Indiana Pacers – Tyrese Haliburton OUT for 25-26! James Wiseman signs! Kevin Pritchard classy!

Indiana Pacers – Tyrese Haliburton OUT for 25-26! James Wiseman signs! Kevin Pritchard classy!

Kevin Pritchard spoke to the media today. He had a lot to say and he said it all in a very classy way. He’s always been a very classy guy as the head of the Pacers organization. Other than Herb Simon, the most powerful guy in the Pacers organization and and what he had to say I thought represented pure class. uh 31 minutes he spent with the media and he never said a negative word about Miles Turner or anybody else. And that’s truly who he is. In all his time with the Pacers, I’ve never heard him kind of turn on anybody. And and it’s refreshing to hear in this day and age somebody do that. We did find some things out from Pritchard today. James Wiseman has signed his contract. It’s a two-year veteran minimum deal. Uh, and that’s good news because James Wiseman can play. If he hadn’t torn his Achilles, man, I if the Pacers hadn’t those three torn Achilles, Isaiah Jackson, James Weisman, and Tyrese Hallebertton. Wow. I I think you win the NBA championship without those three torn Achilles. We found out that Tyrese Hallebertton will not be back this season. He is not going to play this season. I don’t know whether it’s a real thing or whether it’s just you know what uh I’m going to say he’s not going to be back. So nobody has any illusions about maybe him being back. And so this takes some of the pressure off him. We don’t know what we don’t know. And until he comes out of that cast and starts moving around, we don’t know how that thing’s going to respond to treatment and whether he can get back. If the Pacers went to the playoffs, there’s a chance. There’s also a pretty good chance he would not be able to play. So, we’ll take Kevin Pritchard at his word and say he will not be playing in 2025. Pritchard says he’s got four centers and one of them is going to have an opportunity to be the guy at the center position for the Pacers. it. You’ve got a guy like Jay Huff who’s shown over the course of just 11 minutes a game that he’s a fairly productive shooter, more than 40% from beyond the arc. He’s long. He can block shots. He’s not a bad rebounder. He’s not a great rebounder. He’s really a corner three more than anybody or more than anything else. You’ve got Tony Bradley who’s a backup. If Tony Bradley, no offense, no shade to Tony Bradley, but if he’s your starting center, you got a problem. You have Isaiah Jackson who prior to the Achilles tear was an elite athletic specimen. We’ll see what he does. And then you’ve got James Weisman who until he tore his Achilles in that opener, you know what? He looked like he was really good. And you know why they did that? you know, they signed him in order to uh give them an opportunity maybe to deal Miles Turner at the deadline, move him and get something of value back. Pacers did not get anything of value back according to Pritchard. They were open to a sign and trade, but the Bucks, they preferred, although there were no conversations between the Bucks and the Pacers, they preferred just uh cut uh Damen Lillard and extend that contract uh over the course of five years and then uh pay him over those five years to not play for them rather than uh a sign and trade. All right. You know what? That’s the way that works. He did say that they were having productive conversations, producting productive negotiations, trying to figure out how they might be able to come to terms, Miles Turner and the Pacers. And that didn’t happen. They found out from a a tweet by Shams that Turner had indeed agreed to sign with the Bucks. Go Pacers says, “Do you trust Jay? Do I trust uh Pritchard?” I absolutely tr Kevin. I don’t who’s which one’s Jay. I trust Kevin. I do. And I’ll tell you why. And and he’s corrected doing this. He doesn’t do it anymore, but he used to do a very specific thing when he was full of crap. And there was a Oh, do I trust Jay Huff? I don’t know. I I don’t know whether he can be a whether he’s best served as a backup center or a uh a starting center. I don’t know. But somebody’s going to get that opportunity. And I think it’s going to be a good thing for somebody. And in the end, I think it’s going to be a good thing for the Pacers because Miles Turner was not. I know they just went to the finals. I know they lost in seven. I know all of that stuff. For my money, Miles Turner was not the third best player on this team behind Seakkum and Hallebertton. He wasn’t the fourth best player on this team. He wasn’t the fifth