Marathon Pacers 2013 Post-Mortem

The season started with the P needing George Hill heroics to eke out a win over the lowly Raptors.  The season ended with a sadly familiar disappearing act in Miami.  In between, a lot of stuff happened.  It was either a disappointment, a pretty good season, or a great season, depending on your perspective.  The general consensus is that it was pretty good, and I'm down with that.  Just don't expect David West to get all gushy over it.

If, at the start of the season, you told me the Pacers would go to the playoffs, dispatch the Hawks and Knicks with reasonable efficiency, then take the Heat to seven games in the conference final, I would have been very happy with that result.  A conference final, and playing the Heat close to even in the finals, would have been considered the next step the Pacers had to take in the rebuilding process . . . and they got it done.

On the other hand, they should have won the series against Miami.  When they were playing "Pacer ball", they controlled the series. Unfortunately, they pulled their infamous disappearing act, an act that was as likely to show up against the Milwaukee Bucks (split 2-2 in the season series) as it was Miami (split 5-5, including the playoffs).  They controlled vast stretches of most of the Miami playoff games, and they were able to dictate their own game most of the time: only in games 3 and 7 were the Heat totally in control.  They had a golden opportunity to go to the finals, and no matter how bright the future looks for this team, there are no guarantees that fate won't up and slap you back down (in the form of injuries, losses on the free agent market, etc.).  These opportunities are fleeting, and the Pacers blew a golden opportunity.  From that perspective, the season was a disappointment . . . and hopefully, that's how they see it.  One look at David West, and you know he's feeling it.  At the end of the day, the Pacers have evolved into a good team, though probably not as good as Miami made them look.  The Heat are still (at this point) a better team than the Pacers by a fairly wide margin, even if the Pacers will always play them close.  They are still not quite at the "contender" level.*

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Don't get me wrong, the news is plenty good for this Pacers team.  They took the first definitive step to the finals by establishing a rock-solid identity: they are going to be a brutal, defense-first team** able to dictate the terms of any game they are in.  With the exception of David West and Danny Granger, they are ridiculously young and ridiculously athletic.  Unlike the last Pacer team to emerge as a contender (O'Neal, Artest World Peace, Jackson, Tinsley, Miller), they are emotionally stable and mature (with the possible exception of Lance Stephenson, who nonetheless works really hard at stability and dependability, and has plenty of emotional ballast from his team mates to count on). For the first time since Reggie Miller's retirement, it looks like they have a legitimate future*** superstar in Paul George.  They have an anchor in the middle in Roy Hibbert.  They have top-notch veteran leadership with David West.  They have a whole lot of very good pieces.  And, since they're in the East, they get a steady diet of cupcakes to help keep their record well into the black for playoff seeding.  In short, this team has pretty much everything they need to be in the mix for an NBA championship for the first time since the meltdown at Auburn Hills.

Their weaknesses?  Yes, they have a few.  The bench is pretty bad: they actually took a step up in the playoffs from "abominable" to "weak".  Besides that special kind of psychosis that Tyler Hansbrough brings into the game, there isn't much there.  D. J. Augustine provided some good minutes in the playoffs, including some really big-time shooting that helped the P steal game 1 in the New York series; but he isn't that far removed from the days when he was replaced as the back-up point by Ben Hansbrough.  Ben Hansbrough.  Love Ben's game, but he's got European/Turkish/Israeli/Chinese league written all over him. Let Ben travel, for the love of god!  But, back to D. J., you can't be comfortable with a guy who can't even keep Ben Hansbrough off the court.  And then we have Gerald Green, one of the top five dunkers in the league, a 2 guard who can bang his sternum on the rim . . . but who can't, apparently, play basketball.  Sam Young has a great defensive attitude, and he seems to be a keeper, but still tends to break down at very inopportune times: for all the talk about Vogel's benching of Hibbert at the end of game 1 in Miami, for all of the Vogel apologists who blame Paul George for over-playing James on defense, almost nobody pointed to Sam Young's slow defensive rotation as part of the problem (Young should have been there at least soon enough to foul LeBron and make him earn his points at the free throw line).  Ian Mahinmi looked lost most of the time, but he demonstrates enough athleticism to convince me that he will someday become a reasonable time-killer for Hibbert, at least on the defensive end.  Other than that . . .

