http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060123/COLUMNISTS01/601230389/1088/SPORTS04
Today marks exactly one month before the NBA trading deadline, or 42 days since Ron Artest was put into permanent timeout. And the Indiana Pacers, now a bland, mediocre franchise doomed to middling status in the Eastern Conference, have left themselves with only two real choices:
Start the rebuilding process now, or wait until this summer?
Because unless somebody has a debilitating brain cramp and opts to send Kevin Garnett here for Ron Artest and a nail clipper, the Pacers are going absolutely nowhere. Fifty wins, at best. A second-round playoff ouster, at best.
What? You think Pacers president Larry Bird and team CEO Donnie Walsh, who so thoroughly botched the Artest situation from the start, are going to make a season-saving trade sometime in these next few weeks?
No.
Blow it up.
Start over.
Unpopular? Yes. Difficult? With this screwy salary structure, with Jonathan Bender and Austin Croshere ranking as the second- and third-highest-paid players on the team, absolutely. Necessary? That, too. It's just a matter of when.
"I can't really see that happening,'' Jermaine O'Neal said Saturday night after the Pacers' disturbing 101-89 loss to the Chicago Bulls at Conseco Fieldhouse. "The owners (Herb and Mel Simon), Donnie, Larry, they're too prideful to let that happen. But it's up to them. If we can't get the job done, I truly believe there are going to be some changes by this summer, and hopefully, my teammates and myself understand that.''
There will be changes, and it would be foolish to dismiss the notion that those changes wouldn't involve O'Neal.
On the one hand, some of us think he's grown as a player and as a leader, that he's become a regular double-double guy while operating without a second post-up presence in the lineup. He's not the reason this thing has stagnated, any more than Elton Brand was the reason the Bulls were so horrible for all those years. Management, which has let Artest destroy a second straight season while sitting in his front-row seat at Los Angeles' Staples Center, deserves ultimate culpability.
That said, if they're going to rebuild, they've got to start by moving O'Neal. He's the only player on this roster who can demand another All-Star-caliber talent. Anything short of that, they're basically tinkering, which defeats the entire purpose.
When the latest Artest mess reached critical mass, the thought here was, move the guy, give the new players a chance to get integrated, then decide by Feb. 23 whether to make subtle changes or take a blowtorch to the whole thing.
Well, nothing has happened yet. And even if it happens this week, it's not going to give coach Rick Carlisle and the rest of management enough time to know who they have, or what they have, or whether to make additional moves by the deadline.
Essentially, they've punted away a second straight season.
"We can't wait around for Superman to come in here and save the town, save the team,'' O'Neal said. "It's up to us to get it done.''
That's a noble sentiment, and it's one you'll hear throughout a very professional locker room. To their enduring credit, the Pacers' coaching staff and players have never, not once, used the team's terminal instability as an excuse.
Carlisle has been dealt a lousy hand for two straight seasons, and while his lineup-tinkering can be maddening at times, he still has this group playing about as well as possible.
These players have been virtually abandoned, left to fend for themselves, and they've refused to let the bizarre circumstances compromise their professionalism.
"Even given all of the situations we've been put in, we still should be playing better than we are,'' Austin Croshere said. "I felt the same way last year, so maybe that's just me.''
If I thought a little bit of tinkering might put them over the top, or at least get them into the area code of the top, I'd say they need to keep battling away with the current roster, be patient. If I thought an eventual trade would mentally kick-start them, make them some kind of dark horse contender, I'd call for maintaining the status quo.
Except it's not going to happen.
Is Jamaal Tinsley ever going to stay healthy? And if he does, will his maddening, painfully inconsistent street game ever evolve?
No, and no.
(Understand, Tinsley is a base-year compensation player, which means if they traded him now, they'd get only half his contractual value in return. So if they're going to move him, it will be this summer, when they can get full financial value.)
Is Stephen Jackson the long-term answer at either the two- or three-spot?
No.
There are some decent pieces in place, some younger players who have a chance to emerge with additional minutes. But in the end, the Pacers as currently constituted are monuments to mediocrity, products of an Eastern Conference where .500 is viewed as an elite standard.
They're going to have to start over. Now or later, they're going to have to start over.
I'd get rid of everyone except O'Neal & Granger.
JO would be nice off the bench.
