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Miller's Needle Not Sharp to MaloneA month after Karl Malone and Gary Payton made their cut-rate deals with the Lakers, sacrificing cash for the opportunity for an NBA title, Reggie Miller re-upped with the Indiana Pacers, for whom he'd played his entire career. Miller then proclaimed a purity of purpose and organizational devotion. "I didn't want to be like some other guys," Miller said, "who jump on another team's bandwagon just to get a ring." Take that, fellas. "If I was coming in here and playing 10 minutes a night, that's riding a coattail," Malone said. "I'll tell you what, I wasn't pulling against the Lakers, but it made my decision a lot easier when they didn't win. When I heard Reggie make his decision, I like Reggie and I won't elaborate, but I'll say this: He had opportunity to do what I did and take less money. But he chose to make more money and stay where he was at. So, God bless him and God bless me." Miller, who earned $12 million with the Pacers last season, agreed to a two-year contract for about $5 million per season. It is believed the Lakers offered Miller the same deal they did Malone and Payton: Play for less, earn more. "At some point, somebody had to make some statement to say it's not all about the money all the time," Malone said. "Now, I don't want to hide the fact it wouldn't have been nice to make $10 million a year. Don't get me wrong. But how is that to the regular fan now? Indiana Pacers, Los Angeles Lakers, Utah Jazz Read the Full Story Discuss Send Feedback Buy Tickets Work ethic issue dogged ThomasThere has been lots of talk in the past week about Jermaine O'Neal, about what Donnie Walsh knew and when he knew it, about the timing of the Isiah Thomas decision. The bottom line, though -- on the Thomas firing and the impending Rick Carlisle hiring -- should not be obscured. The Indiana Pacers are making themselves a better basketball team. Maybe they won't be markedly better next season -- some of us think Brad Miller will be a big loss -- but they will be vastly improved down the road (assuming, and we are, that O'Neal eventually will make his peace with the organization). That's what this was all about. Were there some other tangential issues involved? Sure. At some point, the egos would have clashed. And it would be naïve to think that there isn't some lingering animosity between Bird and Thomas from their playing days. But Bird's motivation for making the change was pure, and he owes nobody an explanation or apology for doing the necessary dirty work. He dumped an ordinary coach and replaced him with last year's Eastern Conference Coach of the Year. What's not to understand? (And please, let's not inject the race issue into this one. There's nothing wrong with asking the question and having the discourse, but this was about winning, and winning is color-blind). Thomas was, by almost any rational measure, an average coach at best. Not a rank incompetent, by any means, and revisionist attempts to cast him as a complete bust would be overstated and unfair. Via Indianapolis Star Columnist Bob Kravitz Read the Full Story Discuss Send Feedback Buy Tickets Pacers say race wasn't a factorWhether or not Isiah Thomas should have been fired Wednesday as coach of the Indiana Pacers is not the issue, community activist Amos Brown said Friday. But the perception, Brown said, is that Pacers president of basketball operations Larry Bird had no intention of giving Thomas a chance to coach the final season of his four-year contract. Brown said the buzz in the black community concerning the dismissal is decidedly negative. "There's disappointment and anger about this," said Brown, the director of strategic research for four local radio stations and a columnist for the Indianapolis Recorder. "Isiah was a symbol because he was the Pacers' first black coach, and until he's no longer the first, there will be some pain and hurt there." Thomas' teams were successful in the regular season, compiling a 131-115 overall record. But they lost in the first round of the playoffs all three years. "My concern is that the African-American community will look at the Thomas firing as a signal that blacks are, once again, the last to be hired, and the first to be fired," Pacers fan Mark Madison said. Said fan Jerri Fleming: "I think everybody should protest, because I knew as soon as Larry Bird came back he was bringing Rick Carlisle back here. This was probably in the works for a long time." Bird reiterated Friday that the decision to fire Thomas wasn't made until recently and that it wasn't an easy one. "Hey, everybody's got an opinion and as long as it doesn't get personal, I don't mind," he said. "I've been through all this before. "You like to have everybody with you and understand what you're trying to do. But my job right now is to prove that I made the right move and that we're going to do good things. And we are going to do good things here." Read the Full Story Discuss Send Feedback Buy Tickets Pacers Aug 2003 Archive
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