So I'm sitting here flipping back and forth between the pacers/celtics game and the heat/knicks game and the biggest thing I'm noticing is how poor our rotation is. Listen, I get the whole "goon squad" motif, i think its cute and a little appealing to the fan. The problem with the bench though is that there are huge chunks of the game where there are 5 bench players on the floor at the same time. in contrast the Heat keep two of their big three (Lebron, Wade and Bosh) in the game at all times. now I understand its a grueling season and peoples minutes are limited but why can't it be possible to mix and match some of these guys in the first unit and second unit. In my opinion there's no reason why either danny, west and hibbert can't be in the game at all times. Just a thought.....especially after these last few games where the bench has contributed next to nothing.

Lance Stephenson...you are everything that is wrong with the current CBA as well as the NBA as a whole.  Here you are, a middle second round draft pick who received a two-year guaranteed deal that now the Pacers are stuck with, even if you're convicted of a felony.  If this was the NFL and Stephenson had been a 6th round pick and this accusation occurred he would have been on the waiver wire that very day and never heard from again.  But that's not the case in the NBA.  Because of his guaranteed deal the Pacers have to wait while being dragged in the mud as do-diligence takes place.  Imagine how much of a better place the Pacers/League would be in if they didn't have these guaranteed contracts and didn't have to deal with this nonsense.  Tinsley would of been waived 5 years ago, but instead the Pacers are still paying him.  Jackson and Artest?  Think of how much higher their trade value would of been if a team could cut them if they messed up there instead of having to worry about the possibility of holding on to a disaster of a player for multiple years?  Like the NFL, the NBA would still take risks on players, only those risks would be year by year (see T.O.) and any negative impact by a player would be relative short term.

The problem with the current NBA is the kids are running the candy store.  Players are making all the money, getting guaranteed deals and then move into the front office after they retire and control the money there.  The whole league is handcuffed from their ultimate potential until these contracts are non-guaranteed.  Currently there's always about a 1/3 of the league preparing for a season multiple years away because of their contract situations.  Think of the Pacers for instance, we've been waiting for the summer of 2011 for what seems to be an eternity because we're waiting for contracts to clear the books.  What if we could of cut all this excess salary years ago and started over then?  Where would the Pacers be now?  Where would the fan base be now?

By offering non-guaranteed contracts the League can run the show, not the players and instantly every team will be relevant again every year because there's always a chance that this year could be a winner.  The way the system is currently set up there's a handful of teams out there with a shot (think of them as the Globetrotters) and the rest of the league is serving as the National Generals.  10 teams in the league this year will sell out against the following teams (LA, Miami, Boston) and be half full the majority of the year after that.  The system needs to be changed so teams aren't committed to players who are going to get paid regardless of how foolish they act.  The league needs to stand firm and make this happen, and let's be honest, most of the players in the league barely have a high school diploma, what other jobs out there are really they qualified to do?

[From the Fan Posts, drsuessrunner07 runs through the Pacers' expiring contracts. This is just one of several great Fan Posts of late so check them all out. -TL]

Contract Year.  It has more meaning in the NBA than any other sport because if you have a good contract year that means that you're going to get paid the next several years (see Austin Croshere's deal after his 2000 season).  So how many of the current Pacers who are in their contract year will have career years?  Whats at stake for them?  Who's fighting just to stay in the league?  Can some of them stay healthy this year?  Well lets look at each of them and what we should expect this year from each of them.

Continue reading this post »

It's been six years since the Pacers were unjustly sentenced by Warden Stern and for six years now the Pacers have been in NBA prison chipping away at their prison walls with their rock hammer ever so slowly coming closer to freedom.  Last season I believe the Pacers finally cracked through their walls begun the escape route out of the prison that was the crawl through 500 yards of shit.  Call the winning streak at the end of the season what you want but if you were one of the fans who watched every game you cannot deny that analogy.  Last year the Indiana Pacers crawled through 500 yards of shit hoping to find freedom on the other side (hopefully next year), you can't argue it.  And here we are, on the verge of the Pacer's Redemption and yet so much still has to go right for this to work. 

To be able to pick up any free agents of any value next year the Pacers will have to make the playoffs next year..  Think about it, Indiana can have all the money in the world and no one would come here without being grossly overpaid, especially if the Pacers aren't winning.  It's foolish to think that if NEW YORK can't attract anyone without overpaying (sorry Amare) that the Pacers luck will be different this year.  So how do we get there?  Well lets take a look.

