Larry Legend won’t be sticking around to battle Magic Johnson as Johnson steps into the top spot in LA. Bird is calling it quits as Pacers president for the second time in five years (last time he was back in a year). Bird sounded weary toward the end of the season as a Pacers team he put together to contend — with Jeff Teague at point guard — didn’t pan out so well. Sometimes it doesn’t work, Bird said frankly, before the playoffs even began. Bird will be replaced by Kevin Pritchard, who has plenty of talent to work with — starting with All-Star Paul George, a Bird favorite.
Pritchard has all the tools and confidence to replace a legend without blinking. As a savvy executive for the Portland Trail Blazers a decade ago, Pritchard built a reputation for “winning” trade deals, a propensity that gave birth the phrase “Pritch Slap.” Pritch Slap describes what happens when you’re out-negotiated or seen as getting the short end of a deal. The Pacers are in good post-Bird hands — but there’s always a chance that in trading in Larry Bird for Kevin Pritchard posterity will conclude that Indiana itself got Pritch slapped. But that’s unlikely. While hardly anybody has Bird’s pedigree, Pritchard was the starting point guard on Kansas’ national championship team in 1988, where he played for coaching legend Larry Brown. And it’s no surprise he’s a keen management man — Pritchard was an academic All-American at KU. Here’s a shared Tweet that shows how he thinks:
Here’s how to get lucky:
1 work hard
2 show gratitude
3 teach others
4 share the credit
5 show up on time
6 be responsible
7 stay teachable— Vala Afshar (@ValaAfshar) November 5, 2014
