Yet another of my rantings that started out as a comment to someone else’s post - in this case, Shane’s post here about the story that former Indiana Pacer Reggie Miller is considering a return to the NBA, after being courted by the Boston Celtics.
I must admit, when I first heard about it, that I had a hard time getting around it - the idea of Reggie Miller playing for any other team in the National Bone-Thugz Association other than the waste of life formerly known as the Indiana Pacers. This item has been in the news the last couple of days, and the ESPN story can be found here.
After all, Reggie bled blue and gold for eighteen seasons and was the heart and soul of a once-great franchise. He helped the Pacers to several Eastern Conference Finals series and one NBA Finals series. In the mid-1990s he tested the waters of free agency, though not in a serious way, and wound up signing a contract with the Pacers that would keep him in Indianapolis for the rest of his career. He gave his entire NBA playing career to the Pacers, and for his efforts, he was rewarded with no championships. The last chance for the team came in the 2004-2005 season, a year after Jermaine O’Neal finished third in the league’s MVP voting.
Unfortunately, that was the year of the brawl - the year that Ron Artest, the biggest waste of talent to ever lace up kicks in the National Bone-Thugz Association, showed complete and utter disrespect to his teammates, the fans, and the league when he went up into the stands and assaulted an idiot who had thrown a cup of beer at him.
Artest was suspended for the balance of the season, and Stephen Jackson and Jermaine O’Neal, two other wastes, were suspended for a huge number of games - effectively destroying any chance the Pacers had to be competitive, and obliterating the last chance Reggie Miller had to win a championship.
After that season, the Pacers showed zero willingness or ability to learn from their mistake - that of signing Artest in the first place - and tried to soldier on with him. Donnie Walsh and Larry Bird obviously took President Bush as their leadership role model and displayed to those who don’t follow current events just how far into the toilet poor leadership and bad decision-making can take you.
The Indiana Pacers are embarrassing, and have been since the brawl. Donnie Walsh was grooming Larry Bird to take over his role as team President - and how hard it must have been for Walsh to watch what Bird was doing to his team and come to the realization that this last major decision of his career was, perhaps, the worst one. Larry Bird as a basketball operations guy is simply awful.
(I would actually like to witness Larry Bird in direct competition with George Bush in anything - any kind of contest. One of them would have to win, but since neither of them know how, the contest would just go on and on and on.)
Why would Reggie want to come back to this team? Its integrity? Its commitment to winning? The good decisions it has made over the years that have set it up for future success? No and no and no. This team is a shambles going into its first year with a new coach - and cannot hope to contend for at least three to four years, assuming, of course, that they stop pissing away all of their draft picks on dumbass trades. If they keep going pickless for a few more years, it could be a round decade before this team even thinks about contending again.
Another reason I hope it’s the Celtics - or any team in the East, for that matter: if Reggie does come back, and the Pacers somehow find a way to win (which will likely have to involve the kind of deal Keanu Reeves made with Al Pacino, because their talent and leadership aren’t going to do it), then there is a chance that Reggie as a Celtic could knock the Pacers out of the playoffs on his way to his first and only NBA title. And it would be so, so sweet to see Reggie Miller get some small measure of revenge against a team that fucked him so badly.
2 comments:
So, John-O, what do you really think? I almost 100% agree with you here. Lets go with, 96.8%. A few quips I have are these:
1. Bird would kill Dub-Ya in a free throw shooting contest.
2. I don't think the Pacers screwed Reggie. I do agree with you that his final year was ruined by the brawl, but up until that moment, our getting Artest and Miller for Jalen was considered one of the more shrewed moves in recent Pacer memory. Artest had shown little more that a Rasheed Wallace-esque knack for whining. After that, there was nothing the team could've done to right things. The mustard was off the hot dog, you corn-fed mule you (White Men Can't Jump - Man I haven't seen that in forever). Now, I do agree with you on the total lack of quality leadership and savvy since then, but that was gonna be Reggie's last year regardless. I think that, during his career, Walsh did everything he could, with his small market team issues, to field competitive clubs, and had some of the best in the league in the mid-late 90s and early 00s. All in all, I don't know what else the team could've done to get him his title. Remember, they had the league's best record the previous year and couldn't even reach the finals thanks in no small part to Reggie going ice cold in the Pistons series.
Now, you know me enough to know that this is not a "don't be mean to Larry and the Pacers" thing. I can honestly say, with the exception of our chat on JO earlier in the year that I have paid 0 attention to them. Larry is showing that he was little more than a figure head as a coach, only now he can't rely on great assistants and players that were coaches on the floor. It is sad to see where this team has gone, and in how short a time it has gotten there. I agree with you that if I were Reggie, I wouldn't touch the Blue and Gold with Mark Jacksons hand. I also agree that I would love to see Reggie win a title, with Boston or whoever. However, I don't think he should have any bitterness towards the club for his years there. Against the children impersonating players (i.e. Artest, JO, Jackson), maybe, but not the club.
Just my thoughts.
BTW, Melonna and I will be in town end of the month for a couple days. It's gramps' 85th and were having a family gathering. I'll hit you with dates and what not so we can maybe get a drink or 9 one night and I can see Mini-Me.
Good points, all - especially the one about its being Miller's last season regardless of the brawl.
And when I say the team fucked him, I didn't mean for that to be in the sense of a career long ass-pounding; it was more along the lines of what happened during that one particular season.
That his career ended the way it did would have to leave a bad taste in his mouth, I think - and I suspect that bad taste, plus the way the Pacers have carried on since his retirement, would make him less than enthusiastic about suiting up for Indiana again.
I don't think there was any malice aforethought by bringing Artest to town - it was just a series of unfortunate events that left me feeling embarrassed by and disillusioned with the Pacers. And that's from a borderline NBA fan. I can only imagine what it must have felt like for Reggie, who gave his whole playing career to that team and then had to see it end the way it did.
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