While many words may describe Pacers, none are good

First appeared on April 11th, 2014
in The Lebanon Reporter

The Pacers are in a freefall. And this would be entirely understandable if Head Coach Frank Vogel sat on the sidelines in an ultra-cool top hat wailing on a Rickenbacker 12 string as 30,000 strong swayed in unison with Bics blazing, “she’s a good girl…” But alas, there are no vampires walkin’ through the valley and it looks like the only people who are ‘gonna leave this world for a while’ are Pacer fans.

So the Pacers have a case of Full Moon Fever, or at the very least are experiencing the largest identity crisis in the history of Professional Sports (all apologies to Dennis Rodman). Either way, there’s only one word to describe the month of March for Indiana; well there are actually many words to describe it but my editor has shot most of the others down.

Indiana has been terrible. They haven’t even been good enough to be classified as the proverbial “shell of their former self”. Up and down the roster, up and down the stat sheet and up and down the court, the Pacers have set professional basketball in the state of Indiana back 5,000 years in a mere 30 days.

And when you’ve played your way down to the bottom of the barrel you get a pat on the back and some time off. Who knew refusing to come out of the locker room after halftime could be so taxing? Or perhaps the most exhausting part was refusing to stand and join the team huddle during time outs? Or was it going online to complain about hard working people who’ve grown so disgusted with the spectacle that is your team right now that they chose to boo?

These would be the same hard working people who made the conscious decision to take time from their lives and money from their pocket, money that could have as easily been put to something more worthwhile such as feeding their children or buying their brother-in-law’s family a hotel room, to drive downtown and watch a team that claims to be the flagship for an entire state.

By nature Hoosiers are not quitters. Whiners maybe, but not quitters. So our flagship team only has it half right at the moment. It’s too late for solutions. It’s also too late to pay some high priced sports psychologist to lug his oversized crushed velvet couch from the big city all the way out to the sticks. There are no trades to be made. There are no speeches to be given. There is no time to move west down Ventura Boulevard for a barbeque at Paul George’s house.

The Playoffs are coming. And while Frank Vogel can stop the bleeding temporarily by sitting his starters in Milwaukee, what he can’t stop is Fate. Fate allowed Indiana to start the year 33-7. Fate made Paul George an All Star and Fate kept Lance Stephenson home. And Fate, fickle as ever, helped Memphis defeat Miami Wednesday night propelling the lackluster Pacers into first place atop the Eastern Conference.

So for as bad as it’s been, lest we forget just how unbelievably bad it has been, the Pacers’ main goal still remains within reach somehow. Friday night they play the Heat (perhaps it’s better to say the scheduling gods have the Pacers and Heat in the same building Friday night). And while it will appear to some as simply 1 of 82 regular season games, Friday night will speak volumes. The season won’t be won on Friday night, but unless Indiana arrives with the mentality that they ‘Won’t Back Down’, there’s a real possibility it could be lost.

© 2014 Eric Walker Williams