After last night’s debacle, the Pacers’ season is mercifully put to rest. What started out with them looking like the first serious contenders to the Heat’s throne atop the East in years turned dramatically south and ended with an All-Star center looking like he’d never played basketball before, a budding superstar getting lost in the shuffle, and Lance Stephenson blowing in LeBron’s ear. The message was obvious: the Pacers didn’t think they could hang with Miami.
Now it’s time for the postmortem. One man’s job is safe, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports:
After consecutive losses in the Eastern Conference finals, Frank Vogel will return to coach the Indiana Pacers next season, league sources told Yahoo Sports.
Indiana management has never considered replacing him, sources told Yahoo Sports.
Vogel’s job status had become fodder for debate because of an unsteady late-season slide that extended into the playoffs, but Pacers president Larry Bird and general manager Kevin Pritchard have remained strong believers in him, sources said.
Most of the stories surrounding Vogel’s possible removal as coach, league sources told Yahoo Sports, had been coming from unemployed coaches trying to angle themselves into contention to replace him.
That’s why you should never implicitly believe something just because it’s attached to “league sources,” especially when it’s about a coach being on the line. Pretty often it’ll just be someone out to further their own interests, and the reader doesn’t know the difference between that and someone who’s genuinely plugged in.
Unlike Vogel, though, Lance Stephenson might not be staying in Indiana, though he certainly wants to, writes Zak Keefer of USA Today.
In the initial moments after Indiana’s 117-92 season-ending loss to the Miami Heat on Friday night, the enigmatic and embattled fourth-year guard said he doesn’t want to go anywhere.
“I definitely want to be back,” Stephenson said. “Right now I can’t really, I’m not really focused on that right now. Right now I’m just showing love to my guys and showing how hard we worked.
“I wanna come back,” he added moments later. “I love Indiana.”
Stephenson’s teammates were asked the same question.
“I think so, I hope so,” said David West. “He’s a huge part of the progress that we made. He’s a great young talent. He fits with this group so hopefully we get him back.”
Paul George, who came into the league with Stephenson as part of the same draft class, echoed West’s sentiments but alluded to the difficult decision team president Larry Bird and general manager Kevin Pritchard will soon face.
Does George want to have Stephenson by his side next year?
“I don’t know,” George said after a long pause. “That’s for Larry, Kevin, for them to decide. It would be great. We came into this league together. It would be great for us to continue our journey together.
“But he’s played a huge (role) this whole season and in this postseason. So it’s definitely put pressure on us to make decisions going forward with Lance.”
ESPN.com’s Marc Stein has more on the Stephenson situation:
When the week began, “Larry will stick by Lance tooth and nail” was still the way it was being put to us.
By week’s end, after too many ill-conceived attempts to mess with LeBron’s psyche to list, it was impossible to resist the suggestion that even Bird has to be fed up with Stephenson.
But here’s the thing: Stephenson has turned off potential free-agent suitors with his unreliability — ever since being snubbed for the Eastern Conference All-Star team — as much or more than he’s annoyed fellow Pacers. His free-agent market, according to the latest rumbles on the personnel grapevine, is already drying up. And it’s not even June 1 yet.
It’s pretty instructive to hear that the Dallas Mavericks, as ESPN.com has been reporting since Dallas’ first-round playoff exit to San Antonio, do not intend to pursue Stephenson come July. The Mavs could certainly use Stephenson’s athleticism, versatility and playmaking and showed everyone last summer — with the signing of Monta Ellis — that they’re not afraid to take a perceived gamble. It’s pretty telling when the risk-taking Mavs, after the combination of Dirk Nowitzki and Rick Carlisle brought the best out of Ellis, have shown no interest in finding out if they can do the same with Lance.
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Dan Malone has finally finished his journalism degree at the University of King’s College in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and is now a reporter at the Bryan Times in northwest Ohio. He blogs, edits and learns things on the fly for Sheridan Hoops. Follow him on Twitter.