Pacers Preseason Presser 96

[PaulyP]

-GM Pauly P sits down on a table with a microphone in front of his face. To his left are Greg Graham and Jaime Watson and to his right is Randy Woods and Owner Daniel Martin-



Division Champion hats



PaulyP: Thank you for attending our presser, we havent held a presser in a couple years so we decided we owed it to you guys, the media, and our fans to have some answers. So at the end of our official statements we're going to read some Fan E-mails sent in via the World Wide Web so stay tuned for that. 

Owner Martin: I just wanna say a quick somethin, we are waiting patiently for our division champs banner so we can hang it up in our great arena so if the league office can get off their hindparts and get that done, that'd be great. 

PaulyP: Thank you Mr.Martin for the statement. Last year we finally got over the hump and delivered to the good people of the state of Indiana a division title. Its been 6 years of hard work to get us this far but we're so happy to have won it. Dee Brown and Stacey Augmon led the charge and both reaped the benefits of hard work in their All Star and All League selections. We also traded for veteran big man Rony Seikaly in an attempt to help us secure the division and the 2nd seed. Overall we are very super happy with how the regular season went down. 


        



Mascots


PaulyP: The postseason however, once again, was a fucking disaster. Our lack of depth and defense once again limited us in a 7-game series. With that in mind the ownership and I have decided to start shifting our focus to retooling the squad formulated around defense. Some players will be sacrificed along the way to achieving that build but we are all on board. We take great pride in being one of the winningest franchises in the league but we want a team that can win a title and we cant do that with our current approach of fast pace with no defense. 


Augmon working hard to improve his game this offseason

PaulyP: As usual we havent had a jawdropping offseason. We traded aging shooter Dell Curry for a young player in Tyus Edney, Tyus will be a developmental player for us. That deal was mainly a salary dump as we knew Dell had seen his best days and he was getting significantly worse. Especially on defense. We wish him well in Denver. In free agency we identified several swingmen with defensive potential and signed them. Greg Graham is someone we are excited about. He takes pride in his defense and has worked hard this offseason to improve it. Jaime Watson and Melvin Nembhard are just typical defensive backups. 




And now we will open the floor for questions!

[J2]

Johnny Junior, The Washington Post: You said that you were looking to change your team around, who might be on the block? You also said that your previous approach to the game wasn't championship-worthy, what type of gameplan will you be trying to implement?

[PaulyP]

Aug 26, 2014 14:52:52 GMT -6 J2 said:

Johnny Junior, The Washington Post: You said that you were looking to change your team around, who might be on the block? You also said that your previous approach to the game wasn't championship-worthy, what type of gameplan will you be trying to implement?

Well thank you for the question Johnny. If you want to be an elite team with a legitimate shot at the title you need to be able to defend. We have not defended proficiently at all since the league was formed so thats what we're going to focus on. As for the roster, Stacey is our obvious cornerstone, he's the best perimeter defender in the league and we need to surround him with talent as well. Dee Brown is expiring and he's improving so he'll command a pricey extension which we arent sure to commit to. Seikaly is someone we would like to trade, he's a bit older than what we'd like. So to summarize, everyone but Augmon I can realistically see being in a different uniform come midseason under the right circumstances.

[Deleted]

Kane West, SMD Editorial: A lot of rumblings behind the scenes are saying that you may have to come to grips to selling Stacey Augmon to be able to piece together a championship squad. Do you think you can put the pieces around him or have you had these thoughts yourself?

[IamQuailman]

GM Quailmen: Your long-heated rivalry with the Magic and their GM, coltsguy510, has been well documented around the league. How do you think you will fair against him this season now that he has traded away the now-Laker Eddie Jones?

[WigNosy]

Most front office people seem to be of the consensus that it takes two or three stars to win, and yet got the Pacers got rid of Patrick Ewing a couple of years back and have not added another superstar since. To what do you attribute your remarkable success last season, winning the Central, while building around basically a single star in Stacy Augmon? Could Dave Cirilli's  Ewing theory have been at play here as a contributing factor?

