| The Curse Lives On Authored by Andrew Perna - September 14, 2007 - 6:51 pm
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For the third time in less than eleven months a Pacer has seen his name in the Indianapolis police blotter.
First, there was the infamous Club Rio incident involving Stephen Jackson, Jamaal Tinsley and Marquis Daniels last October. Jackson was charged with criminal recklessness, misdemeanor battery and disorderly conduct for firing a handgun in the air during an altercation outside the Indianapolis club. Insert ‘Who did Stephen Jackson shoot?’ jokes here.
Three months later Jackson was playing in Golden State and Larry Bird and Donnie Walsh felt they had solved the public relations disaster that the Pacers had become. They couldn’t have been more wrong.
No more than two weeks after Jackson was dealt to the Warriors the Pacers enjoyed another brush with the law. Tinsley, Daniels and Keith McLeod were involved in an incident inside the 8 Seconds Saloon in which the bar manager claimed he was assaulted by both Tinsley and Daniels. Tinsley was indicted on charges of intimidation and disorderly conduct, Daniels was charged with battery in addition to disorderly conduct, while McLeod escaped all charges.
Both Tinsley and Daniels were absolved of their involvement in the Club Rio incident with Jackson, manly because they were not charged for having been at the scene of the crime. However, Indiana soon realized that ridding themselves of Jackson had not solved their legal issues as Jamaal and Marquis got themselves into trouble without Jax to lead them into the darkness.
The talking heads began to poke fun at the Pacers. For the second time in four months a group of Indiana players had been arrested outside a local hotspot. They were on their way to overtaking the Portland Trail Blazers as the most criminal franchise in NBA history.
Regardless of the legal trouble and on-court struggles last season, Bird decided to sit tight this summer. He replaced Rick Carlisle with Jim O’Brien and signed Kareem Rush. Offseason complete.
Heading into September it seems as though the organization actually believes that this season could be substantially different than last year. A healthy Jermaine O’Neal, a full year in Indiana for Mike Dunleavy and Troy Murphy and the further development of guys like Danny Granger and Ike Diogu could make a huge difference for the team this fall. Even if that all comes to fruition, for the second year in a row Indiana has made it into the police blotter before they’ve made it onto the court.
Shawne Williams was arrested early Tuesday night after a traffic stop. Williams, just 21 years of age, was charged with marijuana possession, driving without a license, driving with an expired license plate and failure to signal a lane change. Not that I’m condoning any of the things Williams did, but all of this could have been avoided if he put on his damn signal! Or, you know, went home at a reasonable hour.
How could this happen? Actually that’s not the proper way to phrase it: Why did this happen?
The crazy thing is when I woke to the news Tuesday morning I wasn’t even surprised. Nothing surprises you when you root for a franchise that has had more ups-and-downs in the last eight years than most teams do in an entire century.
Things turn over rather quickly in sports nowadays. Just think of where this team was less than eight years ago. Let’s flashback to 2000, five years before the Pacers would start ridding themselves of felons on a yearly basis.
…doooo dooo doo do…
Indiana was representing the Eastern Conference in the NBA Finals. The franchise had hit its all-time high. Reggie Miller had finally beaten the Knicks and the Pacers played extremely well against much more talented Laker team that would go on to win three straight championships.
We knew the run was over with the loss of Mark Jackson via free agency and Rik Smits to retirement, but we had no idea Walsh would retool without rebuilding after acquiring Jermaine O’Neal for Dale Davis. Over the next few years the organization tinkered with the roster while still enjoying playoff appearances, and before long we were back in the hunt for a title.
Having acquired Artest to pair alongside O’Neal, the Pacers won a league-high 61 games and met the Detroit Pistons in the 2004 Eastern Conference Finals. If Reggie had dunked the ball in final minute of that infamous Game Two the Pacers would have taken a 2-0 series lead and, barring a huge collapse, made the Finals for the second time in four years. One could also make a strong argument that they would have defeated the star-studded Lakers, and they still seemed primed for several more title runs.
Then the bottom fell out. The Malice at the Palace didn’t just doom the career of Artest and the 2004-2005 season, but it seems to have left a black cloud over a franchise that used to be a picture of what was right with the NBA.
…doooo dooo doo do…
Now we’re back to where we were at the beginning of the column. Trading Artest was supposed to be the solution to all the anarchy in Indiana. That didn’t work. Trading Jackson was supposed to clean the slate. That didn’t work either.
What’s Bird supposed to do now?
Williams, who represents the promising youth of this Pacer team, has joined the ranks of Indiana’s bad boys. We laughed when critics thought Isiah Thomas was trying to make this team into a less heralded version of his old Pistons, but just a few years later we’re choking on our chuckles. This team has become the Cincinnati Bengals of the NBA. If Roger Goodell was commissioner of the NBA we would have to forfeit a few games this season.
As a fan I’ve had enough. Again. But there’s nothing that’s going to keep me from rooting for these, or any, Indiana Pacers.
We may not have perfect citizens like Miller, M. Jackson, Smits and Vern Fleming to root for anymore, but these are still our Pacers. When they finally turn things around (in forty or fifty years) it’ll be even sweeter to shed the negative labels that currently haunt the team’s fans and players.
If it makes Hoosiers feel any better, it shouldn’t take us 86 years to remove The Curse of Artest…
Are the Pacers cursed? Andrew.Perna@RealGM.com |
