The Indiana Pacers have plenty of guards and plenty of uncertainty.
The roster includes a point guard they don’t want: Jamaal Tinsley is still on the roster, despite the team’s refusal to play him after his struggles on and off the court. And team president Larry Bird said Monday that he won’t decide on team options for guards Jarrett Jack and Marquis Daniels until after Thursday night’s draft.
Jack averaged a career-high 13.1 points per game this season. Bird said at his season-ending news conference in April that he wanted to extend a qualifying offer to Jack that would make him a restricted free agent. That hasn’t happened yet, and Bird has left open the possibility that he might pick a point guard on Thursday, making Jack expendable.
“If a couple of those point guards fell to 13th that we really liked, maybe Jarrett’s not an option for us,” Bird said. “We always keep all of our options open.”
Daniels’ status also will be determined by what the Pacers do this week. If the Pacers don’t pick up the final year of his deal, Daniels will become an unrestricted free agent. Daniels averaged a career-high 13.6 points per game last season, but Brandon Rush emerged late in the season and is the favorite to start at shooting guard next season.
If the Pacers can find the right player with the 13th or 52nd picks, Daniels could be gone.
“That’s why we’re waiting so long, is to see what happens on Thursday,” Bird said.
Eric Maynor of Virginia Commonwealth and Brandon Jennings, who went straight from high school to pro ball in Italy, were point guards Bird spoke highly of on Monday.
Maynor averaged 22.4 points and 6.2 assists as a senior. Bird said he had a strong workout in Indianapolis.
“When you bring him in here and he plays against guys his age, Eric Maynor is a very fine basketball player,” Bird said. “He can shoot it. There may be guys who might be a little longer, a little quicker, but Eric’s a fine player.”
Jennings played one season in the Italian League. Bird thinks it was good for him.
“I think he probably went over there thinking he was going to get the ball handed to him and he was going to be able to do what he wants,” Bird said. “But from the conversations I had with him, he learned a lot and he improved, and he knows what he has to do to get better because he played against men.”
The Pacers, of course, are still trying to get rid of their old point guard.
Tinsley has been with the team since the 2001-02 season, but he has been hampered by injuries and off-court legal problems in recent years. The Pacers told him not to show up to training camp last season, and they did not allow him to play in an effort to improve their tarnished reputation.
That stance has not changed, despite the Pacers’ inability to complete a trade and get some value for a player who is owed $14.7 million the next two years.
An arbitration hearing regarding Tinsley’s status is scheduled for July. The Pacers would like to trade him before it gets to that point, but Bird didn’t sound hopeful that anything would get done this week.
“Not right now,” he said. “Every day, we talk about it. We contact teams, basically some of the teams that were interested last year, and see if there’s anything happening. We’re always putting feelers out there to see if we can get anything done.”
About the only thing Bird was sure of was that Travis Diener, last year’s No. 3 point guard, would pick up his player option and return to the team.
“Travis will be back,” he said. “I’m pretty sure of that.”
Uncertainty about Mike Dunleavy’s right knee is also in play. Dunleavy missed the first 34 games last season with lingering pain in his right knee. He returned and averaged 15.1 points in 18 games before shutting down because the pain increased. It was discovered that a bone spur had done significant damage to his patella tendon.
Bird said Dunleavy’s recovery is going well, but he wouldn’t put a timetable on his return.
“He’s feeling great,” Bird said. “He has no pain, but he hasn’t got out there and really started running.”
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