Larry Bird returns to Indiana Pacers after year off

INDIANAPOLIS — Larry Bird started his work with the Indiana Pacers amid the post-brawl wreckage.

Now he gets to finish it.

Bird, who took a year off to deal with physical issues and to clear his mind, agreed Wednesday to return to the Pacers as the organization's top man. He will start Monday.

"He's got plenty of rings of his own, now I want him to win one for me," Pacers owner Herb Simon told USA TODAY Sports. "He's got his energy back, his health back and he's raring to go."

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The Pacers will formally announce Bird's return in a news conference at 10 a.m. Thursday.

General manager Kevin Pritchard will remain on as Bird's No. 2 while Donnie Walsh, who said last week he'd be ready to step aside if Bird returned, will become a consultant.

Bird will not be involved in Thursday's draft, which Walsh and Pritchard have been working on for months.

"First of all, we all realize he's done a pretty good job with the team," Simon said. "He left because of physical reasons. It was always contemplated that when he straightened out his medical issues he would come back. The only thing is we didn't know if it would take a year or more for him to feel strong enough to get back and apparently he had a good year and is ready to come back."

Bird was central to the rebuilding of the Pacers from a team that struggled to escape the shadow of the Brawl into one that reached the seventh game of the Eastern Conference finals against the NBA champion Miami Heat.

He built most of the top of the roster. He traded for the draft rights to Roy Hibbert. He drafted Paul George and Lance Stephenson. He traded for George Hill. And he signed David West as a free agent.

Walsh and Pritchard tried to strengthen the bench last summer, with mixed results. They acquired Ian Mahinmi, Gerald Green and D.J. Augustin.

Bird's first priority will be re-signing West, a free agent.

"A few times Donnie talked to him, 'Are you going to come back? You're welcome to come back,' " Simon said. "And I'd say, 'Hey, are you coming back? But Larry does what he does when he wants to do it and everybody is sort of happy with the outcome. Everybody, including Donnie and Kevin, wanted him to finish the job he started."

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