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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

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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).

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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.

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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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First six hours of the free agent period is now in the books, some quick thoughts

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  • #91
    Originally posted by Kid Minneapolis View Post

    Oh ya, I feel sooo cheated by these moves, let's get the torches and pitchforks and go on a run! Get outta here, these are 1) not as bad as you think and 2) not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Top 4 team in the East, those 3 moves didn't "stop us" from going "all the way".
    I agree completely.
    Go Pacers!

    Comment


    • #92
      Originally posted by BillS View Post

      I'm not quite getting what you are saying here. We take the cap hit on the whole amount, we can just wait to do it until after we've signed FAs or taken in salary based on the $13M cap hold.

      As soon as we sign him the whole amount is counted against the cap.
      In Bogies case, we could have exceeded the cap line by roughly 5-6 million because of the early bird exception.


      Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

      Comment


      • #93
        Originally posted by docpaul View Post

        In Bogies case, we could have exceeded the cap line by roughly 5-6 million because of the early bird exception.


        Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
        Yes. You seemed to be implying that we could do it and not have it count against the cap, when all it did is give us timing.
        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


        • #94
          Originally posted by BillS View Post

          Yes. You seemed to be implying that we could do it and not have it count against the cap, when all it did is give us timing.
          I’m probably fumbling over a word or two, but all I meant to say is that Bogies exception allowed us to spend more than we had available under the cap due to his early bird exception.

          We could sign everyone we want between free agency opening to get up to the cap line (taking into account Bogies 13m cap hold) and then sign him to a 18.3 initial year #, of which 5.3 would be over the cap and into the apron between the cap and luxury tax number.

          In other words, I don’t think it was an “available $” issue. It was a “we don’t want to buy a 4th year” thing.


          Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

          Comment


          • #95
            Originally posted by docpaul View Post

            The only real difference between our supposed offer (3/53) and the Jazz's ultimate offer (4/73) was an additional year of compensation.

            When you have an early bird exception, you can compensate up to 175% of their previous last year's salary, and give annual 8% raises for up to a 4 year contract... so that equates to a first year compensation of 18,375,000 and a total compensation of 82.3 million over 4 years.

            Bogie had a cap hold of 13m. We would have been able to go over the cap up to that 18.3m number and only appreciated a practical cap hit of 13 million.

            The bottom line is: we likely didn't want to compensate for a fourth year, given Bogie's age.

            Hope that helps.
            According to a pay walled article on The Athletic from Kravitz, the FO and Bogie already had agreed to a partial salary in year 4 with Bogie and once Jazz matched with a full guarantee, Pacers backed out. That makes all of the sense in the world to me given that this time period is the true contention window.

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            • #96
              Originally posted by docpaul View Post

              According to a pay walled article on The Athletic from Kravitz, the FO and Bogie already had agreed to a partial salary in year 4 with Bogie and once Jazz matched with a full guarantee, Pacers backed out. That makes all of the sense in the world to me given that this time period is the true contention window.
              I highly, highly, highly recommend subscribing to the Athletic -

              Here is the portion about Bog.

              https://theathletic.com/1059676/2019...did-just-fine/

              Well, there’s this: I think I speak for most Pacers observers here when I say it would have been nice to get Bogdanovic to stay in Indianapolis. It’s one thing to lose him to Los Angeles or Boston or some other major market, but Utah?

              According to a source, Bogdanovic actually agreed to a deal with the Pacers that would have included a partially guaranteed contract in the fourth year, but then the Jazz sweetened the pot, added the full fourth year, and Bogey was out the door. He was just too rich for the Pacers’ blood, especially at age 30. Understandable.

