NEW YORK (AP) – The East was a two-team race at last year’s trade deadline, and Larry Bird made the move he thought would win it.
When the Indiana Pacers acquired Evan Turner from rebuilding Philadelphia, they hoped it would provide the scoring punch to beat out Miami and reach the NBA Finals. It didn’t, and Turner is now in Boston.
Now the Pacers are trying to get in the postseason, two games out of eighth place and seeking a spark that could sling-shot them past others down the bottom of the playoff ladder. Bird promises to be as aggressive as when his team on top.
“We’re always looking to improve the team and obviously there’s a lot of improvement that needs to be done,” the Pacers’ president said recently. “So we’ll look around the league and talk to a lot of different people and see what’s out there and hopefully we can do something that makes us better.”
If not, he said, he’ll wait until the summer.