INDIANAPOLIS – Indiana Pacers president Larry Bird says he plans to improve the team and make the playoffs next year. He just isn’t sure how yet.\nThe Pacers don’t have a draft pick Thursday. But Bird said there’s a 50-50 chance the team will work its way into the draft.\nIn the meantime, the Pacers continue to assess prospects.\n“There’s a lot of talk that, if you don’t have a pick, do you still prepare yourself for the draft?” Bird said during a pre-draft news conference Tuesday. “We would do that whether we had five picks or no picks, because you’ve got to know. At the last minute, if the phone rings, somebody might want to sell their pick, or trade a future pick for one now. So we prepare just like we had a lottery pick.”\nThe Pacers missed out on a top three pick in the draft lottery and had to send their No. 11 pick to Atlanta as part of the trade that brought Al Harrington to the Pacers last summer. Harrington was later traded away in a multiplayer deal. The Pacers lost this year’s second-round pick when they traded to get James White in last year’s draft.\nNow, the Pacers are scrambling to fill their primary need – perimeter shooting. Bird wouldn’t say if that could be done with a draft pick or through a trade.\n“We will get a good shooter,” he said. “We’ll get one of the top shooters in the league. May not be one of the biggest names in the league, but we will get a guy that can shoot the basketball.”\nBird also wouldn’t say how many picks the Pacers were trying to get, or who might be traded to get them.\n“It’s according to what we do,” he said. “I’m not going to sit here and say we have multiple picks, but if we can do something to get into the draft and we like it, we will.”\nJermaine O’Neal has been consistently linked to trade rumors since the Pacers’ season ended. The team’s top player averaged 19.4 points, 9.6 rebounds and 2.6 blocks in one of the best seasons of his 11-year career. He’s a six-time All-Star who finished third in fan voting this year for the Pacers’ 40th anniversary team.\nEarlier this summer, O’Neal denied reports that he had demanded a trade to the New York Knicks. He has clearly stated that he doesn’t want to be part of a rebuilding project, but Bird has said he wants to win now and add pieces.\nPart of Bird’s hesitance in jumping into the draft is that he doesn’t know if what’s out there is better than the young talent he already has. Danny Granger, David Harrison, Ike Diogu and Shawne Williams all are under 25.\n“We’ve had a lot of discussions about it, a lot of calls,” Bird said. “We like our corps of young players, and so does everybody else in the league. They’re trying to get them and trade them for draft picks. We don’t know if we want to go that route.”
Pacers unsure if they will obtain draft pick
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