{"id":929,"date":"2013-06-26T18:03:06","date_gmt":"2013-06-26T22:03:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/?p=929"},"modified":"2013-06-26T18:03:06","modified_gmt":"2013-06-26T22:03:06","slug":"larry-bird-signs-multi-year-contract-to-return-to-pacers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/2013\/06\/26\/larry-bird-signs-multi-year-contract-to-return-to-pacers\/","title":{"rendered":"Larry Bird signs multi-year contract to return to Pacers"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_930\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-930\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-930\" alt=\"birdbird\" src=\"http:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/files\/2013\/06\/birdbird.jpg\" width=\"630\" height=\"354\" srcset=\"http:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/files\/2013\/06\/birdbird.jpg 630w, http:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/files\/2013\/06\/birdbird-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-930\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gregory Shamus\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Larry Bird has signed a multi-year contract and is returning to the Indiana Pacers next season, the team announced on Wednesday. A press conference is scheduled for Thursday morning in Indianapolis to discuss his return.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are all very happy to have Larry back,\u201d Pacers owner Herb Simon said. \u201cWhen he left last July, Donnie and I both told him the door would be open for him to come back when he&#8217;s ready. Larry had a huge impact on this team and where it is now, so it&#8217;s fitting that he comes back at this time. Donnie has been a friend and a valuable contributor to the franchise and will continue to be both. I wanted him to agree to stay in some capacity as I believe with Larry and Kevin, it gives us three of the best basketball minds in the business.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bird announced last June he was stepping down at the end of August to deal with physical issues.<\/p>\n<p>Donnie Walsh will remain with the team in a consulting role, and Kevin Pritchard will continue in his role as general manager.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe year off gave me a chance to reflect, to rest, to take care of some health issues and it recharged me,\u201d Bird said. \u201cDonnie and Kevin did a great job, and I will lean on both heavily as we move forward toward the goal of competing for a championship.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Larry Bird has signed a multi-year contract and is returning to the Indiana Pacers next season, the team announced on Wednesday. A press conference is scheduled for Thursday morning in Indianapolis to discuss his return. &#8220;We are all very happy to have Larry back,\u201d Pacers owner Herb Simon said. \u201cWhen he left last July, Donnie [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":930,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"coauthors":[17],"class_list":["post-929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=929"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}