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Odd thoughts as we enter the pre-season....

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  • #1

    Odd thoughts as we enter the pre-season....

    Well I might as well deal with the pink elephant in the room right up front.

    Other than a few small snippets here & there I have kept pretty quiet about the entire Jackson incident. I guess now is as good a time as any to weigh in on the subject.

    Like many of you I was stunned when I first heard the news, in fact I thought it was a joke. But much to my dismay I quickly learned that this was all to real.

    As news bits started to leak out the forum started to quickly devide & as one of our nations founding fathers said "Passion began to govern & she never governs wisely".

    To many people started to get to hung up on whatever their point of view was & quickly the lines were drawn. Ironicly if you notice the deviding lines were almost identical here as they were a year ago when we were dealing with Artest.

    So I spent the first few days of this trying my best just to keep threads merged & not let the forum descend into being nothing but the Stephen Jackson digest.

    I'll just say this about the entire thing. It makes me ill.

    I'm serious, it makes me ill because of what should have been & now what it is & sadly what it will become.

    We should have been excited about the upcoming season with a new revamped roster with the verbal commitment from management to see real and significant change.

    What we have is daily news berbs about the entire fiasco. It's like chinese water torture, it just keeps coming slowly but surely every time.

    What we will have, for at least awhile, is a team that will once again be beset upon by questions other than how they are playing on the floor.

    This is sad, truely sad.

    I don't blame Jackson & company for being in an adult establishment. It is a perfectly leagle activity & while I don't choose to go there that does not mean that nobody else can.

    I don't blame Jackson for being out late on a practice night. The team does not have a curfue & I guess they let the players police (no pun intended) themselves. I'm not saying I'm happy about it & in fact I wish they wouldn't have but again no rule was broken here.

    I don't blame Jackson for carrying a gun. In fact I applaude him for having the proper permits to carry it, not everybody goes through the trouble.

    I wouldn't have even blamed Jackson at all if he was trying to defend his own life or even someone else's.

    However as is coming out, what I've been hearing for awhile now seems to be true. That Jackson did not just fire the gun in the air after being struck by the car.

    Here is the damning part about this entire episode for Jackson with me. He went to his car to retrieve his gun. I'll say that again so it sinks in, he went to his car to retrieve his gun.

    Here let me let Brizzi say it for you again.

    "After the fight started, (Jackson) went to his car, retrieved his handgun and put it on his hip," Brizzi said. "He walked over to where a handicapped person was on the ground getting stomped and beaten, kicked that person, then drew his gun and fired one to three shots into the air."

    Why is this so important? Because if as Jackson & crew were saying that all they were trying to do was get away then right there & then all he had to have done would have been to put the key in the ignition & drive away or at the very least use the cell phone I know he has in his car or on him to call 911 from the relative safety of his vehicle.

    But no, he had to make sure that during a fight he had to go retrive a deadly weapon. I guess for everyones sake we should just be glad there was no dustpan around for Jamaal to grab or it really would have gone downhill.

    I'm sorry guys but at this point in time getting your gun & flashing it no longer counts as self defense.

    I haven't even began to talk about hitting a man while he was on the ground, which the other sad irony here is that Jermaine O'Neal is in court in MI right now for the same thing.

    Snap, Daniels & even Tinsley get a break here because other than the weed in J.T.'s car it doesn't appear that any of them did anything other than be there.

    Jackson has even admitted to changing his story, that's a polite way of saying "I lied" btw.

    Like I said it sickens me to no end to even have to talk about this on the first night of the pre-seasaon. A season that looked so very hopefull for me.

    Heck I even had made the commitment that I was going to give everybody on the team a fresh chance (including Jackson & Tinsley). But that has all changed now.

    I know Jax will be back, there is just no way the Pacers are going to be able to trade the guy, so unless there is some way to void his contract I can't see how he will be gone anytime soon. Unless the Pacers give him a paid vacation, which they did for this game last night because he was not on the bench.

