Rooting For The Pacers Blurs Lines Between Right And Wrong
by Tom Lewis on Mar 8, 2010 6:32 AM EST
in News
16 comments
The Indiana Pacers are currently engaged in one of the tightest and interesting races in the NBA standings that no one wants to talk about.
Well, no one in the NBA or at the Fieldhouse.
Mike Wells expounds on the merits of losing for the Pacers after their 0-4 road trip finds them with the fourth worst record in the NBA. At this point in the season, the Pacers' current poor standing is good news, however, the race to the bottom is extremely tight with only 2.5 games separating the fourth through eighth place teams in the reciprocal lottery standings where bad is good.
Normally, when following a tight playoff race, it's common to compare the number of losses teams have when they haven't played the same amount of games. I take the opposite approach with this mess and count wins. So even though the Washington Wizards are 2.5 games ahead of the Pacers in the real standing right now, they only have one more win (21) so their late game implosion in Boston last night hurt. Along with the Wiz, the New York Knicks and Sacramento Kings have 21 wins while the Detroit Pistons have 22.
Adjust your allegiances and rooting interests accordingly. I know, it may feel wrong but in the end it's right.
The Philadelphia 76ers are the ninth team in the mix and they only have 23 wins to the Pacers 20. Of course, they have some solid young talent that is actually playing, so when they play well and win the team moves forward. The Sixers will be in town tomorrow night for one of the few good matchups the Pacers have had in the past couple of weeks.
Jim O'Brien continues to preach his play to win philosophy although he phrases it in a way that could lead to a win-win for the Pacers (which really means win-lose) if he actually followed through completely.
"Our goal is to still try to win every game while also developing our young players," O'Brien said.
Two components to that statement: trying to win and developing young players.
If JOB would let loose with playing time for all of the young players and bump up the minutes of A.J. Price and Josh McRoberts to go along with Roy Hibbert and Brandon Rush, then the wins and losses would likely take care of themselves while these guys still tried like crazy to win.
I wouldn't begrudge any W's if these young guys played 25-30 minutes and put together a winning effort. In fact, it would be pretty fun to watch.
Regardless, of where the Pacers finish they'll still need plenty of lottery luck to hit it big in the NBA draft. Considering the Pacers are looking at a win total in the mid-20s, their chances of getting lucky will be pretty good at worst.
I think that's right, even though it feels wrong.
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Yeah I’ve been following the other teams around us for a week or two now. I watched the end of that C’s game last night and was pretty disappointed. With Washington getting rid of Jamison and Butler, they’re not going to have a lot of winnable games left. I’m actually not sure how they’ve won any games at all. And the Knicks went out and lost to freaking New Jersey. Ugh. Sacramento lost Kevin Martin but you get the feeling that Tyreke and co. can sneak out a few more wins. Golden State should win more according to talent but they are a pretty awful team. Philly, as you said, has the talent to win more and seems to want it a bit more than we do.
If I had to guess, I think the Wiz will drop down below us for sure. GS and Sac-town should be real close to us in the end. Philly and NY should stay ahead of us as long as we don’t do anything stupid by going on a streak. So my guess is we’ll up in 5th or 6th place although we have maybe a 20% chance of ending up in 3rd.
And here’s the unintentional humor for all of this. The Pacers have one game televised nationally this year on ABC/ESPN – our season finale against the Wiz. There is a not so small chance that we’ll be on national TV for the only time all year with the stakes being a 20% increase in the Wall/Turner sweepstakes. How funny would that be?
"If you don't [draft me], I promise you I'll come back and kick your ass for the next 15 years."
I wonder how the announcers will treat it
Oftentimes it seems like the specifically avoid weird back-stories like this (probably on order from above) but if we get the right announcers, it could be high comedy. Imagine them announcing an entire game backwards, praising bad play and putting down players for hitting shots.
“That’s a great foul, Granger will now have to sit the rest of the half”
“Ugh, what awful shot, why is he hitting 3’s in the 4th quarter?”
Can we pull a Colts and sit our starters? Would that help or hurt?