best player on this team. And he wasn’t the sixth best player on this team. I would have him seventh in importance to how this team functions. Stand in the corner, shoot threes. Okay. All right. Don’t get rebounds. Okay. Don’t be a good on ball defender. Okay. Block a shot every once in a while. Fine. I What did you get out of Miles Turner that made you think that he could somehow com he could somehow contribute in a really meaningful way to the Pacers winning a championship? As a top three player on this team, I didn’t think that he was. Did you think that he? If you did, good for you. You know what? I applaud you and your optimism and the way you see people through the the rosecolored glasses that you’ve gotten. That’s not a criticism. I didn’t see it. And I think you’re going to get about 15 games into the 202526 season and people in Milwaukee are going to be like this. What the hell? What the hell is that? We cut Damen Lillard, granted with the Achilles injury, but we cut that for this. And we’re paying really about $50 million a year for this over the next four years because of the lost money to Lillard and the money being paid to Turner, which winds up being uh 26.75 million a year. Are you kidding? That’s what they’re going to get. That’s what they’re going to wind up with in Milwaukee. We’ve watched it for 10 years. There’s no bitterness. I don’t care. I I was never I don’t think Miles Turner is a lesser basketball player today than I did a month ago or two months ago or 6 months ago or six years ago. He is who he is and he never became anything different. minus 20 uh 222 2023. He’s pretty damn good. I I was good with that version of Miles Turner. And there were glimpses. There were moments in games the last six minutes I think at game three in the finals. That was good. Uh he hit those three threes that was really there were some good things. I’m not uh immune to thinking good thoughts of Miles Turner. It’s not personal. Like like Michael Corleó said to Sunny, it’s business. It’s not personal, not personal. Sunny, uh, if James James can stay, would you start him? James Wiseman, if he can stay healthy, I think given the way he looked last year, yeah. Oh, one other thing that Kevin Pritchard had to say, and that’s that Johnny uh Fury might be a rotation guy. They love the way he looks in summer league practice. By the way, the summer league’s going to get rolling. I think Thursday 5:00 Pacers and the Cavs. I’m digging it. I love summer league basketball. I love basketball. Any kind of basketball to tell you the truth. And I hope I hope I’m wrong about Miles. I hope that he goes out to Milwaukee and plays his ass off. I think that’d be fantastic. I hope he averages 24 and 12. Do you really think that’s going to happen? I know. Uh we’re going to talk about the Colts, too. Colts, more upgrades and downgrades. Dan Doach, I went on, it was the uh the power hour as always, 2 to three on the Dan Doitch show on Mondays. Dan and I chop it up as the kids like to say and he was talking about the Colts and how he feels very bullish about the Colts and and their ability to win 8 n 10 even mentioned 11 games. I don’t think they’re going to win 11 games. I’m not that bullish. But he did make a pretty good point in that there are a lot of upgrades as you look at this roster. Potential upgrades. Upgrades we’re hopeful come to fruition. We’ll talk about that. Oh, and the incredible prize wheel. Look, we’ve got 10 tickets. Potential winners. We don’t know what prize yet. We have the giant outlandishly large prize dice because we have six prizes that are available today. One of which is going to be given away and it will be determined by the number on the die. To be a winner of any prize on this channel, you must first be a a subscriber. There is no cost for a subscription. There is no responsibility attached with being a subscriber. So, you become a subscriber because number one, it’s convenient for you. Number two, it makes you eligible to win a prize. The second thing you need to do, and you can no longer enter this prize. So, we’re not going to have a phrase that pays right now. We’ll have a new one tomorrow morning. will have a phrase that pays and you must comment with the phrase that pays and and that’s basically it. Then I write down on the tickets I write down the uh YouTube handle for uh everybody. I put them in the incredible prize bucket. I pull out 10. I affix them to the incredible prize wheel which has been calibrated and we spin it. And you never know where it’s going to stop. And when it does, we’ve got our winner. And then the