Still the Pacers need a lot of luck to break through going into next season and I think that luck hinges on 2 things. 1) The Mid-season Trade that will bolster the roster and 2) Roy Hibbert.  If Roy can raise his game to a borderline all star level Pacers fans can start thinking playoffs, if the Pacers are smelling the playoffs at the all star break then they become buyers at the trade deadline.  With a successful trade and Hibbys rise to stardom the Pacers can sneak in the playoffs, and maybe gain some momentum with the public at seasons end (OKC last year anyone).  With such momentum the Pacers will then have an opportunity to sign players that will help them in next years free agency.

So What about our immediate issue at PG?  The reality is that anyone we can sign would be Watson 2.0.  The Pacers simply can't afford signing anyone that is more talented than him at the moment.  And if that's the best we can do I say stay where we are at with TJ, Price, and Stephenson and see who's available at the trading deadline and go from there.

Now I know that's a lot of IFS that have to come in a certain order for the Pacers to be competitive but that's the situation they are currently in.  So remember, first Roy needs to establish himself and help put some wins on the board, second there needs to be a mid-season trade that will bring in a quality PG and possible a seasoned vet into the mix.  Thirdly we need to make the playoffs and make some noise, even if that means winning a couple games against hopefully the Celts or Magic (for my sanity's sake I hope we can avoid Miami in the first round if we somehow do make the playoffs but then again those home playoff games would be fun to attend).  And then after all that maybe we can do something with our cap space next summer.  I hate to say it but if we don't do all of these things we wont sign anybody at their net worth in 2011.  If we do these things though then the Pacers will be relevant again.

So what are the chances of all this happening and me dreaming of home-court during the 2012 playoffs?  Well not good, but the way I look at it the Pacers have been storing their luck for 6 years now, might as well start using some of it this year. Go Pacers!

[From the FanPosts, an alternate way to enjoy the NBA Finals. -TL]

Pick a team to root for and drink when its your turn to drink, and remember Celtics fans to dye your beer green because we all know there's nothing quite like drinking green beer.

Celtics Fans Drink When:

-When the Celtics take the lead

- There's a closeup of Rasheed Wallace where you can identify the gap in his teeth

-On a Celtics 3

-On a Celtics dunk

-There's a shot of Ray Allen's mom on the screen

-When the player of your choosing scores (i.e Rondo)

Lakers Fans Drink When:

-The Lakers take the lead

-There's a closeup of Kobe doing the weird overbite thing with his jaw when he's really upset

-There's a shot of Jack Nicholoson on the screen

-On a Lakers 3

-On a Lakers dunk

-When the player of your choosing scores (i.e. Kobe)

Everybody Drinks When:

-ABC shows a flashback of the Celts/Lakers Rivarly

-Any other celebrity is shown at the game

-Mark Jackson uses the phrase "At the end of the day"

-During any ABC "Inside the Huddle" segment where either Jackson or Rivers tells his teams to play hard and rebound.  Very inspirational stuff by the way.

-Lebron is mentioned

-Anytime Ron Artest does anything good, always a reason for a Pacers fan to drink.

I just cant do it anymore, too many bad games, too many bad teams, and too many bad performances from quote/unquote superstars have caused me to virtually lose all interest in the NBA playoffs.  And the sad thing is that I signed up to be an NBA playoff fan for my entire life years ago.  I've never needed to be sold on it, it was always a given. The idea of 40 games in 40 nights made me foam at the mouth.  But now the actual playoffs are a side note to my evenings.  My top 5 list of entertaining things from the NBA last night included 1) Where the Pacers would draft 2) How the rest of the lottery panned out 3) Wondering how long it will take this Russian owner to take over the world 4) Trying to figure out why a referee would randomly throw a ball at a fan and 5) wondering if JJ Redick was actually becoming a decent NBA player or whether the series was so bad it has caused him to come out of comatose and contribute on an NBA team.  Only the 5th one pertained to the actual game itself and not necessarily in a good way.  I never thought I would say it but thank god for Kobe and the Suns.  It is officially up to them to save the playoffs to the point where I can at least stomach it for the next month. 

The playoffs are designed and supposed to be an all out 7 game war, similar to a 15 round boxing match with each fighter going down punch for punch until the very end.  This playoffs, not so much.  This year we have seen Atlanta, Cleveland and Denver give up before the were even eliminated.  We've seen 4 sweeps and only 1 game 7 which included a injury filled team of nobodies (sorry Milwaukee) and the aforementioned Atlanta team that wanted little to do with playing more games than what was on their original 82 game schedule.  There's too many bad teams in the league and its always the same few teams that are in the running for a title every year (which has always been the leagues problem).