    It's just sad, that's all I am going to say about that in this post.

    Ok, let's move on.

    As usual I couldn't get to the game on time, this time we were really late & I missed the entire first quarter. So I never even got to see Daniels play so somebody fill me in on him.

    A quick question, with the new restraunt Legends on the one end does that mean that DJ Paul B is gone? Where he was set up is now two serving tables? I'm just curious.

    Well the offense moved a little more smoothly but I want to see it work when J.O. is in there. I've seen it move well before without him but it seems to bog down whenever he entered the game. I'll watch that more closely this weekend.

    On a team note though there were some very interesting things that happened in the 3rd & 4th quarters.

    First we went big, I mean real big.

    Orien Green at p.g. Danny Granger at the S.G. Shawne Williams at the s.f. Maceo Baston at the P.F. & David Harrison at the C.

    That is a huge lineup. Just for those of you that didn't see it, it did work as well. When they brought in Marshall for Harrison & played Baston at C it worked even more but going big was a nice change considering what we've seen for years.

    Secondly, this team is more physical than teams we've had in recent years. Powell, Harrington, Baston, Harrison & even to a degree Williams all body up on defense in the paint area.

    Thirdly we ARE more athletic than I can remember us being. In fact I think this may be the most athletic lineup I've ever seen on the team.

    Fourth if you are concerned about defense, I'm not sure your barking up the right tree yet. Like I said, first game of pre-season so this may change & they certianly were not playing against Kidd & Carter but they did apply the pressure (including a full court press).

    Now let's look at some of the individual games.

    I think because people have been so badly burned by Jon Bender that they automatically started downplaying Shawne Williams. Making sure to point out that his game is not developed etc., etc..

    Well I'm here to tell you now that I think Williams is going to suprise people. I'm not saying he is going to be a R.O.Y. candidate or anything like that. But I think he will be a solid contributer on our team before the season is over.

    Also as Danny Granger to me is the prototypical small forward, Shawne looks like he will be a true power forward. He is much thicker & more muscular than what I had been led to believe. Also, while I'm not trying to pick on Bender I can't help but want to end any comparrisons. Watching Williams on the floor for five min. showed me that he is already more developed as a player than Jon was for about 3 years into his career.

    Josh Powell is everything I like in a player. He's tough, he doesn't shy from contact, he is a physical rebounder & he plays solid defense. As far as I'm concerned he not only needs to make the team but he makes me think that somebody else is expendable. Two big thumbs up for the one game I've seen him play so far.

    Maceo Baston had me on my feet with that missed dunk he had. Good lord that would have been huge had he got that one to go down. I guess this isn't the same old Baston that I remember years ago, this guy has game. He also played much more physical in the post than I ever thought he would.

    Danny got into foul trouble but in the second half whenever he had the ball he could just get his shot off anytime anywhere which is saying something cause a lot of times he was going against Jefferson. He played some at the two guard which I didn't like but going that big did help us so if that's the plan I can live with it.

    Harrison definately has lost any of the fat that was holding him down. He was very active as a shot blocker, which he always has been. His offense did not seem as smooth as normal but again it's just game one of the pre-season. He still made to many faces & had something to say whenever the refs would call something on him so I just don't know how that is going to go over this season with the fans. Also he got called for a delay of game warning for his shirt being out. They gave him two warnings for this prior to giving him the warning btw.

    Saras was a mixed bag of nuts, actually our entire p.g. staff was this way for the part of the game I saw. On the one hand his passing in the open court is as good as anybody out there & his abiltiy to hit players close to the basket is outstanding. On the other hand his shooting & ball handling looked worse than last season if you can beleive that. Again though just one game into the pre-season.

    Jamaal must have had a really good first quarter because what I saw in the second half was less than lackluster. Again though just first game in the pre-season so no real judgements to be passed here.

    Greene is a defensive minded p.g. that is for sure & his passing while not spectacular is at least proficiant. If the choice is between him & Snap, based on last nights game anyway I'd say Greene should stay.