winner has a uh we’re we’re a little bit lax, I got to tell you the truth about the amount of time because sometimes DMs don’t come through right away. But you got to DM me on X. That’s the way it’s got to be. It’s got to be on X. You got to follow me on X. I’ll follow you back and then you DM me with your name and address and I ship the prize post taste. The prizes are all here, including this lovely Steve Burline autographed. You can kind of see it through there. Steve Berlin autographed uh panel, white panel football. And of course, the Pton Manning personally autographed slick. And all of these, I believe all of them have a certificate of authenticity, but I know this one does cuz it’s right there, the Pton Manning. All right, let’s talk about the Indiana Pacers and Kevin Pritchard. Kevin Pritchard very very impressive today as he spoke to the media. We found out that Miles Turner officially signed with the Milwaukee Bucks that the Pacers have officially signed. James Wiseman, it’s a two-year contract team option in the second year at the veteran minimum. Isaiah Jackson, they are negotiating with him to bring him back. Tony Bradley, he’s going to be back. Jay Huff, the Pacers, they initiated a trade or consummated a trade with the Memphis Grizzlies uh just a day ago. They announced that Jay Huff will become a Pacer. They are creatively solving problems. Here’s the great thing. Here’s where really good management pays off. really good managers, what they do is they take a negative circumstance, not of their own creation, and they come up with a solution that was is better for the organization than their original solution. The original solution for the Pacers, excuse me, was to resign Miles Turner. And they were willing to go into the luxury tax, according to Kevin Pritchard, to do that. They did not want to go into the se past that second tier, right? First tier, good. First level of luxury tax. Good. Second tier, no. Had no interest in that. And he said he doesn’t recommend any team do that. 100% right. Doing that for and doing that for a player. I got to tell you, I think the Pacers were rescued from from this deal by Miles Turner’s signing with the Milwaukee Bucks. This would have been hideous. The Pacers in year one paying or paying in kind in some manner $47 million to retain Miles Turner. That would have been crazy. Miles Turner is not worth $47 million. Miles Turner is not worth $25 million. 20 18. You can make your case. All right. He can stand in the corner and make threes. He can dribble into a three at the top of the key every once in a while. Making smart basketball plays on the regular. Not really. Miles, uh, you know, not a part of his bag of tricks. Um, the key to this center situation is the recovery of both Jackson and Wiseman. If those guys are good to go for the preeason, then along with Huff and you really you kind of got something and Tony Bradley, you got four guys who can play a little bit at the center position. Good for the Pacers. Will they make a deal to try to elevate elsewhere? That’s kind of the interesting question. And Kevin Pritchard said his ears are always open. are because otherwise they just slide Nhard over to the point guard and have Matine start at the two which is possible but then you get really thin behind that right your depth becomes kind of an issue depth has been a real strength of this team over the past uh couple of years this would erode the quality of that depth you’ve already done that Turner gone Hallebertton gone so you’re going to plop two new uh starters in there to begin with Kevin Pritchard said the Simons were ready to go deep into the cap. Uh not quite at the second apron with the moves they were talking about. Uh he saw he said that he found out about Miles signing by reading the uh Shams tweet. He said I saw Shams tweet it and that’s how I found out. I think there was a number he wanted to hit. I was shocked, but he did say this is business. And when somebody says the number that you want them to say, you say, “Thank you very much.” You shake hands and the deal is done. And that’s what Miles did. And again, I think that this saved the Pacers from being in a position where they were going to have difficulty at least down the road. Miles is going to be 30. Miles ain’t going to get better at basketball. Miles is a finished product and at some point is going to begin to decline. And that point may have already come after that 22 23 season. The last two seasons stairstepping down just a scoch. Uh Pritchard classy as always says you can’t just replace a player like Turner. Yeah, you