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The Rules of Pacers Digest

Hello everyone,

Whether your are a long standing forum member or whether you have just registered today, it's a good idea to read and review the rules below so that you have a very good idea of what to expect when you come to Pacers Digest.

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Why do we do this? So that it's more difficult for spammers (be they human or robot) to post, and so users who are banned cannot immediately re-register and start dousing people with verbal flames.

Below are the rules of Pacers Digest. After you have read them, you will have a very good sense of where we are coming from, what we expect, what we don't want to see, and how we react to things.

Rule #1

Pacers Digest is intended to be a place to discuss basketball without having to deal with the kinds of behaviors or attitudes that distract people from sticking with the discussion of the topics at hand. These unwanted distractions can come in many forms, and admittedly it can sometimes be tricky to pin down each and every kind that can rear its ugly head, but we feel that the following examples and explanations cover at least a good portion of that ground and should at least give people a pretty good idea of the kinds of things we actively discourage:

"Anyone who __________ is a liar / a fool / an idiot / a blind homer / has their head buried in the sand / a blind hater / doesn't know basketball / doesn't watch the games"

"People with intelligence will agree with me when I say that __________"

"Only stupid people think / believe / do ___________"

"I can't wait to hear something from PosterX when he/she sees that **insert a given incident or current event that will have probably upset or disappointed PosterX here**"

"He/she is just delusional"

"This thread is stupid / worthless / embarrassing"

"I'm going to take a moment to point and / laugh at PosterX / GroupOfPeopleY who thought / believed *insert though/belief here*"

"Remember when PosterX said OldCommentY that no longer looks good? "

In general, if a comment goes from purely on topic to something 'ad hominem' (personal jabs, personal shots, attacks, flames, however you want to call it, towards a person, or a group of people, or a given city/state/country of people), those are most likely going to be found intolerable.

We also dissuade passive aggressive behavior. This can be various things, but common examples include statements that are basically meant to imply someone is either stupid or otherwise incapable of holding a rational conversation. This can include (but is not limited to) laughing at someone's conclusions rather than offering an honest rebuttal, asking people what game they were watching, or another common problem is Poster X will say "that player isn't that bad" and then Poster Y will say something akin to "LOL you think that player is good". We're not going to tolerate those kinds of comments out of respect for the community at large and for the sake of trying to just have an honest conversation.

Now, does the above cover absolutely every single kind of distraction that is unwanted? Probably not, but you should by now have a good idea of the general types of things we will be discouraging. The above examples are meant to give you a good feel for / idea of what we're looking for. If something new or different than the above happens to come along and results in the same problem (that being, any other attitude or behavior that ultimately distracts from actually just discussing the topic at hand, or that is otherwise disrespectful to other posters), we can and we will take action to curb this as well, so please don't take this to mean that if you managed to technically avoid saying something exactly like one of the above examples that you are then somehow off the hook.

That all having been said, our goal is to do so in a generally kind and respectful way, and that doesn't mean the moment we see something we don't like that somebody is going to be suspended or banned, either. It just means that at the very least we will probably say something about it, quite possibly snipping out the distracting parts of the post in question while leaving alone the parts that are actually just discussing the topics, and in the event of a repeating or excessive problem, then we will start issuing infractions to try to further discourage further repeat problems, and if it just never seems to improve, then finally suspensions or bans will come into play. We would prefer it never went that far, and most of the time for most of our posters, it won't ever have to.

A slip up every once and a while is pretty normal, but, again, when it becomes repetitive or excessive, something will be done. Something occasional is probably going to be let go (within reason), but when it starts to become habitual or otherwise a pattern, odds are very good that we will step in.

There's always a small minority that like to push people's buttons and/or test their own boundaries with regards to the administrators, and in the case of someone acting like that, please be aware that this is not a court of law, but a private website run by people who are simply trying to do the right thing as they see it. If we feel that you are a special case that needs to be dealt with in an exceptional way because your behavior isn't explicitly mirroring one of our above examples of what we generally discourage, we can and we will take atypical action to prevent this from continuing if you are not cooperative with us.