So, going forward, how do you fix the bench?  Well, the team did well this year without Danny Granger, who up until this season was generally considered to be their best player.  That makes the answer obvious to most of the talking heads: move Granger, his repaired knee, and his big contract for some help off the bench.  Maybe you could find a good player, just starting to head into the downside of his career.  If you are lucky, you can find a guy who was an all-star, maybe a guy who led his team in scoring, and if you are really lucky, a guy who was a demon on the defensive end as well.  And while the sky is the limit, maybe that guy was a leader in the locker room and an asset in the community.  Maybe what you need is a guy like . . . wait for it . . . DANNY GRANGER!!!  Yes, trading Granger for help off the bench is a little like trading David West to get more size under the basket.  I think Granger has a small enough ego to accept the "first guy off the bench" role, especially if he takes the same "instant offense" role that James Harden had with OKC.  The unfortunate ball-stopping tendencies that Danny was showing on the offensive end in 2011-2012 aren't a problem if he's coming off the bench, because who's he going to bother passing the ball to?  Sam Young?  Ian Mahinmi?  Please.  He can hog the ball as much as he wants, because he's the only one who can score.  And bonus points for allowing Tyler Hansbrough to concentrate solely on offensive rebounding and drawing fouls, since that's really the only offense that Psycho T can generate consistently.

Seriously, though, there are some really good reasons to keep Granger: one, he completes a second five (Augustine, Young, Granger, Hansbrough, and Mahinmi) that would actually be pretty respectable defensively (remember, team identity!), even if Augustine is a liability, and Hansbrough is often overmatched in the post.  And speaking of defense, how cool would it be to have a George/Granger/Stephenson/Young defensive rotation to guard those high-scoring wings?  It would be brutal, I tell you: four good-to-great wing defenders, 24 fouls to give. But, the main reason to keep Granger is actually very simple: there is no way, given his contract and the uncertainty following his knee surgery, that you will get value back for him.  While it may be useful to get his contract off the books, the team will be better with him on the court.  He was once an all-star player, and had the look of a good second option on a top-level team.  He was always a great team mate and a great person.  He could be an indispensable piece of a championship team . . . and that's what we're talking about here, right?

The other big problem for the Pacers is the aforementioned tendency to disappear.  It happened way too often during the season, and it happened against bad teams as much as good teams.  The reasons?  1.) TURNOVERS.  2.)  The inability to properly trigger the offense.  A small part of that has to do with the callow youth that characterizes this Pacers team.  Another small part of it has to do with the fact that, with the possible exception of Augustine, nobody on the Pacers has a very good handle.  But primarily, as Reggie Miller pointed out while killing television time during the game 7 blowout, the Pacers are working without a true starting point guard.  George Hill guards the point as well as just about anybody, but he's only average as a point at the offensive end.  His handle is only so-so, and he doesn't do a particularly good job at triggering the offense.  He does much better offensively as a 2, where he can take the ball after the offense is already in motion, where his lack of a handle or explosive quickness doesn't really hurt him.  George Hill has the potential to be a scoring machine as a two guard, given his usually reliable jumper paired with his ability to finish at the rim in traffic, but the problem is that the Pacers are stacked at the two guard, and have no points.  Hill manages to be a middle of the pack point guard, even if the two is his natural position.  So, by default, he is the Pacers point guard.

So, how do you solve this problem?  Well, given the log jam at the two guard, maybe you move one of them for a point.  Or you move Danny Granger for a point.  Problem is, I don't see any scenario that gives the Pacers an upgrade at the point position for what they are willing to move.  Granger doesn't buy you an upgrade over Hill.  Neither does Stephenson. If Hill's contract were more attractive (i.e., if he were undervalued, which he is not, since he just signed an extension last summer), you might be able to trade him straight up for a point, but that won't happen.  And there's no way in hell they're trading George.  The fact of the matter is that an upgrade over Hill would have to be Mike Conley level or better, and there's no way the Pacers can make that move without disrupting the team they have built.  At the end of the day, even though Hill is playing out of position, he's not a terrible point guard.  The price of the upgrade would be too high.  The best option, though it goes against every fiber of the NBA GM DNA, is to just hold tight and hope that Hill learns to be a better point guard.

