Pacers may not re-sign Lance Stephenson

Hibbert didn't come out and identify the player directly to NBA.com's David Aldridge, but he was talking about Lance Stephenson on March 28 after a loss in Washington, when he said "there's some selfish dudes" in the locker room.

Stephenson was putting together a strong season for the Pacers, racking up triple-doubles and maturing into their second-best talent behind Paul George. But Stephenson felt jilted when the Eastern Conference coaches did not vote him onto the All-Star team in February. He doesn't always appreciate the ramifications of his actions; his recent attempt to "get inside LeBron James' head" with trash talk during the conference finals is a classic example.

After Stephenson missed out on the All-Star team, he changed. He started a bit of a personal vendetta against East coaches, wanting to personally send a message in those games, which took him further out of the flow on some nights, sources said. Overall, the team noticed a shift in Stephenson from a more team-oriented approach to a more self-oriented focus, where he started obsessing about his statistics. People within the team believed his upcoming free agency was also a motivating factor for Stephenson, who wanted to enhance his value, something he believed suffered when he didn't get an All-Star nod.

As a result, Stephenson started annoying his teammates at both ends. Not only did he start dominating the ball more -- his assist rate dropped dramatically in the second half of the season -- but he was robbing numbers from his teammates. He has always had a habit of so-called "stealing rebounds," jumping in front of or over a teammate who had an uncontested rebound to get it for himself. This phenomenon reached a new level in the back half of the regular season. Hibbert, who had his rebound totals heavily analyzed by the media and fans, was often a victim in these friendly-fire rebounds.

Stephenson's act had long worn thin by late March. When the players had meetings to address issues with the sudden struggles, Stephenson sometimes wasn't involved. Occasionally he appeared to be unaware they were even happening. Most players on the team, now that they were losing, shared similar feelings about Stephenson, but did not vocalize their problems publicly.

ven though he took a year's hiatus -- during which Hibbert and Vogel were given contract extensions that he didn't have a part of -- this is a team that Bird has built. He drafted Hibbert, George and Stephenson. He traded for Hill. He made the personal sales pitch to get West to sign as a free agent. He was the NBA Executive of the Year in 2012 for excellent reasons.

When he returned to the franchise last year, though, he was concerned about the team's bench, and he aggressively tried to get his starters help so that Vogel wouldn't play them so many minutes together. His moves to get this done have not been so golden and he's continued to tinker with little concern for chemistry, something that was perhaps a fragile quality of the team he built.

Bird pushed to sign Andrew Bynum in midseason despite not having doctors examine his knees and despite the Pacers' research (including the canvassing of acquaintances in Cleveland) producing numerous red flags, sources said. Bird followed the Bynum signing by trading longtime team member Danny Granger for Evan Turner at the deadline.

Granger's prescience as a team leader was a little overblown on the outside, sources said, because he largely had grown apart from the team during his bouts of knee injuries during the past two seasons. Granger, sources said, also had grown wary of playing in the same rotation with Stephenson, which prevented him from getting as many touches as he preferred. However, with the team struggling with its first significant chemistry issues since coming together, the decisions backfired badly. Neither deal worked out, and in Bynum's case, he appears to have had a negative effect on Hibbert and his sometimes delicate outlook on games.

In the two games Bynum played, he was a featured part of the offense, getting 22 shots in 36 total minutes. This season, Hibbert averaged just 11 shots per 36 minutes he played. Turner is a player who has had limited success in his career, but mostly when he has dominated the ball. With George, Hill and Stephenson, there was little room for that type of play from Turner. Vogel briefly tried Turner at backup point guard when C.J. Watson got hurt, but that didn't work either.

No executive has a Midas touch and Bird's hot streak ran out this year, including his decision to sign Chris Copeland to a $6 million deal, only to watch him sit on the bench all season. That happens. But messing midseason with a team he knew to be fragile had far-reaching effects.