Bird - Pacers could make better deal for McGrady

INDIANAPOLIS -- Larry Bird believes the Indiana Pacers made a better offer for Tracy McGrady than the package of players the Houston Rockets have proposed sending to the Orlando Magic.

"My personal opinion is they might have got a better deal from us," Bird said Tuesday when asked about the reported deal that would send McGrady to the Rockets for a package including Steve Francis and Cuttino Mobley.

"Take nothing away from the guys that have been traded. I like our guys. I know our guys are talented and hard workers, but when you go after Tracy McGrady, you have to give up something, and the price was just too high for us."

The Rockets were said to be the leading candidate to acquire McGrady from Orlando, with officials from other teams saying Houston was offering a package including Francis, Mobley, Kelvin Cato and/or Bostjan Nachbar for McGrady, Juwan Howard, Andrew DeClercq and Tyronn Lue. Because of league salary cap rules relating to Francis' salary, such a deal could not be finalized until mid-July.

Both Bird and team CEO Donnie Walsh spoke with Magic general manager John Weisbrod late last week about McGrady, but did not hear back from him after their initial talks.

"No question, when you have a player like Tracy McGrady out there, you try to pursue it and see what it was going to take to try to get involved in it," Bird said. "Obviously they didn't like the players we put out there and really, we didn't get down to details. We just asked them what they would like and they threw some names out there and the price was really too high for us."

Reports have swirled for more than a day now that the Rockets and Magic are putting the finishing touches on their deal, but the Magic said they did not expect to make an announcement Tuesday night.

While Bird would not say which players the Magic asked for, he did say the Pacers have received a number of inquiries regarding forwards Al Harrington and Ron Artest.

Harrington, one of the top sixth men in the league last year, told Bird at their season-ending meeting that he would like to be traded if he wasn't going to start for the Pacers next season.

"There's a lot of interest in Al," Bird said. "We're not really shopping Al. I wish Al was happy here and everybody else was happy, but sometimes a change of scenery will do both teams some good."

Artest, the defensive player of the year, didn't help his case when he was fined for skipping his season-ending meeting with Bird.

The Pacers were also mentioned in rumors surrounding the Lakers' Shaquille O'Neal, but Bird wasn't optimistic that O'Neal or McGrady would land in Indiana.

When asked if they were out of the running for an available "superstar," Bird said, "At this point with Shaq and Tracy, yeah. We hear that Tracy's probably going to Houston, but you never know, something might happen. If he's out there, we're going to go after him."

Whether the Pacers get back in the race for McGrady or not, Bird made it clear that they will continue to be a player in the trade market, partly because of their considerable youth and depth.

"We have a lot of guys with a lot of talent," Bird said. "We can put packages together to go after these guys."