Also please be aware that you will not be given a pass simply by claiming that you were 'only joking,' because quite honestly, when someone really is just joking, for one thing most people tend to pick up on the joke, including the person or group that is the target of the joke, and for another thing, in the event where an honest joke gets taken seriously and it upsets or angers someone, the person who is truly 'only joking' will quite commonly go out of his / her way to apologize and will try to mend fences. People who are dishonest about their statements being 'jokes' do not do so, and in turn that becomes a clear sign of what is really going on. It's nothing new.

In any case, quite frankly, the overall quality and health of the entire forum's community is more important than any one troublesome user will ever be, regardless of exactly how a problem is exhibiting itself, and if it comes down to us having to make a choice between you versus the greater health and happiness of the entire community, the community of this forum will win every time.

Lastly, there are also some posters, who are generally great contributors and do not otherwise cause any problems, who sometimes feel it's their place to provoke or to otherwise 'mess with' that small minority of people described in the last paragraph, and while we possibly might understand why you might feel you WANT to do something like that, the truth is we can't actually tolerate that kind of behavior from you any more than we can tolerate the behavior from them. So if we feel that you are trying to provoke those other posters into doing or saying something that will get themselves into trouble, then we will start to view you as a problem as well, because of the same reason as before: The overall health of the forum comes first, and trying to stir the pot with someone like that doesn't help, it just makes it worse. Some will simply disagree with this philosophy, but if so, then so be it because ultimately we have to do what we think is best so long as it's up to us.

If you see a problem that we haven't addressed, the best and most appropriate course for a forum member to take here is to look over to the left of the post in question. See underneath that poster's name, avatar, and other info, down where there's a little triangle with an exclamation point (!) in it? Click that. That allows you to report the post to the admins so we can definitely notice it and give it a look to see what we feel we should do about it. Beyond that, obviously it's human nature sometimes to want to speak up to the poster in question who has bothered you, but we would ask that you try to refrain from doing so because quite often what happens is two or more posters all start going back and forth about the original offending post, and suddenly the entire thread is off topic or otherwise derailed. So while the urge to police it yourself is understandable, it's best to just report it to us and let us handle it. Thank you!

All of the above is going to be subject to a case by case basis, but generally and broadly speaking, this should give everyone a pretty good idea of how things will typically / most often be handled.

Rule #2

If the actions of an administrator inspire you to make a comment, criticism, or express a concern about it, there is a wrong place and a couple of right places to do so.

The wrong place is to do so in the original thread in which the administrator took action. For example, if a post gets an infraction, or a post gets deleted, or a comment within a larger post gets clipped out, in a thread discussing Paul George, the wrong thing to do is to distract from the discussion of Paul George by adding your off topic thoughts on what the administrator did.

The right places to do so are:

A) Start a thread about the specific incident you want to talk about on the Feedback board. This way you are able to express yourself in an area that doesn't throw another thread off topic, and this way others can add their two cents as well if they wish, and additionally if there's something that needs to be said by the administrators, that is where they will respond to it.

B) Send a private message to the administrators, and they can respond to you that way.

If this is done the wrong way, those comments will be deleted, and if it's a repeating problem then it may also receive an infraction as well.

Rule #3

If a poster is bothering you, and an administrator has not or will not deal with that poster to the extent that you would prefer, you have a powerful tool at your disposal, one that has recently been upgraded and is now better than ever: The ability to ignore a user.

When you ignore a user, you will unfortunately still see some hints of their existence (nothing we can do about that), however, it does the following key things:

A) Any post they make will be completely invisible as you scroll through a thread.

B) The new addition to this feature: If someone QUOTES a user you are ignoring, you do not have to read who it was, or what that poster said, unless you go out of your way to click on a link to find out who it is and what they said.

To utilize this feature, from any page on Pacers Digest, scroll to the top of the page, look to the top right where it says 'Settings' and click that. From the settings page, look to the left side of the page where it says 'My Settings', and look down from there until you see 'Edit Ignore List' and click that. From here, it will say 'Add a Member to Your List...' Beneath that, click in the text box to the right of 'User Name', type in or copy & paste the username of the poster you are ignoring, and once their name is in the box, look over to the far right and click the 'Okay' button. All done!

Rule #4

Regarding infractions, currently they carry a value of one point each, and that point will expire in 31 days. If at any point a poster is carrying three points at the same time, that poster will be suspended until the oldest of the three points expires.