    Marshall at first left me with no impression but as the night went on the better he go & in the 4th quarter he was a big part of the reason we took the lead & took off with it. Very skinny guy btw. Decent shot & he does apply some pressure on defense although I don't think anyone will confuse him for Artest any time soon. Oh wait that is reason enough right there to keep him.

    And now for no reason it's peanut butter jelly time!!!!!




    With a dash of fruit.



    Ok where was I??

    Oh yea James White.

    Hmmm....some nice on the ball defense but overall it was kind of a nothing first outing. However again, first outing being the key here.

    What was the one big change though that I saw in this entire group that I haven't seen is awhile?

    Everybody was hitting the boards & hitting them hard. When we had that big lineup in there I think we collected about 80% of the rebounds. No, I don't know that for fact but that's what it felt like.

    Chuck Person was very very very vocal & active on the sidelines last night. Much more so than last season.

    I'll quit now.

    Other than the one down side that we all know about I think this up coming season looks pretty good.

    What the hell is wrong with me????

    I forgot to talk about Al.

    Well first off the Mohawk was a nice gimmick but it has got to go. Other than taking a few stupid shots & his horrid display of freethrow shooting Al was great.

    At one time the Diamond one remarked that he looked somewhat Barklyesque out there when he grabbed a board & ran it past half court & dished for an assist.

    Whenever he & Powell were in there together, which actually was a very short time, they were putting the hurt on the N.J. big men. While they lack some height, both of these guys play very physical.

    It was fun to have him back & I only wish I could have heard the opening cheers for him.


    Basketball isn't played with computers, spreadsheets, and simulations. ChicagoJ 4/21/13
    Tags: None
  • #2
    Re: Odd thoughts as we enter the pre-season....

    It's official - the season has begun!



    Thanks for a great re-cap. I'll have to return to it tomorrow when my head is clearer and add a few thoughts.
    “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” - Winston Churchill

    “If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to serve as a horrible warning.” - Catherine Aird

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    • #3
      Re: Odd thoughts as we enter the pre-season....

      Good post Peck. I'm really looking forward to watching the new style.

      Comment

      • #4
        Re: Odd thoughts as we enter the pre-season....

        Originally posted by Peck View Post

        Everybody was hitting the boards & hitting them hard. When we had that big lineup in there I think we collected about 80% of the rebounds. No, I don't know that for fact but that's what it felt like.
        I think I'm gonna cry now. Outta joy that is. I didn't get to see the game but that is Heaven's Harps sounding off to me.

        Now, if they can just learn to shoot free throws.
        Games are always fairly even in all other aspects but free-throws and rebounds win 90% of em for you.

        Nice to have these reports back Peck. Thanks
        Ever notice how friendly folks are at a shootin' range??.

        Comment

        • #5
          Re: Odd thoughts as we enter the pre-season....

          I'd almost pay money to read your game recaps Peck. ALMOST! (grin) This one was outstanding!

          Your take on the Jackson situation is pretty much my take. One note, I don't much like this forum when controversial things happen. Posters rush to judgment without knowing all the facts and post ad infinitum on the subject. Nothing wrong with that because I simply stop reading those posts, but basketball posts take a back seat in those situations, and that I don't like!

          All in all I still think this can be an outstanding season!

          Comment

          • #6
            Re: Odd thoughts as we enter the pre-season....

            Thank you Peck. I'm going to depend upon reports like yours to keep me in the loop this season. Keep up the awesome work!

            Take me out to the black, tell 'em I ain't coming back. Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me.

            Comment

            • #7
              Re: Odd thoughts as we enter the pre-season....

