INDIANAPOLIS (AP) Paul George's notice that he intends to leave caught the Indiana Pacers front office by surprise.

"It was a gut punch," said Kevin Pritchard, who took over for Larry Bird as president of basketball operations in May and was notified last week by George's agent, Aaron Mintz, of the four-time All-Star's plan to play elsewhere following the 2017-18 season.

"It was a total gut punch because we've had conversations this summer about players we'd like to add, a little bit of the style that we'd like to play," Pritchard said. "The message over the summer up until this weekend was, `Let's build a winning team.'"