History is repeating itself

Let's get right to the point: The Pacers make me sick. They make me want to drive my car off of a burning bridge without a life vest while having my eyes poked out by midget Mongolians.

If you haven't noticed, the Pacers have been blowing more leads than a rookie detective. Another one happened last night in Dallas as we blew a seven-point with under three minutes to go. Disgusting.

Now the ol' Blue and Gold have a 5-8 record and currently sit 13th in the Eastern Conference (that's out of 15 teams, which by the way brings up the interesting point of the how the balance of depth has shifted from the West to the East, the Pacers would currently be 10th in the West). Anyways, as I drove from the airport yesterday, I searched my inner self to find some sort of consolation in this terrible start to the season. At last...I found it.

I thought back to my preseason comparison of the 08-09 Pacers to the 93-94 Pacers (I never wrote this despite spending countless hours in my Middle English class thinking about it). I put off the comparison because Bo's comparison to Major League seemingly fit so well. But now with the team spiriling towards the depths of a Harrowing Hell (see! I did pay attention during a five-minute stretch in that class) I needed to conjure up that comparison again.

A quick look at the Pacers media guide revealed a striking revelation. The 93-94 Pacers started the season with...wait for it...wait for it...ok...keep going...here it is...a 5-8 record. Yeah, crazy. I know. So here comes my argument of how the 08-09 Pacers will rebound from this atrocious start and come 30 seconds shy of being Eastern Conference champions.

The Coach
Both teams have old white guys as coaches as the 93-94 team (now called "Reggie's team") had Larry Brown and the 08-09 team (now called "Who's team?") has Jim O'Brien. Neither coach had a problem calling players out and telling the media that the team sucks. Also, they're both white.

The Star Factor
Heading into the 1993 season, Reggie Miller was NOT yet the franchise player of this team. In fact, according to Conrad Brunner's book Boom Baby, Brown called Miller and former Sixth Man of the Year winner (twice baby) Detlef Schrempf into his office and tried to decide which one he wanted to be the leader of the team and which one to trade. He decided to trade Schrempf right when the season started. Miller averaged 21 ppg the season before and Schrempf averaged 19. Now, Miller had been an All-Star once already, but according to Brunner he was always being called out for "disappearing in the fourth quarter." Brown challenged Reggie to be a leader that season (a role that had been Chuck Person's before he was traded in 1992). Sound familiar?

The "Who's team?" was called out during the offseason by O'Brien saying the team had no leader. Danny Granger seemed like the logical choice to step into that role. Granger (20 ppg) and Mike Dunleavy (19 ppg) shared that role last season, but Dunleavy's lingering injury that has him out indefinitely has put the cabash on him contributing (kind of like being traded...yeah you're getting it). So Granger, who is being criticized for not showing up the fourth and keeping the team from blowing these leads, is in a familar role that Reggie was that season.

The other players
There's some other glaring similarities between players and some glaring differences as well. You've got Haywoode Woorkman look-a-like Jarret Jack; the poorman's Rik Smits in Rasho Nesterovic; the defensive-stopper Derrick McKey in Brandon "Wildthing" Rush. Obviously not every player can be matched up, but the key is that the 93-94 team had a lot of depth in role players and so does the 08-09 team, but that's only shown when O'Brien steps out of his 8-man rotation.

The season
The 93-94 team started the season 5-8. That you know. They would drop to 5-10 heading into a Dec. 7 game against Sacramento. Something big happened before that game, however, that is a HUGE difference between the teams: the signing of veteran Byron Scott. He would ultimately be the catalyst for them advancing out of the first round in team history, but his signing didn't initially boost the team. The Pacers stumbled in January with a 10-16 record while riding a five-game losing streak. Another five-game losing streak ended January with a 16-23 record.

Then Feburary happened. The team lost two games during the entire month to start March with a 29-25 record. So there's your difference. What happened in Feburary? I thought you'd never ask.