              Peck, I almost wished you would have started two threads, one about the incident and one about the game last night, because I don't want this thread to turn into a thread about the incident and aftermath. The only thing I want to say about the incident, is that DW said in his press conference yesterday that yes the players did break team rules when they were out at Club Rio


              http://www.nba.com/pacers/news/walsh...on_061011.html

              Q. From what you know of the incident, were team rules violated and if not should stricter rules be put in place?

              A. As far as team rules, yes, being out late in a nightclub at the hours they were in, that would've become an internal thing. If that's all that would've happened, we would've done something internally as far as fines or at the most a suspension. When you add this other stuff, no. We never anticipated anything like that. And that's more of a legal situation than what you would cover in team rules.


              Peck, great re-cap of the game as always, but you forgot to mention one player, but that is OK, we know he'll be just fine.

              This year's Pacers team will have to depend on their defense though as I don't see their halfcourt offense being that good, so it will be an up and down team because their outside shooting will be very inconsistant at best. But that is OK, because when the defense gets turned up this team will be fun to watch.

              Comment

              • #8
                Re: Odd thoughts as we enter the pre-season....

                Originally posted by Peck View Post
                Well I might as well deal with the pink elephant in the room right up front.

                Other than a few small snippets here & there I have kept pretty quiet about the entire Jackson incident. I guess now is as good a time as any to weigh in on the subject.

                Like many of you I was stunned when I first heard the news, in fact I thought it was a joke. But much to my dismay I quickly learned that this was all to real.

                As news bits started to leak out the forum started to quickly devide & as one of our nations founding fathers said "Passion began to govern & she never governs wisely".

                To many people started to get to hung up on whatever their point of view was & quickly the lines were drawn. Ironicly if you notice the deviding lines were almost identical here as they were a year ago when we were dealing with Artest.
                I didn't see the game (and probably won't see a Pacer game all year apparently) so I'll touch on this instead. It may deserve its own thread and if so someone can split this off.

                I was actually pretty impressed with the general tone of PD over the past 5 days. Yes, some emotions ran high and there were disagreements but unless there were a ton of deleted posts I didn't see, it was actually pretty civil. There was a lot of potential for forum ugliness but for the most part that didn't happen.

                There wasn't a lot of name calling, most threads were able to continue without being locked because it degenerated into useless crap, etc.

                I'm sure a lot of people got sick and tired of going around, around and around with this but overall I'll tip my cap to the members of PD on this one.
                The poster formerly known as Rimfire

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                • #9
                  Re: Odd thoughts as we enter the pre-season....

                  Peck,

                  I've made no secret that I'm Maceo fan and I think his only problem has been, like guys like Chauney Billups, he needed a team to fit his skill set. You may remember that I said Maceo likes to play physical, despite his slenderness. Some people scoffed at me, saying he's more of a SF type. He played some C in Toronto. I'm hoping he gets to do that a bit while he's here. I know it's just one game, but he seems to carry more maturity than he has in the past. I liked what I saw from him.

                  Saras seemed a little frustrated with himself missing some of those wide open shots. My fear is that he's going to start overthinking things and take himself out of what he can do. I gotta say, some of his passes gave me shivers. His ball placement is pretty amazing, but then seing him get blown by on D a coupe of times really mitigated my job. I think his worth is going to hinge on him hitting the open three, otherwise, I can see him disappearing again really quick. I noticed they weren't having him set any picks or do much off the ball activity, other than hover around the three pount line. I don't like seeing that. They did that to him last year.

                  Overall, I was kinda impressed at how aggressive we were on both O and D. I've said this before and I'll say it again, I see us playing a style kinda like the Grizzles, but more assertive: Put guys in, tell them to play high energy, then when they start to slow down, substitute. I'm being really guarded about getting excited, casue like you, I want to see how things Mesh when JO is playing and we start feeding him.

                  I'm going to try an not overthink things. It's preseason, I still have issues with this team, but I'm going to give my brian a break and just enjoy that I got to see our guys play.
                  Hey! What're you kicking me for? You want me to ask? All right, I'll ask! Ma'am, where do the high school girls hang out in this town?

                  Comment

                  • #10
                    Re: Odd thoughts as we enter the pre-season....

                    spell check
                    *removed* Just keep politics and religion completely out of it, please.