              Comment


              • #97
                Originally posted by docpaul View Post

                According to a pay walled article on The Athletic from Kravitz, the FO and Bogie already had agreed to a partial salary in year 4 with Bogie and once Jazz matched with a full guarantee, Pacers backed out. That makes all of the sense in the world to me given that this time period is the true contention window.
                Meh, something still smells a little. If both sides were sincere on "I'll sign if the money's close," then I'm surprised we didn't make one final counter-offer to narrow the gap. (Remember the "extra" money we gave Jeff Foster?)


                "He’s no shrinking violet when it comes to that kind of stuff."

                - Rick Carlisle on how Kevin Pritchard responds to needed roster changes.

                Comment


                • #98
                  Originally posted by DrFife View Post

                  Meh, something still smells a little. If both sides were sincere on "I'll sign if the money's close," then I'm surprised we didn't make one final counter-offer to narrow the gap. (Remember the "extra" money we gave Jeff Foster?)
                  What if at the same time Pacers were trying to sign Bogey, the Bucks agreed to the sign and trade and we decided not to go all in on Bogey

                  Comment


                  • #99
                    Originally posted by Unclebuck View Post

                    I highly, highly, highly recommend subscribing to the Athletic -

                    Here is the portion about Bog.

                    https://theathletic.com/1059676/2019...did-just-fine/

                    Well, there’s this: I think I speak for most Pacers observers here when I say it would have been nice to get Bogdanovic to stay in Indianapolis. It’s one thing to lose him to Los Angeles or Boston or some other major market, but Utah?

                    According to a source, Bogdanovic actually agreed to a deal with the Pacers that would have included a partially guaranteed contract in the fourth year, but then the Jazz sweetened the pot, added the full fourth year, and Bogey was out the door. He was just too rich for the Pacers’ blood, especially at age 30. Understandable.
                    I would have erred on the side of keeping him and paid up, but it’s definitely understandable and a totally defensible decision from KP and the FO.

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by Unclebuck View Post

                      What if at the same time Pacers were trying to sign Bogey, the Bucks agreed to the sign and trade and we decided not to go all in on Bogey
                      Interesting possibility, but that might have increased the urgency to re-sign Bogie, given our established ties to him, the "difficulty" in attracting quality free agents to a small market like Indiana, and therefore the attraction to being closer to contention with Bogie AND Brogdon.

                      I guess we could look at incremental value. Brogdon (21M)/Rubio (14) > Bogie (18)/Warren (11)? Maybe so.


                      "He’s no shrinking violet when it comes to that kind of stuff."

                      - Rick Carlisle on how Kevin Pritchard responds to needed roster changes.

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by SaintLouisan View Post

                        I would have erred on the side of keeping him and paid up, but it’s definitely understandable and a totally defensible decision from KP and the FO.
                        There's some real grey area in just how much you are allowed to have set in stone before a player is considered signed for cap purposes. You can't for example have a promise that you'll sign someone for X amount after other FAs are signed - that's an invalid circumvention of the salary cap. I'd think once the Pacers had an agreement with Bogie they would be required to raise the amount he counted toward the cap.
                        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


                        • Originally posted by BillS View Post

                          There's some real grey area in just how much you are allowed to have set in stone before a player is considered signed for cap purposes. You can't for example have a promise that you'll sign someone for X amount after other FAs are signed - that's an invalid circumvention of the salary cap. I'd think once the Pacers had an agreement with Bogie they would be required to raise the amount he counted toward the cap.
                          That's absolutely not true at least in practice. We just saw it with Summer actually, they reached an agreement before free agency opened but it wouldn't be finalized until after free agency to maintain his tiny cap hold.

                          Another example in Pacers history was the re-signing of George Hill. Hill agreed the first day or two of the moratorium, the deal and money was reported, but the contract wasn't signed until well after other deals that were agreed to later because they were keeping his cap hold for as long as possible.

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by Cubs231721 View Post

                            That's absolutely not true at least in practice. We just saw it with Summer actually, they reached an agreement before free agency opened but it wouldn't be finalized until after free agency to maintain his tiny cap hold.

