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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"

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"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.

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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ESPN Insider: NBA Offseason Buzz: Teams 25-30

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  • #46
    Chocolate or Vanilla - choose. I'll take both.

    Originally posted by McKeyFan View Post
    You commend good coaching as the possible reason why we overachieved last year, yet you were elated when we traded Murphy, admitting that you never really liked his defense at all.

    Is it not contradictory to commend JOB's coaching when Murph got more minutes than just about everyone?
    No, it's not contradictory at all. The coach is hired to win, not to field the best defensive team regardless of wins. A team has to play offense as well as defense, and mostly with the same players running back and forth.

    And right to the point: you can't substitute in "defensive players" every time you lose the ball, then turn around and bring in "offensive players" when you get it back. Ideally, if you're the coach of a rebuilding team you've got a rotation's worth of players who are equally good on both ends - and, ideally, all the damnable wars and droughts in the world will stop tomorrow.

    The Pacers were undeniably a significantly better defensive team than the year before, and they were also undeniably a much better defensive team than they were an offensive team - though I've heard people deny it all the same. I guess after a certain point there's no value in disputing, and this post is not directed at them.

    You point out that "Murph got more minutes than just about everyone" - it's a useful exercise to look at who got minutes last year and how much they got (minutes per game):

    Only one player got big minutes, and that was Danny Granger. I don't recall any grumbling about his coach playing him too much. At this point, he's not a bad defensive player, and improved greatly. His coach and his PoBO say in public (gently - Bird says he's good when he's matched against a star player) that he needs to improve; of course, they want him to be a leader on both ends. They should say those things, and if the Pacers are going to contend he's got to bring it up a notch. But he plays star minutes because of his offense.

    Murphy was second, at 32.6; that's average starter's minutes, not star minutes. The fact is, only one player got a lot of minutes. The question is really not why Troy got so many minutes, the question is how the hell did they win so many games? Granger, the only star, missed twenty games; The answer is team defense.

    Third in minutes was Brandon Rush, who so far is a very limited offensive player whose strong suit is as a defensive specialist role player. Despite his limitations on the offensive end, he got 64 starts.

    Fourth was Earl Watson, who shot .426 and .288 from the arc, and was one of the most turnover-prone points in the league, worse even than T.J. Ford. It's fair to say, I think, that he more reliably ran the offense than Ford, but the big part of the reason he played was that he defends.

    Rotation minutes also went to Dahntay Jones, who like Brandon Rush is a defensive specialist with a limited offensive repertoire. He played the seventh-most minutes on the team, per game.

    We could go down the list, though in doing so you can't help but be struck by how Indiana's roster is, first of all, not blessed with a lot of offensive talent, and secondly, given that lack of offense, playing Murphy made a lot of sense. Larry Bird, for one, seems to have agreed, since he said in his postseason press conference that Murphy was in some ways their best player.

    I'm very surprised that the coaching staff doesn't get more credit for the fine job they did last season in some difficult circumstances. They had less talent available to them than the year before, more injuries, and in particular their one star missed 20 games - and they had to rely on journeymen and first- and second-year players for major minutes. That's not a recipe for success in the NBA, and it's reflected in Hollinger's ratings of the players. What is so impressive is that the team defense took a big step forward, and that doesn't happen without leadership from the coaching staff and a demand for hard work on the defensive end.

    Need better recovery to defend second shots, and need better defensive rebounding to prevent them.

    There's a lot of reason for optimism. This thing is working®.
    :
    :

    "Defense doesn't break down on the help, it breaks down on the recovery." - Chuck Daly

    "The first shot does not beat you." - Chuck Daly

    "To play defense and not foul is an art that must be mastered if you are going to be successful." - Chuck Daly

    Comment

    • #47
      Re: ESPN Insider: NBA Offseason Buzz: Teams 25-30

      Originally posted by ChicagoJ View Post
      Two years ago, the consensus preseason prediction on here was about 44 wins. Of the 90 or so predictions, less than ten of us picked the team to be under 0.500. TJ Ford was the "answer" back then.

