FanHouse Pacers

In four years, Danny Granger has gone from the 17th player picked in the 2005 draft – behind such notables as Martell Webster, Fran Vazquez and Yaroslav Korolev – to the NBA's fifth leading scorer, trailing only Dwyane Wade, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Dirk Nowitzki.

His neighborhood has changed dramatically.

Granger spoke with FanHouse Tuesday afternoon, proud of his new association with EAS (Energy-Athletics-Strength, a nutrition/supplement product), but even more proud of the NBA player he is becoming.

He won the league's Most Improved Player Award in 2009, when he averaged 25.8 points, 5.1 rebounds and 2.7 assists for the Indiana Pacers. He has become a franchise foundation, thriving in Indiana while a major housecleaning commenced around him.

Here are parts of the conversation:

Not everyone is waiting for 2010 – the mother of all free agent summers – to try to improve their team by throwing big money at the seasoned veterans.

Even in hard economic times, the top players like Carlos Boozer, Hedo Turkoglu and Jason Kidd will leave teams and get their financial reward in other places. The squeeze will be on the lower-level free agents who must settle for minimum or various exceptions.

What hurts this class is that only seven teams really have major room under the salary cap to make something happen, and they usually aren't the NBA's biggest spenders. Unless the free agents stay with their current teams, only Memphis, Oklahoma City, Sacramento, Atlanta, Portland, Toronto and Detroit have major room.

Although there has been plenty of dancing and unofficial talks the last few days, the real dealings can't start until 12:01 a.m. Wednesday.

Here is a breakdown by position of the five most intriguing – and unrestricted – free agents.

In a no-brainer move, the Pacers will decline the $7.5-million option the team held for Marquis Daniels' services in 2009-10, reports the Indianapolis Star. The news betrays the success Daniels had in Indiana last year: he started 43 games for the Pacers as Mike Dunleavy Jr. struggled with injury, and scored more than 13 points a game.

But $7.5 million is obviously a lot for an emergency stand-in who doesn't fit the system and has basically exhausted his potential. Daniels, once a scoring tornado for the Mavericks, is already 28. He's an awful three-point shooter on a team predicated on hitting lots of threes. But Indy has a big hole at the two. Dunleavy will miss the first few months of the season, and Brandon Rush and Travis Diener register as the only natural shooting guards on the roster, unless Jim O'Brien changes course and plays a huge line-up with star combo forward Danny Granger in the backcourt.

In the weakest NBA draft in years, sitting out might have been the best thing to do. All the fireworks were done before it even began. The Cavs traded for Shaq. The Magic added Vince Carter. The Wizards snagged Mike Miller instead of the No. 5 pick. Several teams showed little interest in getting involved.

Keep reading after the jump for the Eastern Conference rundown.

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In our first true shock of the draft, Indiana picked UNC senior forward Tyler Hansbrough, the most hard-working athlete in the history of hard-working athlete.

Yes, Indiana, home of Troy Murphy, Jeff Foster, Mike Dunleavy Jr. and one of the more questionably race-tinged marketing campaigns in memory.

Yahoo! Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski had reported minutes before Indiana's pick was announced that the team would be grabbing a different senior, Sam Young of Pitt. Instead, Young might drop to the 20s. Where everyone expected Hansbrough to land.

The Milwaukee Bucks are pretty sure there will be a good point guard prospect available when they make the No. 10 pick in Thursday's NBA Draft.

They just aren't sure which one it will be.

From a list that includes Ty Lawson, Stephen Curry, Jonny Flynn, Brandon Jennings, Jeff Teague and Jrue Holiday, someone is going to be available, providing the Bucks with a solid option at the most important position on the floor.

The Bucks are the first of four Central Division teams that will be picking in the range from No. 10 to No. 16, giving the rivals a chance to match wits through the middle of the draft board.

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The ever-expanding map for David Stern's NBA will mark another conquest next October, as the league has announced the Pacers and Nuggets will meet up for a preseason game in Taipei, Taiwan, on October 8 (via Indy Cornrows). Preseason tours of Europe and China have become somewhat commonplace, but the NBA has never played a game on the island. (And yes, the Indiana Pacemates will be making the trip too.)

The Pacers press release notes that basketball is the top sport on Taiwan. China has certainly taken a liking to the NBA, and Pacers star Danny Granger is revered as the Saint of Transition Threes in Indonesia. NBA squads including the Bulls (with or without London-born Ben Gordon) will tour Europe this preseason as well.

Wayman Tisdale has spent the past several years fighting bone cancer. He broke his leg twice within one year after a 20-year college and pro basketball career in which he'd never suffered worse than a sprained ankle. When doctors discovered cancerous cells in his leg and a mass program of chemotherapy didn't work, Tisdale's leg was amputated.

But the battle continued, and according to Tisdale's friend Spencer Tillman of CBS Sports, the Sooner legend succumbed this morning. He was 44.

At Oklahoma, he was an absolute beast, making three All-American teams in three collegiate seasons before being drafted by the Indiana Pacers No. 2 overall in 1985. In an 11-year pro career with the Pacers, Kings and Suns, he averaged 15 points and 6 rebounds. More than that, he was known as one of the kindest, most beautiful humans in pro sports. (Seriously, a bad word has never been uttered about the guy.) Since his retirement, Wayman had gone back to his love of music, putting out eight critically acclaimed jazz albums. Four of them hit the Top 10 on Billboard's contemporary jazz list.

All NBA awards are completely subjective and usually debatable. None registers moreso (on both counts) than the Most Improved Player award. There are a million arbitrary, unwritten rules about who can be eligible for consideration. Some voters reject all All-Stars, others think second- or third-year players shouldn't be valid. It's a mess, really.

But this season had some great candidates we can all agree on. Chief among them were Danny Granger and Devin Harris. Today, Granger was announced as the victor, beating out Harris by just a handful of votes.

NBA Essentials provides the must-see links, quotes and videos of the day.

-- "I haven't had a man crush," Cuban claimed. "Shaq and I and Phil Jackson, for that matter, always would have these fun verbal sparring matches. It was always just fun and entertaining, and I think people extended that with Shaq to think that we were madly in love. We haven't even dated." -- Dallas Mavericks Blog

-- "I really don't have a preference. I wouldn't mind staying and playing in Oklahoma but at the same time, I've been in Oklahoma my whole life, so getting out and trying something different wouldn't be too bad." -- Blake Griffin on potentially being drafted by the Thunder.