To hear fans at Bankers Life Fieldhouse chant “Kobe! Kobe! Kobe!” last night made my skin crawl. Some called the fans’ appreciation of Kobe Bryant classy. I call it ignorant, narrow-minded, and ridiculously forgiving. It wasn’t as bad as people advocating for criminal behavior by paying to watch Floyd Maywether Jr. fight, but I found myself […]
LeBron James comes to town tonight for a game against the Indiana Pacers, and his visits to Indy are always worth watching for a variety of reasons. Pacers fans have dreams of another visit to the NBA Finals, and if a team other than LeBron’s Cleveland Cavaliers is going to represent the Eastern Conference, it will […]
I’m a white guy from one of the whitest areas on the planet. The village of 5,000 where I grew up north of Chicago boasted exactly zero blacks. None. To say I am not an expert in the area of the challenges blacks face in succeeding in this country is a grotesque understatement. But I try […]
Yesterday afternoon we heard Boston Celtics coach Brad Stevens would miss his team’s game last night to tend to a personal matter in Indianapolis. We know now that he came home to visit Andrew Smith, one of his former players who is battling cancer. Stevens would prefer no one knows why he is in Indianapolis, […]
Nobody likes losing or cheering for a team that loses, but those who were at Bankers Life Fieldhouse last night as the undefeated Golden State Warriors visited had reason to leave without being depressed. And, by the way, congratulations to the crowd who never abandoned ship on the Pacers despite the 28-point deficit at the […]
Ten games into the season, the Pacers are 6-4. Projected over the entire season, that equates to 48-49 wins. The Pacers play the Chicago Bulls on the road tonight in what will be an early referendum on their progress in reconfiguring their roster and offensive concepts. Tweet
by Kent Sterling The silly NBA moratorium was bound to cause this level of chaos eventually. DeAndre Jordan, a rebounding machine in his prime, was highly sought after as a free agent. The team for whom he toiled for the first seven years of his NBA career, the Los Angeles Clippers, wanted him back. The […]
by Kent Sterling I liked David West, but it’s hard not to see his decision to leave $11.1 million in Indiana to play for the San Antonio Spurs as a smack to the jaw of the Pacers organization, his former teammates, and Indiana in general. His desire to win a championship is laudable. Putting potential […]
by Kent Sterling If Roy Hibbert was a foot shorter, he might never have picked up a basketball, and might be a CPA or IT professional who amused and frustrated co-workers in equal measure with his mood swings. Because he is 7’2″ and athletic enough, Hibbert is a professional basketball player who will continue to […]
by Kent Sterling Ten-year NBA veteran Monta Ellis is reportedly talking to the Indiana Pacers today about coming to Indy as a free agent. There are reasons for the Pacers to be interested in signing Ellis, and a few for fans not to see him as a magical elixir that might allow the Pacers to […]