Besides, Hill is an Indianapolis native with a map of the state of Indiana tattooed on his freaking torso.  You can't trade the guy for that reason alone.

And therein lies the theme of the Pacers' offseason:  keep calm, stand pat, don't panic.  For the first time in a long time, it seems like growth is the best option for the Pacers' roster.  The 2013 Pacers demonstrated a rare chemistry, and front office mucking around is more likely to do harm than good.  Obviously, tweaking the bench is a good idea, but moving any big parts to do so (including Granger) is a bad idea.  Find a way to resign David West without breaking the bank, and you go into next year with a very good lineup.

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So, what has to happen next year for the Pacers to be a top contender for a title?  We here at TDOE would need to see most (or maybe all) of these things happen to put them on the level with the Heat, the Spurs, and the Thunder:

1. A full season's worth of the 2013 playoffs version of  Roy Hibbert.  Hibbert is not the best player on the Pacers, but he has the rarest set of skills, so he may be the most important.  Roy took the biggest step in his development during the season: he learned to maintain his presence as the best rim protector in the league**** without always getting into foul trouble.  In the playoffs, he stepped up his game offensively as well . . . and for all the (justified) comments about his taking advantage of the Heat's weakness in the middle, it needs to be pointed out that Roy also dominated Tyson Chandler, the player that most people pick as the second best true center in the league.  If Roy becomes a 17/10 guy next year, then the Pacers will be a very good team.  Likelihood: Hibbert will remain a force on the defensive end, but is prone to lose his confidence on offense.  Ultimately, this will be one of Frank Vogel's primary coaching challenges: keeping his mercurial big man near the top of his game.
2. Re-sign David West.  West's size and tenacity can be replaced.  Everything else he gives to the team can not.  He is the leader of these young Pacers, and needs to be here for a couple more years as the youngsters mature.  Without him, the rebuilding is set back a couple seasons.  Likelihood:  Both parties want to get this done, so it seems like it will get done.
3. George Hill get better at running the offense.  There are ways to cover Hill's weaknesses . . . I especially like it when Paul George and Lance Stephenson take turns triggering the offense just so defenses trying to stop the ball at the point can't focus too much on Hill . . . but, as pointed out above, the team's inability to get cleanly into its offense is one of the biggest problems they have.  Unlike George and Stephenson, I think Hill is pretty close to his ceiling as a player, so any improvements will likely be incremental, which is okay: a little improvement will go a long way.  Likelihood: Hill is not going to wake up one morning with an extra step, or with a God Shamgod handle, so most of the improvement will be mental (recognition, improved reaction time, etc.).  Hill is a serious, conscientious player, so you know he'll put in the time.  Problem is that sometimes a player gets it, sometimes he doesn't.  Fingers crossed on this one.
4. The continued emergence of Paul George.  George has all the tools to be a very special player.  He has frequently played at a level that makes him not just an All-Star, but a potential All-Pro.  Next season, he needs to make the step from good player to franchise player.  To do that, he needs to be able to take over games AT WILL (as opposed to just whenever he happens to get into the flow, which is what happens now).  For years, the question has always been "Can the small-market Pacers ever attract a big star?"  Well, now they just may have one without having to go shopping.  Likelihood: Again, George has all the tools, but the final step to dominance is the most difficult; and for every Bryant, James, Wade, and Durant, there's an Artest World Peace, Boozer, Joe Johnson (and yes, Danny Granger) who can't quite take the step to the next level.  George is close, very very close, but there are no guarantees that he will ever become the guy who can take over any game whenever he wants to.
5. The return of Danny Granger, and setting a shooting guard/small forward rotation that will work without hurting team chemistry.  As noted above, the return of a fully healthy Danny Granger goes a long way to fixing the bench (even if he starts and Stephenson comes off the bench), but it also has potentially troubling issues for team chemistry.  If the average observer were to list the primary strengths of this team, it would probably start with size, youth, and athleticism.  Chemistry, however, needs to be at the top of that list: it is the unique chemistry of this team that allows them to be as resilient as they've been all season, it is chemistry that allows them to get into each other's faces without hurting each other's feelings.  It is chemistry which keeps everyone focused, and helps minimize the damage that mood swings (primarily from Hibbert and Stephenson) do to the team.  The problem is this: between Granger and Stephenson, who starts?  Stephenson started all year, and has shown himself to be an important piece of the team, so he's not going to be happy about sitting.  Add to that the fact that, as much as he's matured, he's still emotional and has a hair trigger.  Granger, for his part, doesn't have a big ego, but it will be hard to finish one season as your team's best player, miss a season due to injury, and then be asked to come off the bench.  I prefer Granger off the bench for the reasons above, but anyway it pans out, Vogel has a hard job selling everybody on the plan.  Likelihood: For one year at least, I think Vogel can keep everyone on board.  At that point it will be clear that either Stephenson or Granger deserves to start.  If both are starting caliber players, then one obviously will have to go . . . with Stephenson being the most likely in that case, since he is more likely to bring back full value than Granger.