So is it even too late? Can Kobe/Nash save us? Can the Finals be something worth watching? My guess is probably not.  Part of what makes a championship special is the road you have to take to get it and so far, none of these teams have truly deserved to win a championship.  Orlando swept their way into the Eastern Conference Finals by beating 2 teams that played as well as your local Y League team would have.  The Celts are there by beating 1 team that only had 1 good player (Wade) and another team that quit/choked/embarrassed themselves in the series.

The Suns/Lakers do have a little more cred however with beating more formidable opponents such as OK City and San Antonio (teams that actually showed some fight) and if they can produce a memorable 7 game conference finals then maybe the playoffs will restored, but that's the only way.  The Eastern Conference side is already unfixable, so Nash/Kobe, you better put on a show tonight that will show us that that the playoffs really are a special thing.

While watching the Cavs being taken behind the woodshed last night it made me wonder how the Jamison trade was ever supposed to help a team like Boston.  Sure Cleveland had plenty of pieces in place already namely the No-Show King last nite but did adding Jamison do anything to push them over the edge?  Especially seeing Jamison try to play PF against the likes of Garnett.  He's so undersized that he's been taking completely over in the series against the Celtics bigs.

This being said, I wonder how Murph would of fared in this series against Boston.  Sure Murph doesnt play the greatest defense either but he does have some size, has a natural abilitiy get 10 boards a game every game and can step out and shoot the 3 which would space out Boston's defense and give Lebron more room to operate.  So with all the information at hand and after watching the first five games of the series I believe that Murph would of been the bigger impact player over Jamison.  Just my thought though, what do you think? 

Well the playoffs are well underway, the Pacers are enjoying what is probably their fourth or fifth tropical island at this point in their offseason and I've been in search for someone to root for in the mean time.  This is a process which is quite difficult considering my hatred I've built up for most of the league the last two decades but with much thought and research I have decided that the perfect team for a Pacer fan to root for is the Oklahoma City Thunder. 

It all makes so much sense, its a new team (sorry Seattle), they have what seems to be thousands of highly talented young athletes.  Their best player's nickname is "Durantula".  Their currently taking on the mighty Lakers in what appears to be a great end to the series.  And the best part is their relationship with Pacer fans.  It's impossible not to like them.  Neither Oklahoma City game was televised this year and if you were fortunate to see them play in Indy you got to witness a Pacer victory with rumors fluttering around of the Thunder attended a Jay-z concert the night before and were even seen sporting their own jerseys in their hotel in downtown Indy during the wee hours of the night before their afternoon game.  Call me old fashioned but I consider that a reason to root for someone as well, (and damn you Rasheed Wallace for wearing your own jersey a couple years ago as you entered the arena.  Between that and him buying his team WWE style championship belts its by far the coolest thing someone has ever done, too bad I hate Sheed with a passion and his season this year for the Celts continues to bring tears of joy to my eyes)

But back to my main point, Druessrunner07 has adopted the Thunder this offseason as his go to team...What you do think Pacer fans?  Who's your team or do you even care enough to have one?

The Pacers are 75% through their season and they finally made a roster move today.  They waived seldom used pg Travis Diener.  I never had anything against Diener except for maybe for his crippling toe injury that caused him to miss most of the year this year and only see action in 4 games.  But when you break Diener down he's simple a NBA journeyman in every since in the word.  Maybe he'll get another shot in the league here on out , but then again  maybe not.  Here's the link to the news release:

http://www.nba.com/pacers/news/diener_waived_100301.html

Dear Indiana Pacers,

                I have been a Pacer fan my entire life.  I can remember being 9 years old and watching Reggie score 8 points in 8.9 seconds.  I can remember being at Kings Island during a youth group trip and instead of riding rides I watched Reggie push off Jordan for the game winner during the conference finals.  I remember graduating high school and using my college loan money on 10 game season ticket packages for the Blue and Gold.  I can remember….well you get it.  I’m a Pacer fan.  That used to mean something.  It was something to be proud of.  And although I can deal with the team being in a rebuilding process what I am becoming more frustrated with is the relations between the Pacers and its community.

                The brawl happened.  I get it.  We were on the cusp on being perennial contenders and one thrown cup ruined it all.  Indiana had to shake everything up and get the bad taste out of its mouth, remove the bad apples and change its image.  Well it has been over 5 years now and although we have gotten rid of the bad apples on this team when exactly are we planning on changing this team’s image for the better?  Sure the negative image of the Pacers nowadays isn’t on “being a bunch of thugs” but it is still a very negative image of being a bad franchise.  The fact is that for the Pacers to be embraced by the entire Indy community they need to go above and beyond the call of duty.  I have yet to see this happen.  We continue to play a style of basketball that does not attract fans.  We have a coach that has no pull with his team or the community and even Mr. Basketball himself, Larry Bird has begun to be getting looked at negatively.

