 offseason.

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Kevin Pritchard Talks Pacers Offseason, Outlook

October 22nd, 2012 at 8:47am CST by Luke Adams

As Steve Kyler writes today at HoopsWorld, the Pacers have flown under the radar a little this offseason, with other Eastern Conference teams getting most of the attention. While Indiana may not have made the splash that the Nets, Knicks, Celtics, and other clubs did, new GM Kevin Pritchard suggests that Indiana shouldn't be ruled out, noting that his players "tasted a little success and they liked it." Here are a few of the other comments Pritchard made to Kyler about the Pacers' offseason:

On trying to improve the roster when their rivals are doing the same thing:

"It’s challenging. It’s a lot easier to say, 'Hey, we’ll just get a little bit better, we’ll just work on getting better,' because everybody is trying to do that. I mean, the East has got some tough teams: Boston, New York, obviously Miami, everybody is going to be shooting for them, Brooklyn, Atlanta, a couple of other teams are pretty good. It’s going to be a tough conference to play in. Chicago, they’re getting [Derrick] Rose back. It’s a tough conference and you got to play as a team and I think that’s the biggest thing for us. We have to play as a team, our chemistry is so important to us.

On the Pacers' main goal this summer:

"What we always wanted is to have a good team and bring our starters back. That’s what we really wanted. That was goal number one and we did that."

On adding Gerald Green and other high-energy bench players:

"When you’re talking about playing some of the elite teams in the East, you’ve got to be athletic. You have got to be athletic at the rim. You have got to be athletic on the wing. D.J. [Augustin] and Ian [Mahinmi] really give us some of that athleticism. They have got to incorporate their games into what [our] guys have done and the starters have done. It’s still a process and we’re still working on it. We like what we’ve seen so far, but it’s a marathon."

On his outlook for the team this season:

"I think what we have is some very good veterans and then we’ve got some up-and-coming players. Paul George, Gerald and Ian, I think those guys have the opportunity to get better. I don’t think they’ve plateaued. I don’t think they’ve made it where they want to be. As long as they keep making steps forward, we have a chance to sustain success and that’s what we’d like to have."

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Central Rumors: Bulls, Walsh, Hammond, Pistons

October 21st, 2012 at 12:26pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Bulls figure to have a tough time repeating their success of the past two seasons with Derrick Rose injured and most of their key reserves playing elsewhere. Still, they have the advantage of playing in the NBA's easiest division, according to Sam Amico of Fox Sports Ohio, who believes they'll be able to tread water and come up with 46 wins, likely enough for a playoff berth. If Rose is back, a higher seed probably won't want to see Chicago in the first round, but until then, here's the latest on a few teams trying to benefit from the Bulls' misfortune.

  • Donnie Walsh is back in familiar surroundings as Pacers president of basketball operations after a stint in the Knicks front office, as Harvey Araton of The New York Times examines in a lengthy feature. Walsh admits his recovery from spinal cord surgery, which forced him to meet with LeBron James unprepared and in a wheelchair, affected the team's pitch for the superstar in 2010, and the 71-year-old doesn't envision himself as a long-term solution for the Pacers.
  • Though he's not expected to give Brandon Jennings a long-term extension this month, Bucks GM John Hammond is confident his backcourt of Jennings and Monta Ellis can work, and sees the Pacers and Jazz as small-market models to follow, as Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe details. "The goal today is not to make trades," Hammond said. "The goal today is to try to find a way to keep some of these young pieces together and build with this young nucleus but continue to keep a fair salary structure that will give us flexibility to change and improve this team."
  • Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press looks at how the Pistons are moving against the small-ball trend.
  • The Pistons' rotation is starting to take shape, as Vincent Goodwill of the Detroit News examines. 
  • A more competitive on-court product this season is critical for the business side of the Pistons, argues Tom Walsh of the Detroit Free Press.
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Central Notes: Cavs, Pargo, Bulls, Pacers

October 20th, 2012 at 10:15am CST by Zachary Links

The latest out of the Central Division..

  • Cavs coach Byron Scott says that he could conceivably carry three point guards on the roster, but it would appear that he will only keep either Jeremy Pargo or Donald Sloan, writes Jason Lloyd of the Beacon Journal.  The Cavs still have to cut two more players before the start of the season, but those cuts aren't expected to come until after Tuesday's preseason finale.  Sloan is on a non-guaranteed deal while Pargo is guaranteed $1MM.
  • Meanwhile, in Chicago, Marko Jaric appears to be a long shot to make the Bulls, writes Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times.  The guard saw just 52 seconds of playing time in the team's preseason win over his former team, the Timberwolves.
  • The Pacers are young and have a promising future ahead of them, but it's also not difficult to see them finishing second in the Eastern Conference this season, writes Alex Kennedy of HoopsWorld.  With intriguing pickups such as Gerald Green, Danny Granger & Co. will look to improve on a team which had the Heat on the ropes in last year's conference semifinals.
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Eastern Notes: Blatche, Magic, Heat, Green

October 15th, 2012 at 12:59pm CST by Luke Adams

We rounded up a few items out of the Western Conference earlier this morning, so let's head east and check in on the Nets, Magic, Heat, and a few other teams in the Eastern Conference….

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Eastern Notes: Bobcats, Drummond, Hinrich

October 14th, 2012 at 11:05pm CST by Ryan Raroque
Here are tonight's rumblings out of the Eastern Conference: 
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