2007 Pacers and Other Stuff

Well, here we are, five weeks into the NFL season and the Colts once again are heading into the bye week with an unblemished record. At 5-0 and atop the AFC South the team seems to be hitting on all cylinders and have looked particularly impressive the past couple of weeks. However, as the NFL moves from its first quarter of the season into the middle half it also means that NBA training camps are opening and our Indiana Pacers are no exception. As we move further into the Fall I have a few observations about the team and a couple of other subjects that always get me to thinking!

Let’s start with the Blue and Gold. The Pacers missed the playoffs last season for the first time in years. I’d like to think this was an exception, but I’m afraid it may be allowed to become the rule. Head coach Rick Carlisle was forced out after an uneventful (result-wise anyway) four years on the court. That didn’t bother me in the least, as I never thought Rick was the right man for the job and the only reason he lasted as long as he did was because of his relationship with Larry Bird. Carlisle lost control of the team in his first year. It was generally known that he was a stern leader who insisted on complete control of the team and one of those coaches players will tune out before long. Now not everything that went wrong over the past few seasons can be pinned on the coach. For fucks sake there is so much that went wrong and so much blame to pass around it almost defies belief. As they say, it’s a giant shit sandwich and they’re all going to have to take a bite!

One thing for certain is that the tighter Carlisle held on the less control he had. Carlisle’s first season as coach was brilliant. He led the team to the best record in the league, but lost to the rival Pistons in the conference finals. I remember thinking that I may have been wrong about Carlisle. Maybe he was a good coach. Everyone knew his reputation as a no-nonsense leader and not a “players” coach, but the future sure looked bright. We had Jermaine and Ron-Ron and a cast of young and good ball players. Unfortunately Carlisle soon lost the team’s ear and eventually control altogether.

I know a lot of old school guys will tell you that you can’t let the inmates (players) run the asylum (the team) but face it, like it or not, these hard-nosed throwback guys are not working in today’s environment (see Bill Parcells in Dallas) and it’s always easier and usually more cost-effective to fire the coach than all of the players. Players aren’t mindless automatons that will blindly follow a coach especially at the professional level. Face it old-schoolers, it really doesn’t happen in college anymore either. I’m not saying that is good or bad; it is just the way it is.

After the Pacer’s stellar 2003-2004 season it took just a couple of weeks into the 2004-2005 season for the wheels to come off of the Carlisle Express. The infamous brawl in Detroit showed just how little control Carlisle had over his team and brought into question some of the personnel moves made by club president Donnie Walsh. I won't rehash the event other than to say suspensions were plentiful and a palpable change of attitude in this city towards the team was noticed.

Team president Donnie Walsh had spent years beyond reproach. He hired Larry Brown in the early 1990’s and lifted the perennial mid-pack team into the upper echelon. The team was exciting to watch and, with the Colts struggling down the street, the city rallied behind the efforts of Reggie Miller, Rik Smits, the Davi and the rest of the team. We loved them for who they were and even in defeat it was as if they could do no wrong. Now with players like Ron Artest, Stephen Jackson and Jamaal Tinsley the team no longer had lovable players who made the fans loyal to the team. Ron Artest may have been the best basketball player in the NBA in 2003-2004 but his incessant troublemaking and boobery made him a target of ridicule and debate over whether he was even worth the trouble. The answer to that was apparent on a November night in Detroit.

With Ron-Ron suspended for the season and several key players for many games the season figured to unravel. Carlisle rallied the troops for a couple of weeks but they were a sitting duck and no one seemed to hold out much hope for the team. The support and goodwill the team had generated in the second half of the 90’s and early part of the 2000’s was going and quickly at that. In the middle of all of this chaos stood Walsh and his sidekick Larry Legend who was being groomed to take over the president job. I love Larry Legend, but we all knew that as a coach he did more delegation than coaching and as great of a basketball player as he was, I was not sure of his ability to run a NBA team.

The 2004-2005 season came to an end against Detroit and it was hoped that Ron-Ron would either be traded or if he came back the next season he would have learned from his mistakes and grow up and be the person commensurate with his balling abilities. We all know, it didn’t happen.
Meanwhile, in the offseason Larry Legend was in Europe falling in love with a short white point guard who would never turn into the player we all hoped he would. It was the first real chink in Bird’s armor. Sarunas never panned out to be anything more than a decent backup PG. To make matters worse, his game was geared towards an up-tempo game style, something Carlisle simply would not abide. I don’t know if he felt it was a loss of control, but it certainly wasn’t his style. Consequently Sarunas was never really a good fit in Indianapolis and by the middle of last season he was gone.

Bird was taking over the team’s personnel moves and his first big attempt had gone sour. Walsh seemed to be a figurehead and Carlisle was fighting for his job. Compared to the past 10 years the near future looked bleak. For example, in 1998 a lanky high school kid named Al Harrington was drafted by the Pacers. Al struggled for a couple of years before becoming a main cog in the Pacer team makeup. Unhappy coming of the bench though, Al was traded after the 2003-2004 season. The Pacers seemed to like Al and by all indications wanted to appease the young player but simply couldn’t or wouldn’t guarantee him a starting role. The irony of course is that less than a month into the 2004-2005 season, one of the players whose role he coveted would be gone for the balance of the season.