can. You can do it in the aggregate and that’s what the uh the Pacers are going to do. He uh said as I mentioned before, Allebertton’s going to be out for the year. uh saying that a gnat flew down my throat. How about that for inhospitable? We got a couple of gnats. I don’t like gnats very much. Uh replacing Miles is a matter of replacing the 15 12 and 6 and 12. That’s it. The rest is noise. Miles, good guy, flood player. We don’t harbor any discontent or negativity about Miles Turner. We’re just realists as to how he contributed to the hole. Fine guy, a lovely person as a basketball player. Flaws flaw flaw. Uh let’s talk about the Colts for a minute. Dan Doitch today during the power hour. Dan is in a very good mood. Dan got to spend the weekend at his sister’s house with family. So, he came back in a nice mood and being in a nice mood, he’s very very positive about the Indianapolis Colts. I this morning I was not positive and and said so, but something that Dan said and we’ve gone through this exercise as well, you and I, talking about positionally, how does this team compared to last year, right? Last year they brought all of the starters back, all of the specialists. Have they upgraded anywhere this year? Hm. All right, let’s talk about upgrades. I think Spencer Schrader is going to be an immediate upgrade over Matt Gay. I love Spencer Schrader’s foot. Uh I think that Mooney Ward is an immediate impact uh upgrade over Wilmac at corner. I I don’t even think it’s close. Binham over Blackman. Blackman had a torn rotator cuff last year and and wasn’t healthy, so he couldn’t hit guys. He backed off from contact. Cam Binham is going to be different and he’s going to get the ball every bit as often as Blackman did. Uh, Gonalves over the right tackles who played after Will Fry got hurt. I can solve this is going to be a really good right tackle and I think that Bordellini has a chance to be the equal of Ryan Kelly at center. I don’t know whether that’s going to happen immediately, but I think he can do that. Uh, Ebicom over Odango. I’m all good with Ebico over Odango. I like uh Odango. Really good player and got better every season. He came in with a torn Achilles, right? And the rookie year had to rehab and rehab and rehab and rehab. And then year two was kind of his rookie year and he was pretty good. Year three, his better. year four better yet came in in the second round uh and immediately after the pick of Quiddyp Pay, right? So, uh Richardson over Richardson is kind of the big one. Is Anthony Richardson going to be a better version of Anthony Richardson? That’s a great question. I think he’s got a chance because I’ll tell you something about Anthony Richardson, and this gets into personality. He is earnest as hell. And I think if he if he in his head listens to somebody and they say, “Look, here’s what you got to do. You got a world of potential. Here’s what you need to do to unlock it.” He’s going to do that thing. So, I think through the off season, the work he’s been able to do up until he was shut down during OTAAS, it’s going to make him more accurate. How much more accurate? I don’t know. He’s got to run the football less than he did last year because running the football on planned runs causes mayhem with his body and you can’t have that. I think he’s got a chance to develop into a really competent and and potentially really good starting quarterback. He’s also got the potential to not do that. There there’s no lock that says he’s going to improve. There’s not. I wish that there was. If he can do that, this team gets good in a hurry. Uh how about Smith over Smith? Because Braden Smith last year, he had issues. Issues that we learned about in that uh wonderful piece by Joel Ericson in the Indie Star, you know, uh that he had uh suicidal thoughts. He could not be good enough to believe that he was worthy of his God’s love. That was basically the deal. He’s getting past that. He’s working at it. Working at it much happier than he was. And through that happiness, he’s enjoying football more. He’s got the physical attributes of an elite level right tackle in the NFL. Maybe he can get there. Again, maybe he can’t. We don’t know. How about Ad AD Mitchell being in his second year and maybe taking that leap because AD Mitchell has all the physical gifts necessary to be able to play football at the highest possible level. That guy moves with incredible smoothness and gets open regularly. It’s up to a guy like Richardson or a guy like Daniel Jones to be able to deliver the ball to him as he comes open. and he will come open. I like Alec