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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.
A quick note to new members: Your posts will not immediately show up when you make them. An administrator has to approve at least your first post before the forum software will later upgrade your account to the status of a fully-registered member. This usually happens within a couple of hours or so after your post(s) is/are approved, so you may need to be a little patient at first.
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.
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.
A quick note to new members: Your posts will not immediately show up when you make them. An administrator has to approve at least your first post before the forum software will later upgrade your account to the status of a fully-registered member. This usually happens within a couple of hours or so after your post(s) is/are approved, so you may need to be a little patient at first.
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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Yeah if the 8 seeded Knicks were able to come out of the East in 1999, then I’m pretty sure Jordan and Pippen could have lol. -
I watched all four episodes last night. Wow. What an excellent special.Comment
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I had to rewind the clip with the Lakers and Sam Perkins. I saw Perkins didn’t and though the big smoothe only shot 3 pointers
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Also. That Kenny Mayne SC commercial. Holy
. I had to rewind and rewatch the commercial.
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I LOVE the trivia between commercials. However one thing I think they could have done differently. How about do a question at the start of a commercial break then come back from the break with the answerComment
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Rob Perez✔@WorldWideWob
if you ever question how good Rodman was at basketball just remember he had MICHAEL JORDAN running around Las Vegas looking for him like a scene from The Hangover.
113K
5:03 AM - Apr 27, 2020Comment
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“One day when the Bulls had an off day from practicing, Dennis said he had a surprise for me,” she said. “He blindfolds me and we get on his motorcycle. When he finally takes my blindfold off, we’re standing at the Bulls practice facility, center court. It was crazy, like two kids in a candy store. We were eating Popsicles from the fridge and pretty much having sex all over the damn place — in the physical therapy room, in the weight room. Obviously on the court.”
She bursts out laughing. “To be honest, I don’t think he’s ever worked out so hard in his life.”https://www.latimes.com/entertainmen...el-jordan-espnElectra remembered feeling nervous when the Bulls faced off against the Indiana Pacers in a seven-game series in the Eastern Conference finals. “If Dennis didn’t have a good game, if the Bulls didn’t win, it would reflect back on me in a sense. We were both so out there.”Comment
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MJ when the Scottie game 7 "migraine" was brought up.
He really was not buying that story at allComment
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How did Reggie get ejected and Jordan did not?
EDIT: from after the game
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...552-story.htmlLast edited by vapacersfan; 04-29-2020, 07:06 AM.Comment
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Dream Team architect Rod Thorn: Michael Jordan never discussed Isiah Thomas
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/...d-isiah-thomas
Isiah Thomas is still upset at being left off the Dream Team and recently said he would be even more disappointed if Michael Jordan helped influence his omission from the roster.
But Rod Thorn, a longtime NBA executive who played a key role in assembling the Dream Team roster for the 1992 Olympics, denied ever speaking with Jordan about keeping Thomas off the team.
"There was never anything in my conversation with [Jordan] that had to do with Isiah Thomas, period," Thorn said Wednesday during an interview with ESPN's Golic & Wingo. "He said, 'I'll do it.' ... Isiah's name never came up during that conversation. And he never backtracked and said he didn't want to do it from that time on, to those of us in the NBA office.
"Now, if that in fact happened, then it happened with somebody else; because when I talked to him, he ended up saying he would definitely do it."
Thomas reflected on his relationship with Jordan during a series of interviews Monday, one day after Episode 3 of the ESPN docuseries "The Last Dance" focused on the rivalry between Thomas' Detroit Pistons and Jordan's Chicago Bulls in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Thomas told ESPN's Get Up that he has paid a "heavy price" for refusing the shake hands with Jordan and the Bulls after the 1991 Eastern Conference finals and said he would be extremely disappointed if the infamous snub was a factor in his omission from the Dream Team.
"I thought I should've made that Dream Team," Thomas said Monday. "However, I wasn't a part of it -- that hurt me.
"Looking back, if I'm not a part of the Dream Team because a lapse in emotion in terms of not shaking someone's hand -- if that's the reason why I didn't make the Dream Team, then I am more disappointed today than I was back then when I wasn't selected."