There are a few other things, like the continued improvement of Lance Stephenson and the development of a couple bench players, that would help, but this is the main agenda.

There are, of course, a lot of factors which change the landscape of the NBA (like, I'm still waiting for Minnesota to blow up).  Among other things, it is very possible to buy a title in this league (see: Heat, Miami, and Celtics, Boston), and with at least one game-changer available in the form of Chris Paul*****, the one thing that you can guarantee is change.  For the Pacers, though, it's time to hold: the future looks very bright for this team as constituted.  

So yes, it was a good season.  A very, very good season.

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*  Though they are a hell of a lot closer than such media darling "contenders" as the Knicks and the Clippers.

**  Frank Vogel has made a few comments about tinkering with a zone defense over the summer break.  This should be startling news to the rest of the league: it means he believes that the Pacers, who almost never resort to zones outside of inbounds plays, can get even better on defense, even though they are already the best defensive team (as well as the best man-to-man defenders) in the NBA.  Or, is he preparing to add an offensive-positive defense-negative piece to the lineup, and making advance plans to cover for him on the defensive end?  Either way, I can't wait to see this new wrinkle.

***  Per the discussions that attended his performance in the playoffs: I think it's clear he has all the tools, and he's made giant strides this year in confidence and basketball intelligence.  He's not quite there yet, however.  He occasionally takes over games, but he doesn't seem to be able to do it at will like true superstars can.  Right now, he's about equal to Granger at his peak, but he's got the potential to go much higher.

**** He is one of the few players who really change things in the lane.

***** I will not grant Dwight Howard game-changer status.  He has not earned that.

I Know It's Early, But . . .

Famous last words, 'cause you know that whenever you see that sentence, the speaker is just about to totally ignore the fact that "it's early" and go ahead to make a rash proclamation from that shaky base.  Just like when somebody says "no disrespect, but . . . " they're about to disrespect somebody.  Or when they say "taking nothing away from _____", they're about to take away from _____.


Dwyane ("The Typo") Wade, after losing to the Pacers:

"The Indiana Pacers -- and take nothing away from them -- but they don't have a lot of playmakers," Wade said. "Their offense is their playmaker and they do a great job of it, but that's why they play the style of ball they play. That's not LeBron James, Chris Bosh, and Dwyane Wade. That's not our games so we have to figure out with our games and our strengths what to do and that's not us. Yeah, we move the ball and we have offensive sets to get the ball moving, but we're not trying to play like the Indiana Pacers."

Uh, yeah.  They just kicked your ass.  Are you really asking for more?