      Three years ago, it was simlar.

      Last year, the PD poll was more of a reality-based forecast. Sure there were some that picked win totals in the upper-forties. There may have even been a couple of 50+ win totals, but the consensus was finally closer to sub-0.500 (and was probably still too high given our awful talent level last season.)
      I question that the consensus was 44.

      Let me see if I can find.

      Not much luck, must either be lost or maybe it was bumped and not in order.

      I did find this from 3 seasons ago.

      http://www.pacersdigest.com/showthread.php?t=33796
      Last edited by Unclebuck; 08-24-2010, 02:13 PM.

      Comment

      • #48
        Re: ESPN Insider: NBA Offseason Buzz: Teams 25-30

        Originally posted by ChicagoJ View Post
        Hollinger doesn't have time to watch basketball games. He's too busy trying to work up a new formula to support his latest crackpot theory. The game itself doesn't matter, its only a way to fill up a boxscore so that he can test his various looney theories.

        I just can't decide if Hollinger is that stupid, or if he's just nuts. Either way, I blame ESPN for keeping him employed and putting his garbage on what is being touted as a "legitimate" news site.
        The last sentence kind of makes me giggle a little bit. I always suspected that ESPN steers him towards his "crackpot theories". They tell him what they want, and he does his best to accomodate them. I highly doubt Hollinger uses ESPN as a vehicle for his mad science, I think it is the other way around. Advanced statistical theories are all the rage in the NBA right now, and ESPN just wants to get in on it.

        This is not to say that I agree with all of Hollinger's methods and results; I rarely look at his Power Rankings and I don't put a lot of stock into PER. But if you sift through his stuff, you will find a lot of useful things. He's not always right, but I do get the impression that he watches quite a bit of basketball and knows what he's talking about. It's his job to back up his statistical methods, so of course he is going to defend them the way he does.

        Comment

        • #49
          Re: ESPN Insider: NBA Offseason Buzz: Teams 25-30

          Originally posted by ChicagoJ View Post
          Did you leave out the green font?

          If he even watched 10 games a season, he'd realize just how stupid he makes himself appear with his math-nerd approach to analyzing box scores.

          They should refer to him as a boxscore analyst, not a basketball analyst.
          Lets ignore the fact that he tweeted about at least 10 games he watched live courtside during the season. Or the entire Portland playoff series. Or anything. People like Hollinger are more necessary in the current basketball field since it leads to winning- and if it takes people like him to get the data revolution mainstream then so be it.

          This Hollinger hate and bashing is ridiculous. The guy is a wizard who had a pretty good stats system and is pretty accurate as far as I am concerned.


          As for our starting lineup, this whole lets play wing X at the traditional four is kinda funny. For years we have been pining for Murphy to play as a traditional four. And now that he's gone we ask to insert Granger/McBob/George, all non-traditional fours, and then all of a sudden a non traditional four is a good thing. Yay us!

          But in all seriousness McRoberts is sadly probably our starting four. Unless we want to get cute with a Coll/Rush/Dun/Grang/Hibby lineup.

          Comment

          • #50
            Re: ESPN Insider: NBA Offseason Buzz: Teams 25-30

            Originally posted by Peck View Post
            Not named Pacers Digest.
            That was the best site

            Comment

            • #51
              Re: ESPN Insider: NBA Offseason Buzz: Teams 25-30

              Originally posted by flox View Post
              As for our starting lineup, this whole lets play wing X at the traditional four is kinda funny. For years we have been pining for Murphy to play as a traditional four. And now that he's gone we ask to insert Granger/McBob/George, all non-traditional fours, and then all of a sudden a non traditional four is a good thing. Yay us!
              I'm not a big fan of Murphy. But I liked him in that lineup/ situation much better than, say, Foster -- a guy who's detrimental impact on the offense would not offset the somewhat better defense -- especially since rebounding (at least statistically speaking) was neutral. Murphy's big problem is that he produces good statistics while helping the other team even more than he helps his own team. Like Shareef and Clark Kellogg back in the their days, too.