                            Another example in Pacers history was the re-signing of George Hill. Hill agreed the first day or two of the moratorium, the deal and money was reported, but the contract wasn't signed until well after other deals that were agreed to later because they were keeping his cap hold for as long as possible.
                            And yet the Bucks themselves were penalized big time for having a verbal agreement to avoid being over the cap a few years ago.

                            None of the signings can take place until the 6th. One of the hits on re-signing George Hill at the time was that it was done so quickly there was no chance to go after FAs. Same when Hibbert was re-signed.
                            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


                            • Originally posted by BillS View Post

                              And yet the Bucks themselves were penalized big time for having a verbal agreement to avoid being over the cap a few years ago.

                              None of the signings can take place until the 6th. One of the hits on re-signing George Hill at the time was that it was done so quickly there was no chance to go after FAs. Same when Hibbert was re-signed.
                              There was no more chance to go after amnestied players was the rub back then. And they weren't signed until I believe the 3rd day of free agency that year which was after the other signings that relied on their cap holds to do so, even though the Hill deal was announced first.

                              I'm not sure about the Bucks incident, can you shed more light on that so I can find that?

                              The Timberwolves got a major penalty, but they were doing something entirely different. They tried to make a secret deal where they would use a series of cheap 1 year deals to circumvent the salary cap only to promise to make it up on the back end with a massive extension once Bird rights kicked in. That's the sort of salary cap manipulation the league cares about, not the timing of deals in a single off-season.

                              Comment


                              • https://www.brightsideofthesun.com/2...tj-warren-joke

                                Lol:

                                If the value the Suns got in the T.J. Warren trade on draft night wasn’t questionable enough, ESPN’s Amin Elhassan painted the circumstances as even more damning for the Suns in a radio spot on 98.7 FM Arizona’s Sports Station on Tuesday afternoon.

                                Elhassan certainly is not one to hold back in criticizing the Suns’ organization, but this information appeared to come from the Pacers’ side or from a third party who heard about the Suns’ negotiations to trade Warren.

                                “What I heard was when Indiana got the call, ‘Hey we’ll give you T.J. and the 32nd pick,’ the Pacers thought it was a joke, they didn’t think this was a serious offer,” Elhassan said on The Burns & Gambo Show. “And when they realized it was, (Indiana said) ‘OK it has to get done now, because we’re not going to wait for you to figure out the mistake that you’re making here.’”

                                A joke. Not a serious offer. The Pacers were just as surprised at the Suns’ eagerness to get off Warren’s salary as bystanders following along on Twitter. Warren is a fine player on a decent contract. Those guys don’t get dumped. Washed up veterans making two or three times Warren’s salary are the ones we see picks thrown in to dump.

                                On draft night, it felt as if the Suns were desperate to either clear cap space or rid themselves of Warren for a reason not immediately obvious.

                                Elhassan elaborated on those previous negotiations as well, indicating the Suns may have waited too long, perhaps believing Warren was on his way back from an ankle sprain.

                                “A deal for T.J. Warren was available to them at an earlier date that did not include them giving a pick, but may have included them getting a pick for him,” Elhassan said, later mentioning that deal was there near the 2019 trade deadline.

                                The circumstances surrounding Warren’s ankle sprain are where we have to fall back when considering what went wrong in this relationship. If Warren indeed was ready to come back sooner, as Jamal Crawford indicated during his end-of-season press conference, that’s a problem. If the Suns’ lack of clarity on Warren’s return hurt their ability to get a good return on him in a trade, that’s even worse.

                                While it looks bad that the Pacers were so surprised by Phoenix’s offer, there’s reason to believe the negativity surrounding his relationship with the Suns may have impacted his trade value. The Suns did clear enough cap space to bring in Dario Saric and Aron Baynes later that night, who seem to fit their new identity better than Warren.

                                Nevertheless, the most questionable move of the Suns’ offseason thus far appears even more suspect now.

                                Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

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