Rule #5

When you share or paste content or articles from another website, you must include the URL/link back to where you found it, who wrote it, and what website it's from. Said content will be removed if this doesn't happen.

An example:

If I copy and paste an article from the Indianapolis Star website, I would post something like this:

http://www.linktothearticlegoeshere.com/article
Title of the Article
Author's Name
Indianapolis Star

Rule #6

We cannot tolerate illegal videos on Pacers Digest. This means do not share any links to them, do not mention any websites that host them or link to them, do not describe how to find them in any way, and do not ask about them. Posts doing anything of the sort will be removed, the offenders will be contacted privately, and if the problem becomes habitual, you will be suspended, and if it still persists, you will probably be banned.

The legal means of watching or listening to NBA games are NBA League Pass Broadband (for US, or for International; both cost money) and NBA Audio League Pass (which is free). Look for them on NBA.com.

Rule #7

Provocative statements in a signature, or as an avatar, or as the 'tagline' beneath a poster's username (where it says 'Member' or 'Administrator' by default, if it is not altered) are an unwanted distraction that will more than likely be removed on sight. There can be shades of gray to this, but in general this could be something political or religious that is likely going to provoke or upset people, or otherwise something that is mean-spirited at the expense of a poster, a group of people, or a population.

It may or may not go without saying, but this goes for threads and posts as well, particularly when it's not made on the off-topic board (Market Square).

We do make exceptions if we feel the content is both innocuous and unlikely to cause social problems on the forum (such as wishing someone a Merry Christmas or a Happy Easter), and we also also make exceptions if such topics come up with regards to a sports figure (such as the Lance Stephenson situation bringing up discussions of domestic abuse and the law, or when Jason Collins came out as gay and how that lead to some discussion about gay rights).

However, once the discussion seems to be more/mostly about the political issues instead of the sports figure or his specific situation, the thread is usually closed.

Rule #8

We prefer self-restraint and/or modesty when making jokes or off topic comments in a sports discussion thread. They can be fun, but sometimes they derail or distract from a topic, and we don't want to see that happen. If we feel it is a problem, we will either delete or move those posts from the thread.

Rule #9

Generally speaking, we try to be a "PG-13" rated board, and we don't want to see sexual content or similarly suggestive content. Vulgarity is a more muddled issue, though again we prefer things to lean more towards "PG-13" than "R". If we feel things have gone too far, we will step in.

Rule #10

We like small signatures, not big signatures. The bigger the signature, the more likely it is an annoying or distracting signature.

Rule #11

Do not advertise anything without talking about it with the administrators first. This includes advertising with your signature, with your avatar, through private messaging, and/or by making a thread or post.
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Good article on Chase Budinger

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  • #1

    Good article on Chase Budinger

    http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/...Budinger-.html
    TrueHoop
    Henry Abbott & Bryan Roy

    Don't know a lot about him, but the article and what little I do know makes him a intriguing early 2nd round pick to me.

    At some point in the third or fourth hour of tonight's draft, you'll hear the name "Chase Budinger" announced -- quite possibly by Adam Silver, who usually presides over the second round. As recently as a year ago, Budinger was projected as a possible lottery pick. In his first two years Arizona, Budinger averaged 16.4 points and 5.6 rebounds per game. But his fortunes as a prospect slipped during his junior campaign. CelticsHub's Bryan Roy has covered the Wildcats for The Daily Wildcat over the past couple of seasons. He filed this report for TrueHoop on Budinger's strange tenure in Tucson.


    A year ago, Chase Budinger was on track to have a Green Room invite. Now, he's a possible second-round pick.
    (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images)

    If your fantasy basketball league required every team to draft a crossbreed of Larry Bird and Napoleon Dynamite, your man is Chase Budinger, soon-to-be rookie from Arizona.

    Think Brendan Fraser in "Bedazzled.” The light-blond, lighter-skinned wing from Encinitas, Calif., looks like the ideal demographic for tetherball, Irish pubs and SPF 150 sunscreen.

    Arizona's hot, dry desert sun did all it could to burn Budinger. From all the off-court uncertainties of Lute Olson's retirement, to the promising Wildcats that transferred or ripped up signed Letters of Intent - the appearance of these past three years weren't exactly Arizona's prettiest era for Budinger to showcase his upside.

