| Thursday, July 26
By Jeffrey Denberg
Special to ESPN.com |
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His best players are angry, restless, a group of veterans at the end of their contractual rope, no parachute, no net.
In the strange way some find unintended success, Donnie Walsh sees his Indiana team with its best chance, yet, to make the NBA Finals. And it turns out to be a team he has already decided to break up.
|  | | Rik Smits is one of numerous Pacers who might not be back next season. |
Mark Jackson is seething, publicly, saying he has been betrayed.
Reggie Miller after all these years is feeling unappreciated.
Rik Smits is feeling the agony of da feet.
Chris Mullin's career is over and he knows it. So is Sam Perkins' but he wonders, where else can I make a million bucks?
Jalen Rose, the only one of the bunch with a future, is thinking maybe he ought to be somewhere else when training camp starts next October.
After three years of Indianoplace, Indiana, Larry Bird has decided he would rather divide his time between the West Coast of Florida and French Lick.
Walsh has his new arena. He has some babies, Jonathan Bender, Al Harrington and Austin Croshere. Can you say, empty seats?
The Pacers can't defend quick teams off the dribble so they are odds-on to be the Eastern team that is sacrificed to the Western champ in the Finals. The Knicks are slipping. The Heat is all but extinguished. Save Toronto and Philadelphia for later.
So imagine, the Pacers win the East, lose to the Lakers (or the Blazers) in five (they can't win a road game). Walsh celebrates the greatest season in franchise history by lopping off all his free agent veterans except Rose, who walks away.
Suddenly, Donnie Walsh is Jerry Krause. Only he doesn't have one ring, let alone six.
Walsh took over a mediocre Pacers franchise in the late mid-'80s and did brilliant things. He got Detlef Schrempf for practically nothing, drafted Miller, Smits, the Davises. He made a few bad deals, but that happens to the bold guys. The point is he turned Indiana into a contender, got Larry Brown to help him and when Brown became restless, Walsh romanced Bird .
But this is the last waltz in Indiana. Walsh has to turn his back on the fading old guys because he can't afford to sign them long-term. He can't go out and hire a new coach (many believe that will be Byron Scott) and ask him to work with a bunch of 30-somethings and, oh, by the way, get some minutes for Bender and Harrington, too.
"I know all my players are upset with me," Walsh said recently.
They have a right. When Walsh dumped Antonio Davis in Toronto for teenager Bender, it was a no-confidence vote for a team that had repeatedly fallen short in the Eastern Conference finals. When Bird said his career as Pacers coach was over, the signs for wholesale change were very apparent. How did Walsh know the rest of the East would turn mediocre?
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Down the stretch, you can see the division in this team as Rose steps up, scoring at least 20 nine times in one stretch of 10 games. Milwaukee's George Karl called Rose Indiana's "best player. It's pretty obvious, even on film, that he's their first option. I thought he was a huge contributor for them last year, and he's only gotten better."
Then Mark Jackson stepped up on behalf of Miller. "No disrespect to anybody on the team, but this guy has done it time and time again. We know where our bread is buttered. when it's for all the marbles, where do you want the ball?"
And Rose is playing it close to the vest when he discusses his future. "We're going to have a new coach and that means more uncertainty. I'm not a person who needs change, but being a professional there's always two sides of the coin. I'll play anywhere."
Around the League
So, who wielded the axe in Detroit? Insiders say Jerry Stackhouse was the most vocal player in the anti-Alvin Gentry camp. Stack hated Gentry's late-game decision making almost as much as the refs hated Gentry for baiting them nightly. A sign of the times: GM Rick Sund was not in the loop on this one. Club president Tom Wilson, owner Bill Davidson and his tennis doubles partner Joe Dumars made the call. Grant Hill, a Gentry guy, apparently went along.
Lon Babby, the attorney who represents Hill and Tim Duncan, sat down quietly with Orlando GM John Gabriel and coach Doc Rivers. They said they were discussing Magic forward Pat Garrity.
Rivers is sending smoke signals to Eddie Jones in case he can't get Duncan or Hill. The Magic would probably offer Jones the six-year maximum of $67.5 million.
"I can't talk about free agents, but I will say Eddie Jones is one of those rare guys who can do everything well. He doesn't have any weak points to his game. I love him," Rivers said.
Was Jerry Krause gloating a little when he said of the cap-choked Heat: "Miami is already committed to $47 million next year. Those kinds of teams are hard to deal with." That's $11 million over the projected number.
Dikembe Mutombo's drive for $30 million to build a hospital in his hometown of Kinsasha, Congo, got a boost on "60 Minutes" last Sunday. Even former first lady Barbara Bush called Mutombo's foundation to inquire.
No way the league can allow John Starks to give back the money and declare himself a free agent. Imagine teams offering under the table promises to guys, telling them, get your release and we'll pay you down the road.
Miking players and coaches in games was the first step. Now the NBA wants TV cameras in the locker rooms at halftime of national games and it's creating a firestorm of dissent from teams who want to know where you draw the line and whether a player has to then find a closet if he wants to change his compression shorts.
I hear the real reason the Knicks abandoned Charleston as their playoff and preseason training base is that the Gold Club strippers refuse to work there until they remove the Confederate battle flag.
Jeffrey Denberg, who covers the NBA for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.
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NBA East: Give Butch some credit