"If you don't [draft me], I promise you I'll come back and kick your ass for the next 15 years."
How about Sorgi? I hear he's looking for work
"If you don't [draft me], I promise you I'll come back and kick your ass for the next 15 years."
Better than the worst....
I’d like to see the Pacers try to aim for that 4th or 5th worst slot. Traditionally, the biggest loser of the season doesn’t end up with pick number one, so getting right in the middle of the scrum for picks is our best bet. Of course, I still suggest we try to trade of Bird and JOB for a couple of extra picks. The Knicks could use some more of our old staff, right?
agreed on the positioning
I’m just worried about the potential of dropping down to 6-8. There’s definitely a drop-off in talent/potential after the first 4 or 5 guys in my opinion
"If you don't [draft me], I promise you I'll come back and kick your ass for the next 15 years."
Mock Draft...
According to ESPN’s Mock Draft, which is based off of interviews of scouts and GMs, our current rankings of players looks something like this:
Tier 1:
Wall
Evans
Tier 2:
Favors
Cousins
Ed Davis
With Wesley Johnson, Aminu, and Cole Aldrich somewhere in the next tier.
Now, of course we all would love Wall, and Turner looks like he could be an immediate impact guy, if not quite a franchise savior. And Tier 2 would all be solid picks. The good news is that it appears that other teams just above us in the current standings wouldn’t take Davis if they leapfrog us, so Davis could be available as late as 7 or 8. So even if we end up a few spots higher, we could still end up with one of our top 5 guys.
I personally like Ed Davis, and haven’t really been scared off just because he hasn’t dominated for UNC this year. So I see him as a pretty good consolation prize. I just don’t want to end up in Aldrich range — not that he’s bad, but out of the trio of Hibbert, Hansbrough, and Aldrich, at least one of our slow, traditional post guys would become “irrelevant.”
whats with the tv schedule the rest of the year?
i was just looking at the remaining schedule to see how many wins the pacers have the rest of the year and noticed that 7 of the 19 remaining games are not going to be televised including to games against Bron-Bron and another vs Durant. Is it not 2010 where theres a million channels on the dish? Shouldn’t I be able to watch any womens college volleyball game I want to? let alone a professional basketball game!?!?! As for the pacers remaining schedule, I think we will win 7 games down the stretch for 27 wins total. And I cant wait to follow all these games on gamecast!
If Youre not First, Youre Last
interesting article on cnnsi.com
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/frank_hughes/03/08/john.wall/index.html?eref=sihp
It talks about how pretty much all the lottery teams don’t need a PG and while they would of course take Wall at 1, it would cause some issues. They note that the Pacers are the only lottery team that really needs a PG. Maybe he’ll fall to us wherever we end up? Juuuust kidding
"If you don't [draft me], I promise you I'll come back and kick your ass for the next 15 years."
Nice break down
I actually think I’d rather have Turner, but every team with a real shot at Wall doesn’t really need him. How’s that for a crappy situation for us, a team that could actually use him? At some point, the stars need to align for this ol’ franchise. It actually makes so much sense that this would be the year, but you know how it goes.
by goodlucksaturday on Mar 8, 2010 6:49 PM EST up reply actions
Draft Lottery Conspiracy
I have always wondered about the fairness in the NBA lottery and how an internal conspiracy could be created for the benefit of the league. Do i believe regardless of how Philly and the Knicks finish they will be behind the Pacers? I believe the NBA will make sure those two teams will have good picks. These are major market teams. King Stern continues to rule the draft and the playoffs.
Don't need to worry about New York
Their pick is going to Utah this year.
by goodlucksaturday on Mar 8, 2010 7:24 PM EST up reply actions
Brings back a memory
I remember back in 1998, it got to the point where people were rooting for the Colts to lose so they could get the first pick and have their choice between L:eaf and Manning. This is something similar, I think. You want your team to lose now so the future is brighter.
Oh, and just a little tag that I feel the need to say, JOB really needs to let the young guys play. And then Larry needs to fire him.
by 2ndBlueGeneration on Mar 9, 2010 12:46 AM EST reply actions
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