Thorn was a member of the selection committee for the Dream Team, which rolled to the gold medal at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.
He said he personally called Jordan and that Thomas never was brought up in their conversation. He also said no other players on the Dream Team mentioned Thomas to him.
"My conversation with Michael was strictly about Michael, about Michael playing," Thorn said. "Obviously, the committee was hopeful that Michael would play, because he was the No. 1 player in the league at that time and the No. 1 player in the world and the most popular player in the world at that time.
"But he didn't say anything to me about [Thomas], and I certainly had no reason to bring it up either."
Thorn was asked why Thomas was not on the roster, assuming Jordan had no input.
"That's a good question, because Isiah was a great player, a fantastic player," Thorn said. "There was some controversy with the Pistons regarding not shaking hands with the Bulls -- there was some bad blood, obviously, there. ... But when we ended up going with the first 10 guys, he did not end up making the team."
Thorn also mentioned James Worthy, Reggie Miller and Dominique Wilkins as notable NBA stars who did not make the Dream Team, saying the selection committee had a "long list of players that we initially looked at."
Thorn was the Bulls' general manager from 1978 to 1985 and oversaw the team's selection of Jordan in the 1984 draft. He said Jordan initially balked at participating in the 1992 Games.
"I was the guy that called Jordan," Thorn said. "And when I called Jordan, his first inclination was he didn't know if he wanted to play or not -- because, as he said, 'I played on an Olympic team before' with Bobby Knight in Los Angeles. ... And so we continued the conversation, and at the end of the conversation, he said, 'You know something? I'll do it.'"Comment
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cut the crap!!! Isiah won two straight champion should been three.
Larry's got bad bad bad bad back injury and yet was in the dream team. Bird's my favorite player but he got in as a figurehead with magic and european not yet a competition back then.
and thorn will say they also conisdered worthy, wilkins and miller. A lot of bull talk !!! Just like the chicago drama crybaby bulls.
Why this executive and david stern keep on protectting this overrated greatest crap of all time.Last edited by edc; 04-30-2020, 10:09 AM.Comment
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Originally posted by vapacersfan View Post
How did Reggie get ejected and Jordan did not?
EDIT: from after the game
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...552-story.html
I think Reggie says in his book that Jordan later did a suspension, IIRC. He gives the whole backstory for that fight in his book.Comment
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I really need to get that book (side note: mail has not been running here for 45 days. I cant wait to be able to order Amazon again). From the article:
Michael Jordan, victim?
That's hardly the way anyone can describe a man who is arguably the world's most popular athlete.
But as the Bulls took on New York without Jordan, who was suspended for Friday night's game by the NBA for a fight Wednesday night with Indiana's Reggie Miller, that issue was being debated.
Jordan was not ejected from the Indiana game; Miller was. So did the NBA overreact to preclude criticism that Jordan had benefited from a double standard?
"That's a bunch of hogwash," said NBA operations director Rod Thorn. "Since the times I played (in the 1960s), you've seen in the press and seen players quoted about players who were great players. What are you supposed to do? Give a handicap to players who are not as good?"
No, says Bulls coach Phil Jackson, but he feels there's no need for what he termed "a makeup call." He claimed Thorn's ruling made Jordan "a scapegoat."
"I think the league was perhaps swayed by Reggie Miller and (Pacers coach) Bob Hill's statement that this is clearly a sign of favoritism," said Jackson. "Size-wise, the referees are not capable of seeing in a melee like that.
"In the process, Michael has to take the brunt of the blame, and I don't think it was his fault at all. Reggie Miller was obviously the guy who was instigating the action throughout the game, and it was unfortunate it came down the way it did. I think it was a misstatement by the league."
The statement the league made Friday morning was that Jordan would be fined $10,000 and suspended for one game for being the aggressor. Suspensions must be served immediately.
"Michael was the bigger aggressor of the two," Thorn said. "He threw a punch that landed, and anytime you do that, you're going to get suspended. It's cut and dried."