The implication is that the Pacers play team ball because they have no choice.  Well, that's true (sort of: I wouldn't put Granger in the class of James, Wade, Bryant, or Durant, but he's right there in that second tier with guys like Rose, pre-injury Roy, etc.), but isn't it starting to become clear that you need to be more like the Pacers?  Everybody has said it, including you yourself: there's only one ball.  All you "playmakers" need to become "playmakers" in the real sense - that is, do the little detail-oriented fundamentals-based dirty work it takes to get the job done every single second you are on the floor.  It's not even really clear to me that James and Bosh know how to do that, but at least they have excuses, James having had no college coach and Bosh having had it little better with Rick Barnes, but you had a good coach (Tom Crean), so at least you were taught.  Have you forgotten what it takes?


Then there's this:

"You see guys playing above their heads; there's no secret about it," said Wade, who noted that he feels a bigger bull's eye on the team this season compared to when the Heat were defending champs. "Teams are playing very well against us. There's a lot of things that we have that go against us at times, but we'll figure it out. It's understandable. We understand that we're a team that everyone wants to beat. When they finally do that, it's their playoff game. It's their biggest win of the year possibly, unless they beat the Lakers. I don't think it's going to get too much bigger, so we are not really worried about that."

Well, yeah, except for the fact that the Pacers beat you with their B- game, not their A game.  You may have had an insanely off night, going 1 of 15 from the floor, but Granger wasn't much better at 6 of 21.  We'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say that maybe you shoot a tick under 50%, which you normally do, and additionally leave Granger with his atrocious shooting.  That's a twelve-point swing, and guess what?  You still lose by four.  And, not only did Granger have a bad shooting night, but the Pacers' second most important player, Roy Hibbert, only played 21 minutes because of foul trouble.  So: the Pacers beat you with their top scorer shooting 28.57% from the floor and their vital post defender on the bench for almost half the game.  Doesn't seem like the P were playing "above their heads" to me.


Dwyane, you just need to shut the hell up and play.  You and Bron both.

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I'm not jumping to unreasonable conclusions here: if the Heat play up to their full potential, and the Pacers play up to theirs, the Heat win 10 out of 10 (well, nine out of 10, because there's always the chance that the Pacers do this).  And yes, the Heat took a dump on their home floor Monday.  But it's not as clear cut as that: the Heat didn't just lose this game, the Pacers won it.

And yes, that's the source of my early Pacerish optimism: there are things happening here that haven't happened here in a long, long time.  My optimism has its caution, and I'm careful not to expect too much in the won/loss column yet, but there are definitely things that a drawing my attention:

1. They are showing signs of being able to play defense.  Not shut down defense, mind you, but they're closing down the expressway to the iron, and generally contesting jump shots (except against the Heat, when they just totally collapsed in and offered engraved invitations to the King and the Typo to beat them from 25 feet and out).  They are more and more maintaining decent defensive positioning, and generally making things a little more difficult than they have any time since the O'Neal/Artest/Foster era.  And, with Roy Hibbert emerging as a legitimate shot blocker, guys like McBob and Psycho T can play close, pesky defense, and if (when) they get beat off the bounce, they just turn their men in toward Hibbert, and he is actually capable of erasing a few of their mistakes.  Like I said, they're not the mid-aughts Pacers or Pistons, but at least now you have to work a little to score on them.
2. And speaking of pesky, so far this year, the effort has been there pretty consistently there.  Nobody is wondering around like they're lost.  Again, part of it is the personality of guys like Hansbrough and McRoberts, who have to go big or go home . . . but, beyond that, it's clear that Jim O'Brien doesn't let anyone on the floor who's not willing to go all out, all the time.  Mistakes they will grudgingly live with (not many - for, as the Typo intimated, the Pacer's margin for error is almost non-existent), but not flying around will get you benched until you earn your way back in.
3. Jim O'Brien's motion offense, though very far from being a finished product, is starting to pay off.  Now, instead of just running down the court and chucking up a shot, the Pacers actually look for the best shooter in the best situation AND actually take steps to achieve that situation.  As a result, everyone is starting to look a little bit better on the offensive end . . . especially T J Ford, who, after a failing grade as the primary point guard last year, is coming around as an important catalyst for the offense off the bench.
4. And speaking of O'Brien, it seems like he is finally starting to realize some sort of vision for the team.  Going into this season, O'Brien seemed like a dead man walking, even if the Pacers managed to profit from the ill fortune of others (here I'm casting my eyes in the direction of New York, New Jersey, Philly, Washington, and Cleveland) and shuffle backwards into the playoffs.  But now, more than just exhorting a ragtag group of nobodies to the upper echelons of mediocrity, it seems possible (just possible!) that O'Brien has a vision of how to instill some sort of personality into that motley crew, and further, that he has a program that, given players with the right combination of talent and work ethic, could get the Pacers back to where they were in the Reggie Miller era.