    In terms of athletic ability, the 6-foot-7 departing Wildcat was once described as the LeBron James of volleyball after a high school career that, had he kept playing, could have put him on USA Olympic team in 2008.

    Instead, Budinger opted to pursue basketball for Lute Olson, who called Budinger the most talented athlete he ever coached. Coming from the Founder, Director and CEO of Point Guard U, the bar was sky-high. But these were his realistic and most basic goals to complete before the NBA came calling:

    1) Beat his home state powerhouse UCLA.
    2) Make a deep NCAA Tournament run.
    3) Hone his raw athletic ability into NBA-ready talent.

    Budinger arrived at Arizona surrounded by the modern-day Five Star Freshman Hype Hoopla. Fans anticipated that Budinger would restore the pre-2005 brand of Arizona basketball and eliminate the funk of underachieving, low-character players. (Related story: Marcus Williams and Mustafa Shakur both left for the NBA and graduated, respectively, after the 2006-2007 season.)

    After individually satisfying freshman and sophomore seasons - he averaged 16.4 points and 5.6 rebounds per game as an underclassman - Budinger's team goals still left an empty pit in a hungry Wildcat Faithful's collective stomach. From 2006-2008, the Wildcats had:

    1) Been embarrassed by UCLA (0-4 vs. the Bruins).
    2) Lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament (both times).
    3) Not seen Budinger lead them when it mattered most.

    Fans wondered when Big-Game Budinger would arrive on campus. By 2009, the No. 34 Budinger jerseys were destined to hit the UA Bookstore's clearance rack regardless of his decision to turn pro this summer. The shot clock of expectations expired.

    A senior season for Budinger would've meant the McDonald's All-American (he earned co-MVP honors with Kevin Durant) lost ground during his junior campaign. In the star-studded 2008 NBA Draft, projections listed Budinger as a late first-round to early second-round selection. A significantly weaker 2009 Draft meant Budinger could've just tread water and still moved up in the rankings.

    There wasn't much water in the desert to tread. By his junior year, Arizona needed (and expected) Budinger to step up both as a leader and dominant force in the Pac-10 if it wanted any hope at continuing the school's most coveted statistic of 25 straight NCAA Tournament appearances.

    Our first glimpse of it came after Arizona's embarrassing loss to UAB. After Jamelle Horne Superman-dove to commit a foul at halfcourt in a tie game with seconds left in regulation, the mood in the locker room was uncomfortably somber. Reporters pretended to scribble down notes and avoid eye contact while players showered and shot blank stares into the trophies along wall.

    After Horne came out of the shower, a few of us headed over to ask: What the hell were you thinking? (He later said it was a miscommunication). Budinger, who watched the entire scene unfold, quickly told us to back off. It wasn't anything rude or out of line, Budinger just took a big brother role to Horne, a sophomore visually upset with unthinkable foul.

    It showed a lot of guts and spoke volumes on Budinger's unspoken leadership part, I wrote the next day. Just like that, he became the guy that glued together a wounded and abandoned 2008-09 team that was "rocked to the core” after Olson suddenly retired days before the season.

    Midway through the season, however, once Budinger suffered through his Second Annual "Where's Chase?” Midseason Shooting Slump when he averaged 10.5 points in a four-game span, fans couldn't help but wake up in a cold sweat, recalling recent Wildcats that derailed into the same trend. Those five-star high school recruits that never blossomed became weeds after four very, very dry years in the scorching desert.

    Can't say I've seen anybody on campus wearing a Shakur jersey, or be willing to spend $75 on one.

    Had the Budinger III failed, maybe you could give the kid a free pass from an obvious scapegoat: Arizona's brilliant back-to-back interim head coaches strategy. It's a sure-fire way to stun the growth and development of 18-year-old AAU phonemes that, in tern, develop everything but team leadership.

    Then, all those what-ifs evaporated when Aubrey Coleman came to town and earned himself a future Christmas Card from the Budinger family.

    The infamous Coleman Face Stomp 2009 broke Budinger out of his soft-spoken shell. After Houston's go-to guy slammed his foot into Budinger's courtside face after the whistle, Budinger sprung up with Mike Tyson-esque fury and fire.