Bird continued to make questionable moves in the 2005-2006 season. Artest, back from his suspension asked for a week off early in the season to promote a rap record he had produced. Having not been granted his wish Artest pouted and a few weeks later asked the team for a trade. He said he felt the division between himself and the team was too much to overcome. Bird sat his star player, but made no moves to trade him. As a fan I wondered what the hell they were doing. You have one of the best players in the league SITTING out and instead of trying to trade him you just let him sit. In what can only be described as a bizarre set of circumstances Bird finally agreed to a trade for Artest. In typical Artest fashion (i.e. being a complete lunatic) the player told Bird he didn’t want traded to Sacramento. Eventually Artest capitulated and the trade consummated thus ending one of the saddest chapters, player-wise, in Pacer history. Bird wasn’t off the hook by any stretch of the imagination.

Prior to the 2006-2007 season coach Rick Carlisle proclaimed he was changing his offense to an up-tempo style. Of course by now Sarunas was mired on the bench and the team he had would play would struggle with any up-tempo game. So Bird turned to the Hawks and was able to get Al Harrington back in the fold. The idea was that Al would fit into the new system well and Al jumped at the chance to both be back in Indianapolis and to play the way he wanted to play. Unfortunately the experiment was to be short lived and probably was the death knell for Carlisle.

Al was unhappy as the Pacers up-temp game never materialized and in January 2007 he and several other players were traded for several players of questionable value. On court the team was a joke. They had no chemistry and the coach had no control. The handwriting was on the wall for Carlisle and many, including me called for Larry’s head as well.
Now before you jump on me about personnel moves let me say this. Yes, I know that it took Donnie Walsh several years before he got the hang of the NBA. But one thing Walsh didn’t excel in was hiring thugs until Bird was on board and it was the end of Walsh’s reign.

Prior to the 2005-2006 season several players including Jackson and Tinsley were in trouble for being at a strip club at 2:00 am during training camp. Jackson allegedly got into a fight and fired his pistol at his antagonist. No one was hurt but Jackson would have his day in court, again. (He too, was involved in the brawl in Detroit.)

By now the fortunes of Indianapolis' pro sports franchises had changed places. The Colts, who have had their share of run-ins with the law over the years, had had several solid years of success and were perenial favorites to win the Super Bowl which they finally did in February 2007. Many of the city's fans who supported the Pacer's in their heyday now were on board with the Colts and had largely forgotten the basketballers.

Last season, after a party the day after the Super Bowl, Tinsley was out at a bar and got into a fight where guns were involved rankling an already skeptical public and highlighting the difference between the two teams.
Then, recently, rookie Shawne Williams was caught driving without a license and being in the presence of someone smoking marijuana. Williams claimed he didn’t know it was in the car, but the office that arrested him noticed the smell as soon as he got out of his patrol car. An unregistered gun was also found in the car. To add insult to injury, Williams failed to show up for court at his appointed time claiming he overslept.

Now don’t get me wrong, people need to wake up and start taking responsibility for themselves, but some people are just no good. Unfortunately the Pacer’s have become an organization rife with those kinds of players. Colt fan likes to make fun of the Bengals with all of their legal problems, but fans of both the Pacers and Colts can’t laugh too hard when it is happening in our own backyard.

So here we sit at the precipice of another season. A season that features a new coach and his philosophy. He has said all the right things, but in essence is just another retread coach who talks a good game but has had just limited success in the league. Larry Legend may have screwed himself this time. While I want the team to succeed I don’t see it happening and I can’t believe that ownership will sit by and watch this franchise continue to circle the drain. I love Larry Legend but he is just plain in over his head. No one ever confused Larry with Einstein. He was a brilliant basketball player, but that doesn’t mean he’ll ever make it as a team leader. It’s time to put Larry on a short leash. If this team tanks or if the players continue their anti-social behavior then Bird has to be the man held responsible.


Friday Night Lights

Last season NBC presented a show based loosely on the book and movie made a few years earlier. With Friday Night Lights being one of my favorite movies I was anxious to watch the television show and see what it would be like. I wasn't disappointed in the least.

Anyone expecting an exact copy of the movie may be disappointed, but face it, you have an hour a week for 10-16 weeks and you simply have to develop characters more than in a two hour movie. For the most part I really enjoyed the characters and their storylines during the first season. Sure there were things that didn't work for me, but they were exceptions.

This morning I sat down and watched the first episode of the second season. For the most part I was pleased. The writing seemed stronger and while still dramatic, it wasn't quite as over-the-top as some of last season seemed to be. That said, there is a couple of story lines that I see developing that bother me.

I see that Lyla seems to have gone overboard on the religion idea. She was baptized on the show and proceeded to be a complete bitch about it to the point where she is really anti-Christian, especially at dinner one night with her mother, her mother's boyfriend and her brothers and sisters. Now I don't have a problem with religion, but coming from this particular character seems unnatural at best and clownish at worst.

The other story line involved Lyla's dad Buddy. Buddy is a booster who likes to stick his nose in everything Panther football. When confronted by his estranged wife he calls her boyfriend a tree hugger and a communist. I see this beginning a path of political views on the show that are not necessary to the show. Hopefully it was an isolated incident, but I really don't want to see this show go down that path just so NBC or the shows producers feel they need a platform to espouse their views.

I'll be watching the next few episodes to see how these story lines play out. If they go too far I probably will cease watching. The only other thing I have on the show is that they moved it to Friday night. I think the target audience is probably kids who are living Friday night lights and as such aren't home when it's on. I myself had to DVR it. It made more sense on another night to me, but maybe they wanted to bolster ratings or make it feel more authentic.