After losing a heartbreaker to the Thunder (there are no more moral victories in Indy), The P stand at 7 -7, which is hardly a world-beater, given their relatively easy schedule so far.  And yet, there is the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, low in candle power though it may be.  For the first time, it seems like maybe, just maybe, this team can be built up instead of blown up.  Certainly there will need to be major improvements, and it is clear that the focal point of the team has yet to arrive (Granger is really good, better than most people think he is - even the ones who think he's good - but, he's Robin, not Batman), but we have here something that the Heat definitely don't have: a good supporting cast.  So far, it is a supporting cast in search of a star, but there is really something here that can be built on.

We know the job of a ball team and its front office . . . or do we?  Answer number one would seem to be to WIN GAMES, but in these days of economic chaos and the capitalization of every last element of our lives, including our sporting endeavors, the main job of a team is to SELL TICKETS.  Of course, winning games makes selling tickets much easier, but it is not the be-all and end-all of a franchise's new reality.  As much as I loved the O'Neal-era Pacers, I was in the minority in this fan base.  Oh, the fans would have gotten behind them if they would have realized their pre-brawl promise, but that support would have been shallow.  Say what you want about Rick Carlisle, but that was an ugly, nasty team.  It had to be an ugly, nasty team to compete with its arch-nemesis Detroit.  It was what was called for at the time.  But the Good, the Bad, and the Crazy always had a short leash with Indiana fans.  And since the debacle at Auburn Hills, the P have been a hard sell, especially after Reggie finally hung it up.

Indiana is the most basketball-savvy fan base around, bar none.  It's not that they prefer high school and college basketball over the pro game, it's just that they have so many choices of top-notch basketball at so many different levels, they're not going to pay attention to a bush-league operation . . . I mean, for Christ's sake, even if you leave the Big Ten and IU and Purdue out of it, you have a Butler team that competes with the big boys year in and year out, and even easy tickets like the University of Indianapolis (alma mater of the Spur's George Hill) and IUPUI can buy you first rate hoop action, and that doesn't even include occasional fits from teams like Evansville, Ball State, and Indiana State, or a top-notch roundball league like the Big East rotating through South Bend, even if the Irish themselves are rather unspectacular and workman-like . . . and then there's the best high school basketball in the nation, and that includes all those trendy East Coast basketball academies.  No, the average Indiana ball fan won't put up with bullshit, because there's quality to be had around every corner.

So how do you serve that fan base?  Good ball.  That simple.  Indiana fans have been resistant to the pro game mainly because of the recent drive-and-kick nature of the pro offense (the very "style of ball" that the Typo is referring to as the anti-Pacers style of ball favored by himself and his Heat boys club).  There is a certain beauty to the one-on-one game of a true basketball genius - I think, in spite of the racial overtones of the anti-NBA sentiment around here, and in spite of the different tastes of the local roundball aficionados, Allen Iverson in his prime would have been well received in Indianapolis - but these days, the drive-and-kick game has completely lost its aesthetic appeal.  Derek Rose is exhibit A in that respect: there is no denying that  he is conscientious, studious, and driven, and there is no denying that he wants to do what's best for his team, and ultimately, there is no denying that his game is first-rate.  But: his game is ugly and uninteresting.  He throws himself at the iron like a chaotic missile, with no grace or art.  In the rare instances he is stopped cold, he kicks it out to a shooter - some guy standing around watching the action - to try to finish the play.  Now, when the driver has some real game to display on the way to the hoop, this approach is fine and enjoyable, but this has led (at the college level as well as the pro level) to an offense where you get a baller with just enough game that you need more than one defender to shut him down on the way to the hole trying to draw the defense into the lane so he can kick to some shooters on the edge.  BORING.  

