Danny Granger played in his first regular season game Friday for the first time in over nine months. Granger was rusty as expected, he scored only five points on 1 of 7 shooting from the field in 22 minutes. He had as many turnovers as points.
Slow starts to seasons are nothing new for Granger, he normally gets dramatically better as the season goes on.
Team president Larry Bird has the solution as to why Granger starts off slow.
“He doesn’t work hard enough (in the offseason),” Bird said. “He’s not a guy who’ll push himself to the brink like a lot of our guys do. He works hard but he doesn’t push himself. That’s why he starts slow every year and he just works his way back. Now this year, he’s been hurt, so it’s a different deal.”
Larry Bird is old school, he has no problem with telling it how it is. Hopefully this lights a fire under Danny Granger to push even harder.