Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard and Kyrie Irving. Not coming here during 2019 NBA free agency. Won’t even take a call from the Indiana Pacers. Let’s get that out of the way.

Most of you understand. Some of you, like a reader who recently wrote 242 words of Pacers-related vitriol in a letter to the editor, don't. Key passage in that letter: “The Pacers … remain silent in pursuit of attaining star players that could make (them) an elite team."

Doyel on Demand:The latest from Gregg Doyel, delivered right to your inbox.

Some of you see the Pacers sitting on a pile of money. You see NBA free agents signing for piles of money. You do the math and wonder: Why don’t the Pacers just sign Klay Thompson or Kemba Walker for a pile of money? Which ignores the obvious:

Why does every great NBA free agent have a first name that begins with “K”?

No, sorry, that’s not the obvious. This is: The Pacers can’t just force someone to sign here. They can’t make Kyrie Irving accept their max contract offer. Players have choices, and every year, the A-list free agents make theirs: They don’t sign with the Pacers.

The B-listers make the same choice.

Goga Bitadze, not Tobias Harris or Khris Middleton

The Pacers can’t even get the 76ers’ Tobias Harris, who has never made an All-Star team, or the Bucks’ underrated Khris Middleton to take them seriously. And that’s me being serious, and informed. Folks in the NBA, connected people who would know this sort of thing, say the Pacers have used back channels to kick the tires on Harris and Middleton, to gauge their interest. Came the answer: No interest.

At a time when the league is going small, there’s a reason the Pacers are accumulating big men at an unusual – OK, it looks weird – rate: Because big men are the best players, the best assets, they can get. The Pacers didn’t need 6-11 Republic of Georgia center Goga Bitadze in the 2019 NBA Draft, but he was sitting there when it was their turn to pick 18th, and he was far and away the best player available. You get past the lottery, the pickings are slim. There are stars to be found, for sure, but it takes luck.

Don’t give me Draymond Green. Yes, yes, he went 35th overall to Golden State in the 2012 NBA Draft. That’s the second round, which means he was ignored by every team in the league at least once, and by a handful of teams twice.

Green was passed late in the first round by full-time NBA executives who chose Jared Sullinger, Fab Melo, John Jenkins, Jared Cunningham and Tony Wroten. Those were picks 21-25. Who had the 26th pick in 2012? The Pacers. They used it on Miles Plumlee.

Here were the next five players chosen: Arnett Moultrie, Perry Jones III, Marquis Teague, Festus Ezeli, Jeffrey Taylor.

Festus Ezeli went in the first round in 2012. Draymond Green went in the second.

Obviously Golden State got lucky, unless you believe (A) every other NBA team is run by idiots or (B) the Warriors outsmarted the rest of the league.

But that would ignore (C): It was the Warriors who chose Festus Ezeli.

Point of all this? There was a point, there was, there was … right. Here it is: A sure thing, or as much of a sure thing as the human element will allow, rarely comes along as late in the draft as the 18th pick. Bitadze, who has been excelling against grown men in Europe since he was 15, is as close to a sure thing as the Pacers were ever going to see. Their draft room erupted in cheers – I was sitting on the same floor on draft night, and heard it through all those walls and closed doors – when he fell to 18.

The Pacers can’t get talent like that – an asset like that – in free agency. As Pacers president Kevin Pritchard was saying the next day, when he introduced Bitadze to Indianapolis, “The draft is very important to us, because we have to get special in the draft.”

The Pacers have two avenues “to get special,” meaning, to add special talent: the draft, and by trade. Here, watch this:

The Pacers drafted Paul George 10th overall in 2010. Turns out, he was special. Until Victor Oladipo came along, George was their only All-Star since 2014. They acquired Oladipo by trade … for Paul George. Oladipo is one of three special players on the current roster, All-Star possibilities in the future. The other two are Myles Turner (chosen 11th in the 2015 NBA Draft) and Domantas Sabonis (acquired with Oladipo in the Paul George trade).

See any free agents there?

Nope, and you won’t see any here, either: In their entire NBA existence, dating to 1976, 13 Pacers have made an All-Star team. They acquired six of those by draft (George, Danny Granger, Dale Davis, Reggie Miller, Rik Smits; and Billy Knight in the ABA days) and seven by trade (Oladipo, Roy Hibbert, Ron Artest, Brad Miller, Jermaine O’Neal, Detlef Schrempf; and Don Buse in the ABA days).

Do that math: Six plus seven equals 13.

Pacers All-Stars acquired in free agency, ever: Zero.

D'Angelo Russell? Seriously?

The Pacers enter 2019 NBA free agency, which starts Sunday at 6 p.m., with the clear objective of adding special talent on the perimeter, and no clear way to get it. Not unless they trade one of their special players, two (three, if we're counting Bitadze) of whom play center.

In the meantime, you’ll hear names like Kemba Walker and D’Angelo Russell. Forget Walker – he’s not coming – and don’t get your hopes up on Russell, who made the All-Star team at age 22 in Brooklyn and would have a line of suitors should the Nets land two max-contract free agents (Kyrie and KD?) and have to renounce his rights.

Why am I bothering to write what lots of you already know? Because, to be honest, I’m tired of the whining around here every year at free agency: Why won’t the Pacers spend money? Why won’t they sign a great player?

Because they can’t.

Set your sights on names like Ricky Rubio and Elfrid Payton and Terry Rozier. Want to dream? Dream of Curry – Seth, not Steph – or J.J. Redick. But don’t be surprised to wake up to T.J. McConnell.

Find Star columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/gregg.doyel.