                    Comment

                    • #11
                      Re: Odd thoughts as we enter the pre-season....

                      FINALLY ITS BACK

                      Comment

                      • #12
                        Re: Odd thoughts as we enter the pre-season....

                        Originally posted by Jermaniac View Post
                        FINALLY ITS BACK

                        Yes it is but everything isn't back, we didn't argue after the game last night, where were you.

                        Comment

                        • #13
                          Re: Odd thoughts as we enter the pre-season....

                          Originally posted by Unclebuck View Post
                          Yes it is but everything isn't back, we didn't argue after the game last night, where were you.
                          its still preseason games, wait for the real deal im sure youll have plenty of chances to argue

                          Comment

                          • #14
                            Re: Odd thoughts as we enter the pre-season....

                            Peck, an excellent analysis as usual.

                            Re the Incident - I started out wanting to wait for the facts to come in because I truly felt the teams of the Old Days did their share of partying hard. As more facts come out I am less and less able to reconcile this. I now believe that for whatever reason, however this comes out, Jackson will have to go. It may not be fair, we may not be able to get anything more than a tomato with white mold on it for him, but as Kravitz says there are plenty of people who simply cannot embrace this team as long as Jackson is on it.

                            Yes, the world is coming to an end, I agree with both Peck and Kravitz in the same post...

                            Regarding the game, unfortunately I don't have a good enough handle on the players to be able to focus on off-the-ball action like I would want to (I still mentally spend time saying to myself, "Now, who has the ball ... had the ball ... is running back on defense..."). That being said, I very much noticed the up-tempo pace was working very well. A couple of comments:

                            1) To me, it seemed like we bogged down a bit when Tinsley was in the game. Since Rick was firmly esconced on the bench for most of the time, I can be pretty sure it wasn't because Tins' "free-flowing style" was being hampered by called plays. I'm not sure why this happened - rust, normal pre-season foibles, whatever - but it didn't seem to happen as much when SarJas was in the game.

                            2) I noticed real midrange jumpers being taken and made! I think it was Quin who commented at one point that getting partway to the basket and popping an easy jumper can be just as good as trying to get all the way in because it clears the floor and makes defenses more hesitant of just jamming the area under the rim. I want to say that was on a Granger fast break but I could be wrong.

                            3) I think the new attitude toward jawing at the refs is going to make a HUGE difference in the flow of the game and the focus of the players. I have absolutely no problem with players making faces or frustrated motions immediately after a call, it's human nature to be upset with either the refs or oneself. What I loved was seeing no instances AT ALL of someone hanging back to moan about a call while play continued.

                            4) The new rule about not spreading your arms at the edge of the lane during a free throw is really going to be interesting. Wonder where that came from?

                            5) 3-second calls? Wow, that's going to make Shaq feel picked on. Unless he gets superstarred for it, of course.

                            6) Free throws suffered in particular due to tired legs, I thought. Quin pointed out the flaw in Al's style, but I think it affected everyone as well. Should be interesting to see if this improves or gets worse as the season wears on.

                            I wish I could have paid attention more to the PnR and screen execution, but other than a feeling that it was a LOT better than last year I have no details.
                            BillS

                            A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
                            Or throw in a first-round pick and flip it for a max-level point guard...

                            Comment

                            • #15
                              Re: Odd thoughts as we enter the pre-season....

                              Originally posted by BillS View Post
                              3) I think the new attitude toward jawing at the refs is going to make a HUGE difference in the flow of the game and the focus of the players. I have absolutely no problem with players making faces or frustrated motions immediately after a call, it's human nature to be upset with either the refs or oneself. What I loved was seeing no instances AT ALL of someone hanging back to moan about a call while play continued.
                              Yes I know it is a rule not a player attitude, I meant attitude on the part of the NBA.
                              BillS

                              A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
                              Or throw in a first-round pick and flip it for a max-level point guard...

                              Comment

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