Tyler Hansbrough didn't play in Indiana's opener against the Spurs on Wednesday and it appears unlikely that he'll face the Bobcats on Friday.

Hansbrough said that Wednesday's game against San Antonio marked the first time he was healthy and missed a game since youth basketball.

Indiana coach Jim O'Brien said that Hansbrough will remain out of the rotation until he improves offensively.

"He's behind," O'Brien said. "You earn your playing time. He missed a year of basketball. Anybody that walks in and thinks he's just going to get playing time, that's not going to happen."

The Indiana Pacers announced Friday they have picked up the fourth-year option on Brandon Rush's contract.

Rush, a third-year player out of Kansas, was drafted 13th overall in the 2008 NBA Draft.  

In his three seasons with the Pacers, Rush has career averages of 8.8 points and 3.7 rebounds per game.

Pacers president Larry Bird is in the third year of his own three-year plan to rebuild the franchise.

Bird explained to NBA.com how he has tried to retool Indiana and how he'll work in the next few seasons.

"Y'know, we don't have sellouts every night. But we think we've got a good nucleus," Bird said. "After this year, we'll be down to $34M and still have all the draft choices. We hope we can build it the right way. We said it was gonna take us three years, and this is the third year. Hopefully we can get it done.

"We can't go out there and get [Amar'e] Stoudemire and guys like that. We've just got to hope our Draft choices get better and if we go out on the free-agent market, which we're going to, we want to get players to fit in and fill our needs. We got lucky with Collison this summer. We just have to be patient with him."

The Pacers set their roster for the 2010-11 season on Monday by releasing rookie big man Magnum Rolle.

Rolle would have earned a guaranteed contract of $510,000 if he had made the roster.

Indiana traded the 57th pick and cash to Oklahoma City to acquire Rolle, the 51st pick, on draft night.

The Pacers have just a few hours left before Monday's deadline to get their roster down to the NBA maximum of 15 players.

Indiana currently has 16 players on their roster and they've been trying to work a 2-for-1 trade to avoid having to cut a player, especially one with a guaranteed contract.

"Having to release a guy, if it comes to that, is just part of things," Pacers president Larry Bird said. "(Coach) Jim (O'Brien) could end up playing a lot of guys this season. I always like to stay at 14 guys, but it seems like we'll be at 15 this year."

Mike Wells of the Indianapolis Star writes that the Pacers have had no success trying to package Dahntay Jones and Solomon Jones in a two-for-one trade.

The Pacers have three players -- A.J. Price, Josh McRoberts and Magnum Rolle -- with partially-guaranteed contracts this season.

The Pacers have waived center Lance Allred, according to Mike Wells of the Indianapolis Star.

Indiana currently has 16 players on their roster, one more than the maximum allowed for the regular season.

It has been reported that the Pacers have interest in Magic reserve forward Brandon Bass, but there aren't currently any negotiations going on between the two teams, according to a league source.

Indiana is thin in the frontcourt and Orlando hasn't had much use for Bass, who they signed to a four-year deal before the 2009-10 season.

Bass appeared in just 50 games, including three starts, for the Magic last year while averaging 13.0 minutes per game.

The Indiana Pacers announced Monday they have picked up the options on Darren Collison and Tyler Hansbrough's contracts. Per club policy no details of the contracts are released.

Collison, a second-year player out of UCLA, was traded to the Pacers on Aug. 11 from New Orleans.  Last year for the Hornets, he averaged 12.4 points and 5.7 assists per game.

Hansbrough, the 13th overall pick in the 2009 NBA Draft, played in 29 games for the Pacers during the 2009-10 season and averaged 8.5 points and 4.8 rebounds per game.

Danny Granger expects the Pacers' playoff drought to end this season.

Indiana added point guard Darren Collison in a four-team trade involving Troy Murphy this summer.

"Overall expectation is we should be a playoff team this year," Granger said during an appearance on 1070 The Fan.

"We have the pieces and although we are young we still have the ability to do better than what we have done in the past years. As long as everybody stays healthy and we make a commitment defensively we should have a pretty good year."

Danny Granger expects to be ready for the start of the season despite spraining his ankle against the Hornets on Friday night.

Barring any setbacks, Granger will be ready for Indiana's opener against San Antonio on Oct. 27.

Granger will miss the team's final two preseason games.