Pierce to have a big year this year. I Alec Pierce has been working at all the right stuff. And so, and we’ve talked about this before, not just a straight line sprint guy, but what he would do as a rookie, he’d run if he ran like a 10 yard out running in the 10, chop his feet, turn and go. Incredibly slow cuts and incredibly easy to cover. He’s much smoother now and with that smoothness he becomes more and more dangerous. I think that’s going to be an interesting guy to watch. Uh I really like Pierce Pitman, DS, Ryman, Nelson, Buckner, Stewart, and Franklin as guys who are going to maintain their level of play. Now for one of those guys Franklin, it’s not the highest level of play, right? A lot of missed tackles and he can’t cover anybody. That’s problematic. Another reason I is that Tyler Warren is an immediate and massive upgrade over the other tight ends on this team. Moi Cox, he blocks really well that he does. Ogalree, Galanti Woods back healthy. Maybe he’s a guy. If you can get Gelanni Woods healthy and all of a sudden you’ve got uh Tyler Warren and Galanti Woods as your two tight ends. Ay Iay, you got something. All right, that could be really good. There are reasons to believe, like Dan does, that good can become better. That eight wins can become nine. That eight wins can become 10 maybe. And at 10, you got a chance to win the division. Colts had that chance last year. I think they got a shot. All right, now it’s time for the grand giveaway. We will roll the dice. You can see ordinary. And now this is wood. We do not We don’t balance these like you do in Vegas. Put them on the spinner. We assume that these are legitimate die, right? I think. Anyway, it’s it’s as likely to be one thing as another. Let’s roll it there. There it goes in the air and it lands on number six. Number six is Let me reach into the uh incredible prize box and see. Oh, it’s not that. Hey, it is the Mike Tomzac autographed helmet, mini helmet, Ohio State Buckeyes. How about that, ladies and gentlemen? Uh Mike Tomzac, did you know this? Mike Tomzac, this is how good the Chicago Bears defense was in 1986. Mike Tomzac was 7 and0 as a starting quarterback when Jim McMahon got hurt. 7 and0 for the Bears as a starter despite the fact that he had a 2-10 touchdown to interception ratio. two touchdowns, 10 interceptions, and he went seven-0 as a starter. That I guarantee you, no quarterback has ever won seven or more games as a starter without a loss while while throwing two touchdowns or fewer and 10 interceptions or more. That has never happened in the history of the NFL. And that is what makes the Mike Tomzac mini helmet an absolute must-have for the serious uh uh pro football souvenir and memorabilia collector. Now we spin the fabulous prize wheel and we see who wins that Mike Tomzac mini helmet. There it goes. And it Oh, you see how perfectly calibrated this is? How well balanced. All right, it is this person right here. And it is J O T I P A L O. Japalo. This will make it backwards on your screen, but Japalo is the winner of the Mike Tomzac mini helmet. Japalo, here’s what you got to do. You need to DM me on X your name, address, and I will get this shipped to you post haste. All right. We will have another drawing Monday. This will happen every Monday through uh well whenever we get through six prizes through the next today would be one and then five more Mondays. How about that? All right. So, I’m telling you Pacers fans, you have every reason to be optimistic about 2526. The center position is going to be well manned. and Colts fans. All right, we’re going to have to work at it, but we’re going to by the time they get to that game against the Dolphins at Lucas Oil Stadium on September 7th, we are going to be bullish. We are going to be optimistic. We are going to be positive about the exploits of the Colts for the 2025 season. I promise you that. Hey, I’m not going to Pittsburgh for the Colts Steelers game to get a haircut. I want wins and I want to rub it in the noses of all those Pittsburgers and have some fun at their expense.

Tyrese Haliburton will take the entire 25-26 season to recovers from Achilles repair!
James Wiseman signs two-year deal to return to Pacers! Isaiah Jackson likely to return! Both are still rehabbing from their torn Achilles!
Kevin Pritchard very classy in discussing Myles Turner signing with Bucks!

Here is the link for the only autobiography ever published without praise for its author: https://www.amazon.com/Oops-Art-Learning-Mistakes-Adventures/dp/173420740X

https://kentsterling.com/2025/07/03/rule-for-kent-sterling-conest/