              Other than that, I'd pictured you as having more "experience" and a better understanding of the four-out. Tell you what, the next time you see Hollinger at a court-side publicility stunt, have him diagram a few plays from the four-out for you. That ought to be fun to watch.

              Meanwhile, I'll assume that if ESPN put Hollinger court-side that it was like seeing Mark Cuban working at a Dairy Queen. ESPN was getting the heat about Hollinger's moronic theories and formulas since it was obvious to those of us watching the games that he didn't watch games so --viola-- he's courtside! Whoopee.
              Why do the things that we treasure most, slip away in time
              Till to the music we grow deaf, to God's beauty blind
              Why do the things that connect us slowly pull us apart?
              Till we fall away in our own darkness, a stranger to our own hearts
              And life itself, rushing over me
              Life itself, the wind in black elms,
              Life itself in your heart and in your eyes, I can't make it without you

              Comment

              • #52
                Re: ESPN Insider: NBA Offseason Buzz: Teams 25-30

                Originally posted by Unclebuck View Post
                That was the best site
                The demise of that site was one of the reasons I went searching for a new source of info right around the time that PD was getting started. Chad Ford's daily summary of all published news and rumors, indexed by team, was outstanding. He wasn't even a sportswriter back then. Just a guy with a great search engine that could accumulate all the good stuff into one location.

                I'll never forget finding the JO-Dale Davis trade on that site first, probably 30-60 minutes before it showed up on Pacers.com, IndyStar.com, or even ESPN.com. As I recall, he got it from a Portland news feed.
                Why do the things that we treasure most, slip away in time
                Till to the music we grow deaf, to God's beauty blind
                Why do the things that connect us slowly pull us apart?
                Till we fall away in our own darkness, a stranger to our own hearts
                And life itself, rushing over me
                Life itself, the wind in black elms,
                Life itself in your heart and in your eyes, I can't make it without you

                Comment

                • #53
                  Re: ESPN Insider: NBA Offseason Buzz: Teams 25-30

                  Originally posted by ChicagoJ View Post
                  I'm not a big fan of Murphy. But I liked him in that lineup/ situation much better than, say, Foster -- a guy who's detrimental impact on the offense would not offset the somewhat better defense -- especially since rebounding (at least statistically speaking) was neutral.
                  Somewhat better defense?

                  Jeff gonna slap you silly.
                  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

                  • #54
                    Re: ESPN Insider: NBA Offseason Buzz: Teams 25-30

                    I don't consider "fronting the post" to be good defense. That's UB's position, not mine. Jeff can slap me silly all he wants. But that's after I take the lob pass over him, and score an uncontested layup or even better -- draw a foul from the weakside defender that's left cleaning up his mess.

                    Why do the things that we treasure most, slip away in time
                    Till to the music we grow deaf, to God's beauty blind
                    Why do the things that connect us slowly pull us apart?
                    Till we fall away in our own darkness, a stranger to our own hearts
                    And life itself, rushing over me
                    Life itself, the wind in black elms,
                    Life itself in your heart and in your eyes, I can't make it without you

                    Comment

                    • #55
                      Re: Chocolate or Vanilla - choose. I'll take both.

                      Originally posted by O'Bird View Post
                      No, it's not contradictory at all. The coach is hired to win, not to field the best defensive team regardless of wins. A team has to play offense as well as defense, and mostly with the same players running back and forth.

                      And right to the point: you can't substitute in "defensive players" every time you lose the ball, then turn around and bring in "offensive players" when you get it back. Ideally, if you're the coach of a rebuilding team you've got a rotation's worth of players who are equally good on both ends - and, ideally, all the damnable wars and droughts in the world will stop tomorrow.

                      The Pacers were undeniably a significantly better defensive team than the year before, and they were also undeniably a much better defensive team than they were an offensive team - though I've heard people deny it all the same. I guess after a certain point there's no value in disputing, and this post is not directed at them.

