Stephen Jackson, yeah. Definitely.
Jamal Tinsley – check. Jermaine O’Neal – yeah, we’re with it. Rick Carlisle? That was a surprise pick for Pacers President Larry Bird to trash in his bye-bye press conference yesterday.
We’re not sure why we take such glee in the imminent dismantling of the Pacers, but we’re watching it with great curiosity.
“Jermaine O’Neal is our best player on this team. Everybody on this team knows Jermaine’s our guy,” Bird said. “I can’t sit here today and say we’re going to pursue to trade Jermaine O’Neal.”
“It’s up to Stephen to do the right thing,” Bird said. “I don’t like some of the things he did this year. If he’s back here, which I expect him to be, there’s going to be some changes. I don’t like our fans booing our players, but some of the things Stephen was doing out on the court frustrated me. I was embarrassed at times.”
There’s much more to be heard – pretty much a person-by-person rundown of what’s wrong with each person in the organization.
As you can see, we’re not the only ones entranced by this whole thing. Look at the intensity of that gathering above. A packed room, full of reporters who are literally hanging on every word.
There’s an interesting parallel here, and that’s the Portland Trailblazers. These are both franchises with long traditions of contending teams and rabid fanbases. In recent years both have lost ticket sales, games, and reputation points on the Official Reputation Scale Database.
The common thread? No, not Jermaine O’Neal, although that would be the obvious choice.
The common thread is a rabid fanbase.
Rabies = bad. Learn it, know it, live it.
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i don’t understand larry bird’s infatuation with peja. i mean sure he’s a great shooter. but he doesn’t defend well, he’s not mentally tough, and he’s quite fragile. maybe he thinks peja is the serbian version of reggie miller, i don’t know.
i don’t think bird got over losing the bid for an expansion team. he was in tears when the bid was awarded to the ex ceo of BET.
though portland didn’t make the playoffs…hmmm.
They do give out pretzels on those tables. Tasty little fuckers, too, with some sort of mustard spice coating.
I once rubbed a fat, golden, bald guy’s stomach for luck once and he punched me. Other than that I don’t see why rabies wouldn’t make good sports fans. I always suspected Jermain O’Neal was jewish. just look at his hair.
Two separate but equally strong arguments. I like where this discussion is going.
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