Andrew Bynum said the decision to sign with the Indiana Pacers was pretty easy. The free agent center intended to sign with a contending team after dramatically ending his short stint as a Cleveland Cavalier. Now with one of the top Eastern Conference teams, Larry Bird is only thinking of Bynum in the short-term, not long-term.
Bynum signed a deal worth a million dollar deal to be a second-season rental for the Pacers. The team knows that size is their best chance at beating the Miami Heat come playoff team and Bynum certainly helps that effort. However, what happens in the offseason? Bird will not discuss the plans for Bynum past this year.
"I ain't worrying about next year and I haven't all year," Bird said, via IndyStar.com "We're in the now and we're going to do whatever we can to go as far as we possibly can. We know there's going to be some tough competition but if we get a chance to improve our team, we're going to try to do that."
Bynum averaged 8.4 points and 5.3 rebounds in 24 games with the Cavaliers. He was slowly having a return-to-form season before getting suspended for poor conducted. That caused a riff between he and the team and a trade was the best option moving forward. With a red flag on his resume for character issues, Bynum reportedly blames Kyrie Irving for that.
Fox Sports' Sam Amico reports that Irving is the reason Bynum was so unhappy in Cleveland and ultimately had issues in the locker room. Irving has been considered the franchise player for the Cavaliers, but a lot has been made about his commitment and Bynum was no happy with how things were playing out.
Now, the center has a chance to prove everyone wrong after sitting for months as a free agent. The Pacers did not have Bynum take a physical before signing him which could mean the center does not play right away. Despite the unknown, Bird and head coach Frank Vogel are excited over the center's arrival even though some players remain skeptical.
"You can't pass up on a huge talent like that and I expect him to be able to help us if he comes in with an attitude to buy into our program," Paul George said. "He'll have to prove a lot to himself, whether he wants to play or not. If he comes in ready to go, ready to put in the work, really buying into our program, we have no problem being there for him."
