After listening to Reggie Miller broadcast NBA games, would you hire him to be your team’s general manager?
I wouldn’t even let him run my fantasy team, but if a GM gig gets him out of the broadcast booth I am fully supportive of it.
Larry Bird is going to step down at the end of this season as the guy running the Indiana Pacers basketball operations, and owner Herb Simon apparently does not watch the same broadcasts you and I do and he wants Miller to replace Bird, reports Yahoo’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
Simon has considered this possibility for several years, sources said, and thinks the timing could be right to groom Miller to run his basketball operations. This is likely Miller’s one chance to ever run a team. And where else would he rather do it, but in the city, the state, where he became basketball royalty?
Nevertheless, there’s risk for everyone. Miller has a cushy national TV analyst’s job with TNT, and he’d have to jeopardize his standing as an iconic Indiana figure. He’s the greatest, most beloved player in Pacers history. He’ll take hits upstairs that he never had to take on the court.
It is possible Simon would do something like re-hire Donnie Walsh (who ran the Pacers before going to the Knicks) to teach Miller the ropes for a couple years before letting Reggie have the run of the place.
If Simon is set on a star former Pacer running the show, I would go with Chris Mullin personally. But again, if this gets Miller out of the broadcast booth, I am supportive in the same way I was when the Warriors hired Mark Jackson.