                      You point out that "Murph got more minutes than just about everyone" - it's a useful exercise to look at who got minutes last year and how much they got (minutes per game):

                      Only one player got big minutes, and that was Danny Granger. I don't recall any grumbling about his coach playing him too much. At this point, he's not a bad defensive player, and improved greatly. His coach and his PoBO say in public (gently - Bird says he's good when he's matched against a star player) that he needs to improve; of course, they want him to be a leader on both ends. They should say those things, and if the Pacers are going to contend he's got to bring it up a notch. But he plays star minutes because of his offense.

                      Murphy was second, at 32.6; that's average starter's minutes, not star minutes. The fact is, only one player got a lot of minutes. The question is really not why Troy got so many minutes, the question is how the hell did they win so many games? Granger, the only star, missed twenty games; The answer is team defense.

                      Third in minutes was Brandon Rush, who so far is a very limited offensive player whose strong suit is as a defensive specialist role player. Despite his limitations on the offensive end, he got 64 starts.

                      Fourth was Earl Watson, who shot .426 and .288 from the arc, and was one of the most turnover-prone points in the league, worse even than T.J. Ford. It's fair to say, I think, that he more reliably ran the offense than Ford, but the big part of the reason he played was that he defends.

                      Rotation minutes also went to Dahntay Jones, who like Brandon Rush is a defensive specialist with a limited offensive repertoire. He played the seventh-most minutes on the team, per game.

                      We could go down the list, though in doing so you can't help but be struck by how Indiana's roster is, first of all, not blessed with a lot of offensive talent, and secondly, given that lack of offense, playing Murphy made a lot of sense. Larry Bird, for one, seems to have agreed, since he said in his postseason press conference that Murphy was in some ways their best player.

                      I'm very surprised that the coaching staff doesn't get more credit for the fine job they did last season in some difficult circumstances. They had less talent available to them than the year before, more injuries, and in particular their one star missed 20 games - and they had to rely on journeymen and first- and second-year players for major minutes. That's not a recipe for success in the NBA, and it's reflected in Hollinger's ratings of the players. What is so impressive is that the team defense took a big step forward, and that doesn't happen without leadership from the coaching staff and a demand for hard work on the defensive end.

                      Need better recovery to defend second shots, and need better defensive rebounding to prevent them.

                      There's a lot of reason for optimism. This thing is working®.
                      :
                      O'Bird,

                      The following are serious, honest questions that I would like your insights on. Plainly, you spend substantial time following the team at the very least, and are capable of expressing complex thoughts in your writing, and despite my previous rants in your direction, I do value your views on the franchise.

                      In your opinion, what do we, as jaded Pacers fans who don't share your vision, need to focus on to see the defensive improvements that you refer to?

                      Also, why did the team seem to come around somewhat when Danny went down with his injury after his plantar fascia finally ruptured, and then seemed to gel down the stretch even in a few games that, despite conventional wisdom, still held meaning at times for a few teams involved due to their playoff implications for the opposition, other than Danny getting healthier?

                      And, why do you believe that the Pacers are stronger defensively than they are offensively? And, what do you believe the team needs to do to improve offensively beyond individual players working on individual skills, in an effort to execute the offense more effectively than it has been during the last three years? Do you believe that we will see improvement this year, and, if so, why?

                      Also, with the coaching staff having done such a fine job given the adversities the franchise has faced, why has there been a seemingly high turnover rate amongst the ranks of the assistant coaches during this offseason?

                      A more educated fanbase would probably be a more satisfied and understanding fanbase, and perhaps it is a worthwhile effort to more fully explain why things have taken the course they have, which has been, in the opinion of many here, divergent from conventional wisdom with respect to a rebuilding franchise for the last three years. If "This thing is working®", please let us in on why you truly believe that. We want to believe, we just haven't seen things the same way you have for the most part.

                      Also, please share with us your vision of what we should expect to see changing as the next year unfolds to further improve on the successes that have, in your opinion, been achieved thus far, and what you would like to see from a talent improvement standpoint that has not already occurred, and whether you believe that our current young players can develop into any of the future talent needs of the franchise based on your personal observations.

