IC Cold Links: Marquis Daniels Officially Gone; Low Expectations For Pacers

by Tom Lewis on Sep 2, 2009 6:30 AM EDT in Indiana Pacers News

Links of interest today include Marquis Daniels finally joining the Celtics and his agent spinning all of the missed games last year into a positive...for Quisy, not the Pacers. Also, another national NBA source has the Pacers sliding down the standings in the Eastern Conference. Plus, where are these Danny Grange Batman stories coming from. Hmm.

Frank Dell'Appa reports on Marquis Daniels taking less money to make a run at a title with the Boston Celtics. According to his agent, Quisy shut it down at the end of the year becaus the Pacers were out of the playoffs and not because of his wrist injury.
"It was a minor wrist thing,’’ Schwartzman said. "If it were a playoff situation, he would have played. But Indiana didn’t want to him to get hurt when they were out of the playoff picture, so they shut him down. He could have played a week or 10 days after the injury.’’
Oh, except Quisy missed the final 13 games and the Pacers weren't actually eliminated from the playoffs until losing to Atlanta four games from the season's end. Considering the Pacers went 8-5 in those games I guess Quisy wouldn't have made a difference even if he did gut it out an play.
Bruno's latest Caught in the Web
Bruno provides his unique take on a few stories involving the Pacers of late. He includes a little story yesterday in the Wall Street Journal on the progress of Danny Granger's batcave that sounds familiar. Then I see this today in the Weekly World News, including the exact quotes I transcribed. No problem, guys, glad you enjoyed the story. At least the WSJ tracked down a quote from Granger's agent. At least ESPN knows how to link a story.
Speaking of ESPN, Eight Points, Nine Seconds takes the WWL's NBA experts to task for predicting a decline in the standings for the Pacers. I guess they think Jarrett Jack was REALLY good and that Mike Dunleavy will return in worse shape than his 2007-08 season. Of course, Dunleavy may actually be in better shape, let alone on equal footing compared to that 2007-08 year, but I understand folks wanting him to prove it. Heck, I want him to prove it.
Debunking Tall Tales Surrounding Rubio - Sean Deveney
Of all the Ricky Rubio/T'Wolves analysis floating around, I tend to agree with this take on the situation.

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Comments

Well, it was fun while it lasted...

No S&T, no nothing. Quis was an outstanding player…when he was healthy. Granted his outside shot really didn’t work, he could get to the basket fairly easily.

I will miss him, but I won’t miss him being on the bench. Welcome Dahntay Jones.

- Tony Laurenzana (duke dynamite)

by duke dynamite on Sep 2, 2009 9:11 AM EDT reply actions

wow

what an interesting quote about quis’ injury, just so im gettin this straight, quis went down with 13 games to go, even if u give him his week to heal, we’re only 4 games back of chicago with 10 to play, and we still play chicago TWICE before the season ends. And i kno that chicago went on a roll at the end of the season but it seems like there was an oppurtunity there to put some pressure on chicago that we may or may of not been interested in

If Youre not First, Youre Last

by drsuessrunner07 on Sep 2, 2009 12:36 PM EDT reply actions

Can’t wait to see Quis fighting through injuries to play this year. You know he will.

Indy Cornrows

by Tom Lewis on Sep 2, 2009 10:06 PM EDT up reply actions

Hollinger

I’ve been keeping up with John Hollinger’s content throughout most of the summer and it wouldn’t surprise me if ESPN’s panel was somewhat influenced by his opinion on the Pacers. In multiple chats, he blasted the Pacers for getting Dahntay Jones as well as for acquiring Solomon Jones and Earl Watson. His wrath was especially evident, though, when discussing Dahntay. If you look at ESPN’s “worst newcomer” list, there was one vote for Dahntay Jones. Hmm…I wonder who made that vote.

I expect Hollinger’s individual prediction for the team to be pretty negative and considering he’s regarded as a bit of a statistical God in the NBA world, it wouldn’t surprise me if others on the panel followed suit when making their predictions.

Hollinger and Co. could very well be correct in their outlook for the team, heaven knows they know a lot more about basketball than I do. But it wouldn’t surprise me if his overall outlook of the team is skewed by his apparent disdain for one particular player.

by Hinrich10 on Sep 2, 2009 1:12 PM EDT reply actions

It's also worth noting however

That Hollinger was burned pretty badly by the Pacers last year. He was in love with last year’s team and continuously gave them the benefit of the doubt. Granted, we never saw the complete product last year, but the team also couldn’t win three games to save their lives and blew a number of big leads they should’ve been able to hold. But basically, I think the additions largely offset the losses. I’m not terribly concerned, but I can see how if you don’t look at it deeply enough, the team does look worse.

by Nathan S. on Sep 2, 2009 6:15 PM EDT up reply actions