[Conroy]

Sports Guy Bill Simmons here, Dee Brown was a breakout player last year for your squad and looks like he had another nice training camp. Being 28 he may command big money in the offseason is it a priority to extend him in season or are you going to be willing to pay what could potentially be a lot of money to bring him back to Indiana next season.

[PaulyP]

Aug 26, 2014 20:12:10 GMT -6 ballsohard said:

Kane West, SMD Editorial: A lot of rumblings behind the scenes are saying that you may have to come to grips to selling Stacey Augmon to be able to piece together a championship squad. Do you think you can put the pieces around him or have you had these thoughts yourself?

I dont think trading Stacey is an absolute necessary course of action. If the right deal comes to me and I believe its the best course of action for the team I will do it. Of course I'd rather just get the talent around him considering the years we've all been together but we understand that may not be an option.

[PaulyP]

Aug 26, 2014 21:06:55 GMT -6 IamQuailman said:

GM Quailmen: Your long-heated rivalry with the Magic and their GM, coltsguy510, has been well documented around the league. How do you think you will fair against him this season now that he has traded away the now-Laker Eddie Jones?

We dont spend our time in this front office worrying about other teams. We focus on our franchise and how to better ourselves. However if you're asking my opinion on the Jones trade I think it was a poor deal. Im not the biggest Bruce Bowen fan ever since he was drafted and Jones is certainly better than Stack. As for our teams clashing, I always hope my team does well against any opponent, whether its the Magic or the Flint Tropics or the Globetrotters.

[PaulyP]

Aug 27, 2014 0:11:01 GMT -6 WigNosy said:

Most front office people seem to be of the consensus that it takes two or three stars to win, and yet got the Pacers got rid of Patrick Ewing a couple of years back and have not added another superstar since. To what do you attribute your remarkable success last season, winning the Central, while building around basically a single star in Stacy Augmon? Could Dave Cirilli's  Ewing theory have been at play here as a contributing factor?

Having a superstar is great, paying a bunch of them is not. Some GM's dont care about the money, we do. We were able to build a team over a couple seasons. We believe in building chemistry and cohesion and that was instrumental in our success last year. Patrick is a great player, one of the best centers of all time so I dont believe in Cirilli's theory. We played great ball when Patrick was here and played great ball after he was traded, thats a testament to our franchise's willingness to succeed. You dont need stars at all 5 positions, you need a good team.

[PaulyP]

Aug 27, 2014 9:17:14 GMT -6 Conroy said:

Sports Guy Bill Simmons here, Dee Brown was a breakout player last year for your squad and looks like he had another nice training camp. Being 28 he may command big money in the offseason is it a priority to extend him in season or are you going to be willing to pay what could potentially be a lot of money to bring him back to Indiana next season.

Yeah Dee was absolutely outstanding last year, when we signed him a few years ago we knew he was primed for a breakout and we're delighted it happened. We're going to sit down with Dee and his agent and hopefully we can come to an agreement that doesnt break the bank for us. I always prefer in-season negotiating rather than offseason because during the year we are the only ones in his ear whereas anyone can go grab him later. We will not overpay for players here in Indiana, so any potential deal must be fair for both sides.

[TrayWithAnA]

My sweet sweet Pauly P, can you recap that final sim for us in the regular season that saw you finally close out a division title and jump the Raptors in the final weeks?

[PaulyP]

Aug 28, 2014 13:28:25 GMT -6 TrayWithAnA said:

My sweet sweet Pauly P, can you recap that final sim for us in the regular season that saw you finally close out a division title and jump the Raptors in the final weeks?

We were quietly confident since going into the final day we were up a game. We knew the power was in our hands and in the locker room before the game everyone was hyped and focused and we delivered the win over Milwaukee. I will admit I shrieked like a little girl for about 3 minutes saying "We won the division baby!!" I was so ecstatic as was the team. Its a great feeling to know your hard work after 82 games was validated. 

[IamQuailman]

Awarded 5 points (towards preseason presser 5pt cap).