                      Thank you in advance for any views that you would like to share regarding my queries above.

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                      • #56
                        Re: ESPN Insider: NBA Offseason Buzz: Teams 25-30

                        Originally posted by Day-V View Post
                        Am I the only one who REALLY doesn't like the idea of Danny playing the 4?
                        No I agree, there are only certain situations and match-ups where it would be a good idea.

                        Originally posted by ChicagoJ View Post
                        We've got plenty of forwards.

                        Granger, Dunleavy, Posey, George will take most of the minutes at both forward positions, and if we need to play a "bigger" guy then Tyler or Jeff will hopefully be available.

                        I'd be surprised if McBob plays in more than 30 games -- barring injury. We've got pretty good depth at forward, especially once George is ready to play (and play forward, not guard.)
                        No we have plenty of SF's. If Foster and Hans are healthy we have plenty of forwards, and decent depth because our depth will be just as good as the starter. Although our starter won't be a starting quality player.

                        Before you go off on a tangent about how I'm using out dated terminology, I'm calling your bull****. If you look at the teams that are winning championships they still use the traditional line-up as their main line-up. It is those teams that do great in the regular season but fizz out in the playoffs that use this new idea of playing a SF at the PF position. This "out dated" idea of what a SF and PF are has proven to be the only system that consistently works no matter what year it is.

                        Yes it would be nice to have a PF who can play as a SF as long as he is a strong PF first. The same goes for a SF. Very few players fit that bill, and the Pacers don't have any of them.

                        Originally posted by BlueNGold View Post
                        The addition of Collison at PG makes our PF position look much worse.
                        As long as JOB actually plays the PF's that are on the team I disagree. I think our PF position was much worse with Murphy than without him. With McBob, Foster, and Hans we will actually have true PFs playing the PF position.

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                        • #57
                          Re: ESPN Insider: NBA Offseason Buzz: Teams 25-30

                          The Troy Murphy debate is silly. He was clearly one of our best options to play significant minutes last year, and the few years before that as well. He is a solid basketball player, but the things we need out of that position are not what he provided us. We don't need outside shooting from our fourth man. We need defense and rebounding. We need some better lateral quickness to keep guys out of the lane. Troy would get abused by PF's who were capable of abusing him in the post. Troy is not a good defender in any aspect of the game. It makes it difficult when your second highest minutes per game player is a one-dimensional player. That has been my whole point. He is a great backup player for a much better team. We have way too many one-way players that our team won't be good until Danny, Brandon, Hibby, Hans, etc. all make the improvements necessary on both ends of the court.

                          I completely disagree with J in that "fronting the post" isn't important. Fronting the post and staying between your man and the basket while pressuring him away from the rim is really important. Jeff has lost a step, don't get me wrong, but his defense and overall game are clearly on the decline. Jeff has always been a fundamentally solid post defender. His technique and fundamentals in the post have allowed him to stay in the league this long. If our more athletic PFs could adapt their fundamental post defense to be similar to what Jeff's was, then we will at least be maximizing our defensive capabilities of the players we have. Also, the traditional four is an absolute necessity if you want to be a power house with a chance to win. Point out Orlando all you want, but Dwight Howard does the work of two men at center. Look at the best teams, Boston and LA. Both have big centers and big power forwards who all play good defense and rebound the hell out of the ball.

                          The long and short of it is that I think O'Bird was right on most of his points. I have said a lot of the things he said prior to now, typically in defense of Unclebuck. The one thing I will disagree on, which is mostly opinion, was that our defense last year was better than our offense. O'Bird, who seems to be a masked man of sorts, knows more about the inside workings of our team more than he or she lets on. It almost seems as though he/she is an apologist for our coach. I don't dislike Jim O'Brien, but he seems to prioritize the wrong things. Our team has been so far from playoff contention and if this has been such a huge realization only now, then why does the lack of talent get the blame? Why were they playing the veterans so much when they knew it wasn't good enough? It seems as though the talent level gets blamed so much that I don't understand why they wouldn't have gone away from our lack of talent sooner in a rebuild? I think you can't sit there and blame the talent for not winning games when you continue to use the same line-ups in a losing cause.

