Outgoing president Larry Bird will make Pacers' first-round pick on Thursday

Larry Bird's final act as a Pacers executive will be to run the team's draft on Thursday night. (Ron Hoskins/NBAE via Getty Images)

Larry Bird may be stepping down as Indiana Pacers president, but he'll still have the final say on whom the team selects with its first-round pick on Thursday, the 26th overall.

At the press conference to announce the transition from Bird to Donnie Walsh/Kevin Pritchard, Bird said, “I’m doing the draft; I love the draft. The draft, I put a lot of time in it. My staff has put a lot of time in it. There’s a lot of activity, a lot of action. I want to do it.”

Walsh had no qualms about Bird running the show since he only started attending the team's pre-draft workouts two weeks ago.