    Later that game, with under one minute to play, Arizona overcame a 10-point deficit to win in overtime. The pivotal (literally, Coleman planted his pivot foot into Budinger's left temple) moment saved the Wildcats' season, started an seven-game winning streak and put Arizona on the national radar for good reasons.

    Budinger's decision to return for his junior season paid dividends. Sure we saw him put up lines like 20, 10, and five against teams like Oregon State, but it was his 20 points, eight rebounds and four steals against No. 5-seeded Utah in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament solidified his legacy at Arizona -- or at least, avoided a negative one. The Sweet 16 banner that gets raised into the McKale Center rafters will have Budinger's finger prints all over it.

    After an exhausting three-year span of Olson, Kevin O'Neill and Russ Pennell, Budinger enters his second go-around of the summer pre-Draft workouts with his trifecta:

    1) Killing UCLA at home. (84-72 win)
    2) Reaching the Sweet 16 after barely earning an at-large bid (No. 10 seed).
    3) Developing the crucial mental game in pressure situations.

    Beyond his final junior year line -- 18.0 points, 6.2 rebounds in 37.6 minutes per game -- Budinger picked up a missing intangible that would've set his professional ceiling at "D-League All-Star” if he hadn't returned to Arizona and met those goals after his sophomore season.

    I'm no professional scout or basketball talent expert, but it's obvious that the mental part of Budinger's game was his missing component after watching two full seasons of his style. He needs confidence to knock down his jump shots.

    His ballhandling skills are much improved. Budinger can use his length and ups as an oversized 2 or 3 in the NBA. Most importantly, he can use Arizona's adversities when the don't-take-it-personal business deals go through at the professional level.

    It's been a crazy three years, symbolically parallel to a signature Arizona pool party, where students (yes of course, that includes athletes) have always showed off bronze bodies in the No. 34 jersey. Soon, a new Budinger jersey will once again be on "new items” rack. And that's something fans can be excited about.
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  • #2
    Re: Good article on Chase Budinger

    Let me have some of your tots.

    Comment

    • #3
      Re: Good article on Chase Budinger

      I'm not too impressed with Budinger. I think he's going to be a serviceable NBA player, but when he was being talked about as a first round guy, I knida rolled me eyes. Especially when folks were talking about his as being a first round pick for us. I personally don't remember the face stomp, so I looked it up. Here's the incident that fired Mr. Budinger up and was, according to the author, a turningh point for CB:

      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

      • #4
        Re: Good article on Chase Budinger

        I'd be upset if someone just foot planted themselves into my face like that, too.

        Comment

        • #5
          Re: Good article on Chase Budinger

          If someone did that to me, I'd be trying to knock his block off.

          Comment

          • #6
            Re: Good article on Chase Budinger

            I would definitely go after someone too if that were to happen to me. Not too intruigued by Chase as a player though. First I see him going late first round, but I doubt he slips into the secondround. Personally I would consider him after about #35, but that's just me.
            2012 PD ABA Fantasy Keeper League Champion, sports.ws

            2011 PD ABA Fantasy Keeper League Champion, sports.ws

            2006 PD ABA Fantasy League runner up, sports.ws

            Comment

            • #7
              Re: Good article on Chase Budinger

              If I was his teammate I'd would be ejected for breaking my knuckles on dude's face. I was suprised no blows were thrown. Those guys have more self control than I. I just as pissed watcing that now, as I was the first time I saw it.

              If we pick up a pick between 25 and 40, I wouldn't be upset if we took him. The white is what people see. People see Dunleavy 2. White people can be athletic too. Dude is way more athletic than Dun.

              Comment

              • #8
                Re: Good article on Chase Budinger

                Originally posted by EmCeE View Post
                If I was his teammate I'd would be ejected for breaking my knuckles on dude's face. I was suprised no blows were thrown. Those guys have more self control than I. I just as pissed watcing that now, as I was the first time I saw it.

                If we pick up a pick between 25 and 40, I wouldn't be upset if we took him. The white is what people see. People see Dunleavy 2. White people can be athletic too. Dude is way more athletic than Dun.
                Is that you JAX?

                Comment

                • #9
                  Re: Good article on Chase Budinger

                  POW!

                  Comment

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