                          The funny thing is that I have always thought that we have to play to win the games. Every game. But at the same time, what was better in the short term was obviously much much different than what was good in the long term. We sucked in the short term, so why the delay in giving McRoberts even 20% more minutes than he was getting? There were so many times when young guys get pulled for letting their man blow by them, yet Troy gets to stay in after doing the same thing. It just is hypocritical of the people defending the coaching staff with "there was a lack of talent" during a rebuilding process.
                          Last edited by pacergod2; 08-25-2010, 10:26 AM.
                          "Your course, your path, is not going to be like mine," West says. "Everybody is not called to be a multimillionaire. Everybody's not called to be the president. Whatever your best work is, you do it. Do it well. … You cease your own greatness when you aspire to be someone else."

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                          • #58
                            Re: ESPN Insider: NBA Offseason Buzz: Teams 25-30

                            Originally posted by pacergod2 View Post
                            I completely disagree with J in that "fronting the post" isn't important. Fronting the post and staying between your man and the basket while pressuring him away from the rim is really important.
                            Those aren't the same thing. I agree with your last phrase - "pressuring him away from the rim is really important".

                            But that's playing behind the post, not fronting the post.

                            If you're fronting the post, simple geometry and laws of science say you can't be both in front of and behind the post player at the same time. So that requires weakside help to keep the player away from the rim.

                            Foster would famously bother Tim Duncan for a few plays by fronting him. Eventually, Pop would take the ball out of Parker's hands and let a taller player (Manu, Finley, Horry, etc.) drop a couple of passes over Foster's head and to the rim so that Duncan would get an uncontested dunk.

                            I'm okay with fronting the post as a gimmick. It works in short spurts. It should not be the primary way you defend the post.

                            I've never felt that Foster was very good at defending the post, but he was excellent at fronting the post in short spurts. Yes, I know that a substantial portion of PD became convinced that Foster was finally good at playing post defense during O'Brien's first year, but I took a long hiatus from professional basketball during that season so I remember the rest of Foster's career -- when he was a below-average post defender -- much better.
                            Why do the things that we treasure most, slip away in time
                            Till to the music we grow deaf, to God's beauty blind
                            Why do the things that connect us slowly pull us apart?
                            Till we fall away in our own darkness, a stranger to our own hearts
                            And life itself, rushing over me
                            Life itself, the wind in black elms,
                            Life itself in your heart and in your eyes, I can't make it without you

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                            • #59
                              Re: ESPN Insider: NBA Offseason Buzz: Teams 25-30

                              Originally posted by ChicagoJ View Post
                              I don't consider "fronting the post" to be good defense. That's UB's position, not mine. Jeff can slap me silly all he wants. But that's after I take the lob pass over him, and score an uncontested layup or even better -- draw a foul from the weakside defender that's left cleaning up his mess.

                              We've discussed this before. But even when Jeff doesn't front the post Jeff is an excellent defender. Quick hands, quick feet, quick reaction to the ball.

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                              • #60
                                Re: ESPN Insider: NBA Offseason Buzz: Teams 25-30

                                [QUOTE]
                                Originally posted by Unclebuck View Post
                                It is true the Pacers, especially the past 2 seasons, have generally done better than what most national experts have expected them to do. All of you are suggesting that the "experts" have just been wrong. I have argued that maybe coaching has actually gotten the Pacers to overachieve a little


                                They have done much better? by how many wins? 2? 5? the experts did not expected the Pacers to make it to the playoffs and they were right.

                                If you tell me that the experts did not expected the Pacers to be in the playoffs and they made it then you can say they were wrong.
                                @WhatTheFFacts: Studies show that sarcasm enhances the ability of the human mind to solve complex problems!

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