Brunner writes that Brown entered Feburary planning out how the team would change in the offseason and he was scouting players for their certain lottery pick. "I thought maybe this would be a blessing. We'll take a step back, get a real good draft pick, and then - boom - be ready to take off," Brown said. The big 3 that season were Miller, Smits and McKey. Smits had been a bust up to that season (a No. 2 draft pick wasted) and then he came alive along with the other two (McKey was picked up in the Schrempf trade). Also, the Davis boys came alive. Dale Davis finally stepped into a dominating role as a bruiser at power forward and Antonio Davis (an unknown 2nd round pick who played two years in Europe) became the team's seventh-man (behind Scott) to provide a powerful punch with Double D.

That team would go on to roll off eight-straight wins heading into the postseason; finish wiht a 47-35 record; sweep Shaq's No. 4 Magic in the first round; trounce the No. 1 Hawks in the second round; and then come up short in a controversial game seven against the Knicks.

The differences
1. Point guards: This year's team has by far and away better point guards than the 93-94 team. It was their achilles heel. Pooh Richardson started the season but was benched for Workman who just wasn't meant to be a starter. That offseason, the Pacers would acquire Mark Jackson. The 08-09 team has T.J. Ford, Jarret Jack, Travis Diener and Jamaal Tinsley in a back room somewhere. So that's good for the 08-09 team.

2. The Davis boys: The 08-09 team is seriously lacking players like the Davis boys. Dale and Anotonio became vital as they played smash-mouth ball that could only be matched by the Knicks. This year's team has Troy Murphy at power forward. Big difference.

3. Byron Scott: The addition of Scott to that 93-94 team was critical. His leadership helped young Reggie step into his future persona. Brown reguarly turned to Scott for help on the team. Scott also hit the game-winning 3-pointer to win Game 1 against Orlando in the first round, and then he hit two free throws to help win Game 2. Scott is hard for the 08-09 team to duplicate.

4. The lowly Eastern Conference: They first year without Jordan helped the Pacers. No team was a shoo-in to win the conference and the fact that the Hawks won it shows how topsy-turvy it was. The Bulls and Knicks beat each other up in the semifinals, while the Pacers got the Hawks. That helped. This year's East has the defending NBA champs, the next MVP's Cavs and those damn Pistons. The East is about 20 times deeper than in 93-94.

5. Welcome to the spotlight Reggie Miller: The guy who shied away in the fourth would never do that again. He had such a good season that he ended up nabbing a roster spot on the '94 Dream Team. He also had some playoff heroics including scoring 11 straight poitns in the final quarter of Game Two against Orlando, then he had his monster 25 point fourth quarter outburst in Game Five at New York in the infamous "choke" game. Will Granger step up and actually be useful in the fourth quarter? On Tuesday night, Granger shot an extremely contested jumper on one possession and then charged on the next when the Pacers needed a desperate score to stay alive in the final minutes. O'Brien said they ran iso plays for Granger in the situation. It failed miserably.

Although I'd love to convince myself that the 08-09 Pacers are the second coming of the 93-94 Pacers, I'm afraid I just can't believe it. The old Pacers had been to the playoffs the four previous years. The new Pacers haven't been in three years. The old Pacers had what turned out to be the best clutch shooter in NBA history. We don't know what this team has on it.

If Dunleavy gets back (which I'm thinking won't be until at least mid-to-late January), maybe he sparks a run in the team and we sneak in the bottom of the playoffs. Maybe Bird makes some moves at the trade deadline. Whatever the answer is, it needs to happen soon.

Otherwise I'll be forced to watch IU and that's not good for anybody.

Hello, Mr. Radio
Triple H had a tough time figuring out if Eve Torres' new pearl necklace was fake or real. I'm guessing they're fake.

Mrs. Thug Mrs.
Here's a little something on yer boi Dawson being on One Tree Hill.

Info for Bo
This whole blog should be enough for you, but here's more info on another Dunkin robbery. Seriously, is Dunkin more loaded than a bank? I've never heard of so many places being robbed at gun point, knife point and sword point.

You tube...no you're a tube
Ladies and Gentleman...your 93-94 Indiana Pacers (tune to the 8:15 mark for Reggie and Haywoode's awesome dance)



Also, here's Game Five (although it says Game 4) of the Eastern Conference Finals (5:26 is best part)