Miller was fined $6,000 but not suspended. The Pacers pointed out that Miller, in effect, had served a suspension by being booted out of Wednesday's game in the first quarter while Jordan stayed and scored 40 points in the Bulls' victory.
Jordan also lost one game's salary, which amounts to about $48,000. That goes to charity. All the other players from both teams were fined $500 each for leaving the bench during the fight.
Varying explanations of what happened have been heard. The Bulls say Miller tripped Jordan on a fast break. It was clear that Jordan elbowed Miller in the neck on the play immediately preceding the fight, Thorn said.
The teams then went down to the other end and Miller tipped in a miss by Pooh Richardson, then bumped Jordan while Jordan was out of bounds. Jordan responded with an attack in which he clearly scratched Miller across the face. But replays were inconclusive as to whether Jordan's punch, which he admitted throwing, had landed. Thorn said that in his view, Jordan's punch clearly had landed.
Jordan's violent reaction shocked many close to him. The notion is that his temper has become shorter, like a person with little sleep, because of the load of minutes he's playing this season on top of his Olympic stint and the Bulls' accumulation of 82 playoff games in the last five seasons.
But the sticky issue over the suspension was whether the league was suspending Jordan to show it can be fair.
The NBA had been criticized for letting Jordan off so lightly in his gambling activities last year and implicitly suggesting that referees turn the other way.
It appeared Wednesday's crew did just that in missing Jordan's punch. But that's not so uncommon, said Thorn, who fined New York's Charles Oakley this season for a flagrant foul that wasn't called and Charlotte's Larry Johnson for a punch that no official saw.
"What happens on the court is not in slow motion, and they (referees) don't have the benefit of instant replay," Thorn said. "I don't find it beyond the realm of belief that these things won't be seen."
But Jackson found it beyond reason that Jordan should be punished so severely and so swiftly.
"He (Thorn) makes it sound so simple," said Jackson. "But it's not that simple. I'm very upset with the way they stated it. To say he was the aggressor is beyond my understanding. I was there, and I saw who the aggressor was. Certainly Miller's fine should have at least been the same if he was the aggressor, which is the way I saw it.
"Perhaps the suspension should have waited until the next time we play Indiana. That would clearly make it a more equitable situation. But the league wants to make sure it metes out the punishment without regard as to who the opponent is.
"The fact that Michael is a scapegoat is unfortunate."Comment
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Why is Steve Kerr in the official ESPN poster board alongside Jordan/Pippen/Rodman/Jackson? I don’t think his fame was quite up there with the other three at the time. That would be like putting Ron Harper or Luc Longley in it. Or putting Kurt Rambis on a poster with Magic/Kareem/Worthy/Riley. If anyone would deserve that spot it would be Kukoc because he was a pretty big contributor by that point. The poster makes it seem like Kerr former the Beatles with Jordan/Pippen/Rodman.
Last edited by Sollozzo; 05-01-2020, 08:45 AM.Comment
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https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/...oughest-game-7
Good read. What could/SHOULD have been ……...AS THE INDIANA PACERS sat at their lockers in Chicago moments before Game 7 of the 1998 Eastern Conference finals, Larry Bird, in his first year as coach, strode to the center of the room to address them.
Bird was not big on speeches. The Pacers had done their work in practices and film sessions. All that was left was to execute.Bird scanned the room. "Forget the X's and O's," he said. "Let's go out there and kick some ***."
"We looked at each other like, 'Wow!'" Antonio Davis, then a backup big, recalled.
"We jumped up like, 'Hell, yeah!'" said Jalen Rose, a backup wing. "That's Larry Legend!"
The Pacers' leadership -- Bird, Reggie Miller, and Mark Jackson -- had projected calm in the 48 hours after Indiana squeaked out Game 6 at home, forcing the Bulls into only their second elimination game in six title runs. (They won the first -- Game 7 of the second round against the New York Knicks in 1992 -- by 29 points.) Miller and Jackson urged teammates: Don't prepare any differently just because this is Game 7. We are prepared already.
"That was huge for me to hear," Antonio Davis said, "because I was scared s---less."Comment
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