Contra the drive-and-kick, we have the motion offense.  These days, everyone wants their turn for a solo (is that not the whole offense of the Heat at this point?  Wade and Bron taking turns, and getting Bosh involved when they remember?), but there is more . . . it's like jazz, and I don't make this comparison lightly.  Letting Coltrane run wild while Sanders or Dolphy, along with Tyner, are hanging out on the wings waiting for a kick is one thing, because it's freaking COLTRANE, after all.  And the more chaotic, Don Nelson/Golden State approach, with everyone throwing themselves willy-nilly into the chaos of an offensive possession like the brothers Ayler with Sunny Murray as a trailer, always has a certain car-crash appeal.  But there is nothing to compare to the breathlessness of a free-flowing group improvisation, like Ornette's Free Jazz, with everybody carrying the weight.  It can be free flowing like Steve Nash running the floor with Amar'e and the crew, or it can be orchestrated and disciplined Mingus-style like the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers, one of the best teams in the history of basketball.  Or, there can be the charts of varying complexity that are always run as they should be, like every other Bob Knight team that didn't include Isaiah Thomas.  The thing is this: there is a beauty in the complexity of interplay that is lost in today's drive-and-kick offense.  Hoosiers may not give a shit about jazz, but they do give a shit about hoop and its aesthetic dimension, even if the average Hoosier wouldn't know aesthetics if it bit him in the ass.

Which, in a long roundabout, brings me back to this year's Pacers.  Indiana fans will support a team that tries to run a complex, disciplined game, even if they are not particularly successful in doing it.  If the the old-school dynamics are there, if the hustle and the effort are there, if the game has some sophistication, then the average Hoosier ball fan will credit the effort and patiently wait for the payoff.  Running isolations for Jermaine O'Neal* would have been long-term acceptable only if it lofted a banner in the rafters of Conseco Fieldhouse . . . nothing short of that was acceptable, certainly not the Artest freakout, the gangsterisms of Tinsley and Jackson, or the inability of the second generation of the Miller era to get the job done.  No, the average hoosier looks to roundball for aesthetic fulfillment, and he demands sophistication . . . details big and small, like the '87 Hoosiers flouting conventional wisdom and running with UNLV, just a little slower to keep the game at their tempo, not UNLV's; like ultra-conservative Bobby Knight debuting the first big hybrid guard in '76 with Bobby Wilkerson; like Butler neutralizing the K State guard's brutal full-court pressure by having their 6' 10" power forward Gordon Heyward bring the ball up the court (and any time they tried to take him on, he just kicked it back to the guards who exploited the mismatch): like the standard bearers of the old ABA, a flexible, dynamic bunch that included such HOF worthy people as workhorse pivot Mel Daniels, silky smooth Roger Brown, prototype power forward Big Mac George McGinnis, and more; like one of the five greatest ballers of all time, the very Larry Legend that currently runs the Pacers, and whose credit with the faithful is vast, though moving toward its end . . . 

This Pacers crew can earn that love: for while the bar is unbelievably high, there is much credit given for having your heart in the right place.

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*  Incidentally, Jermaine tweeted earlier this year that he wanted to retire a Pacer.  I very, very much want this to happen.  I know that the fanbase will never be reconciled with Ron Artest, but I really think that the implosion of that Pacers team robbed O'Neal of his rightful place in the Pacer pantheon.  I don't know that we necessarily hoist his number 7 into the rafters with McGinnis's 30, Reggie's 31, Daniels's 34, Brown's 35, or Slick Leonard's blue polyester sports coat, but I think that, when he decides to retire, we sign him, have a Jermaine O'Neal Day at Conseco, and then let him go on his way.  It's only fitting.

Sweet!

I'm trying not to get too excited, but Danny Granger just may be THE MAN.




Count it! The DAGGER, at the buzzer! US Airways Arena just got awfully quiet.