                I’m going to be honest; it’s been hard this year.  The team is bad, and is in desperate need of a change in philosophy on how it’s going to be competitive in the near future.  Throughout the year however I have been supporting the Pacers relentlessly even though we all know what will happen the rest of this year.  One bright spot for this year although has been my excitement for the upcoming premiere of the Reggie Miller movie that will be shown at Conseco Fieldhouse this Friday.  It’s the only time all year I have truly been excited to go to Conseco and in fact I was so excited that when I won tickets from the Pacers almost 2 months ago I requested my tickets to be for the game vs. the Chicago Bulls on Saturday February 27th.  Maybe it was a pipe dream but I believed that even within this disaster of a season this could be one weekend I could hold on to as a great reason to be a fan of the Indiana Pacers.

                As I have been planning my upcoming trip down memory lane my excitement has grown and grown with each passing week (sorry but you haven’t really gave me much else to be excited about).  But after receiving an e-mail today from the Pacers they told me that they would no longer be willing to give me the tickets to the game I won.  At this point my frustration with the team is reaching capacity.  You want to win fans back Indiana?  Don’t do this to them.  Don’t promise them tickets and then 3 days before game day take them away.  What was almost a bigger slap in the face however was that I was told I could replace the tickets for a different game.  My options: Charlotte, New York, Washington, Sacramento and New Jersey.  I’ve been to a half dozen games this year.  Whenever the arena is half full it as a good night, and yet these are my ticket options after they tell me last minute I can’t have my tickets anymore.  Add up the chances for the John Wall sweepstakes of these teams and it makes up almost 50 percent of the ping pong balls. 

                So my question to you Indiana Pacers?  Why do you hate me when I show you nothing but love?  Odds are you couldn’t sell out on Saturday if you gave tickets away and yet you’re not going to let me receive tickets that you gave me in the first place.  And to add insult to injury you are offering me tickets to mid-week games against horrible teams with the exception of the Saturday Nets game (but who knows, maybe the Nets will break history that night and get their 10th win).  The fact of the matter is this is officially on the organization and the people running it which saddens me because I would really like to see this franchise be successful and also at least stay in the city in the years to come.  We are your fans; throw us a bone or you will lose us (if you haven’t already) and its moves like this ticket job to why you’re attracting no one to your games. 

                And even as I sit here, watching the Blue and Gold get thrashed in Chicago I’m going to sit here for its entirety because that’s what I do.  I love this team and I want to see this team succeed.  I really hope this is also the goals of the people running this organization but at this point I am really starting to wonder what some of the motives of the Pacers are.  Coincidentally Bill Simmons wrote an article today about how the NBA and its teams were treating its fans so poorly.  At the top of the list of these teams; The Indiana Pacers.  This is where we are, Hoosier Hysteria, the birth place of basketball being reduced to a joke.  And with what was supposed to  be the one bright spot of the season in this weekend I can no longer enjoy because the team I love took my tickets away.  Thank you Pacers.

                                                                                                                Sincerely,

                                                                                                                Drsuessrunner07

Well im bored and tired of talking about how JOB needs to be fired and who we need to trade murphy for so here are my random predictions for the rest of the year.

MVP- Bron Bron

Highest Scoring Average- Durant

ROY- Jennings

Most Wins Team Overall- Cavs

Number 8 seed in East- Milwaukee over the Bulls

Chance that Stephen Jackson becomes a hero in the playoffs and beats either the Celts or Magic in the first round? not gonna lie, im kind of worried

Number of Pacer Wins- 24

Pacers Draft Choice- 4th worst record so a top 5 pick

Days after the season JOB will still have a job- 2

sorry i just had to throw JOB in there again...thoughts?

Here are the odds for each seed to get specific picks if there were no ties (rounded to 3 decimal places):

How many ping pong balls are we gonna get Pacer fans?  Personally I got a feeling we'll be sitting with 119 by seasons end.

OK, we get it.  Hold tight until the summer of 11' when all of these mega contracts come off the books and we can start making moves again to become contenders.  But what does this mean?  Does that gaurantee that on the first day of free agency swarms and swarms of the NBA's highest talent is going to be running up to the front door of Conseco "Reggie Miller" Fieldhouse demanding to play basketball for the Indiana Pacers?  Probably not.  So what do the Pacers need to do to put themselves in a position to be a "sexy" pick for the 2011-2012 season?  Well I have some ideas.....more after my first ever jump!

Continue reading this post »