Tag: Kevin Pritchard

James Boyd: Kevin Pritchard: “I think there’s a couple things we really wanted to do.” Kevin Pritchard said they wanted to be “aggressive” with their trades after seeing how the season and the team was going. #Pacers

So Pacers president Kevin Pritchard and Carlisle convened those three players and Brogdon for an impromptu meeting to address the report. “We just talked about the article and how we try to be super transparent with the players. If they ever want to ask me anything, they can ask me anything,” Pritchard told The Athletic after the meeting was over. “When we get close to making a trade, we don’t try to just bop a guy over the head with, ‘Oh, by the way, you’re traded.’ We will give them a heads up, and we’ve done that multiple times.”

Pritchard told the players that while they are fielding plenty of calls for Sabonis and Turner, in particular, the organization still believes in their pairing and wants to see it through this season, according to multiple sources in the room. He and Carlisle told the players they still believe they can turn the season around and they do not want to go into a full rebuild at this juncture. But they have to say that if they want to hold the team together. At 11-16, can they afford to keep seeing if this can work?

The immediate residual effect from the meetings this week was obvious Wednesday night, as the offense was as cohesive as it has been all season and Turner looked great attacking the paint off the dribble. But as much as the team is telling Turner the right things as he voices his frustrations, the track record of the past few years has left him skeptical positive changes to accommodate him will last, per player sources. Regardless, Wednesday night epitomized what Carlisle is looking for out of his team.