The Pacers, Sadly, Should Probably Just Relocate Already

Great job, Gunther.  That was the ape's penis.  Now, on to today's topic:  Building a passionate fan base.

Alright, you and me are putting together a basketball team.  We should put it somewhere, obviously, where people love basketball.  When you hear the term "hotbed of basketball", what jumps to mind?  Are there any movies essentially named after a state's historic love and legacy of basketball?  

Exactly.   Indiana.  Okay, so we're going to put it in Indiana.  Now, before we get to the construction of the team itself, we need to keep in mind that shit like character and integrity matters significantly more than big-market teams, but talent trumps all.  Let me repeat:  Talent trumps all.  Choir boys don't sell out too many 16,000 seat stadiums.  But that shouldn't matter, right?  It's Indiana!  I've always heard they sell out huge gyms for high school games.

I've got a great idea!  Well, we picked the socially renowned "hotbed of basketball" Indiana as the spot for our team, so we probably don't need too many marketing gimmicks, but what if we got someone who was a legend in the sport (and from Indiana--double score!) to be the face of our franchise?  He would sit amongst the fans at every home game!  I'm thinking Dick Van Arsdale, but I'm open to suggestions.

 

Holy shit, of course!  Larry Joe Bird!  Jesus, we better wrap this up soon--our games may already be sold out.

I'm not really sure the coach matters that much, to be honest with you.  It seems like if the players like the coach, they win, and if they don't like the coach, they lose until he gets fired.  It's one of the more brutally honest factors of the game.  Wait, so does that mean coaching does matter?  Okay, okay...let's just get some player coach who fires the fans up with feisty comments.

Now the arena.  We can't, just absolute can't, have a shitty arena.  I think we both agree there.  Nice arena it is.

Okay, now the team.  Let's flip a coin to see if we're blessed to have a superstar--you know, national (and often times, international) marketing, prime time games,  and general relevance.  In other words, a godsend.  Damn, I just realized that big-name free agents probably aren't going to be lining up to play in Indiana.  We're going to have to get ours in the draft, which requires losing, securing the number one pick, and accomplishing both of these feats in exactly the right year.  Shit.  Okay, flip.

Goddamnit, tails!  You did indeed fail!  Okay.  That's okay.  No superstar.  We're just going to have to be really smart in the draft and with our money.

First, let's get somebody who shoots threes.  People in Indiana love threes.  Hell, let's even make his number 33.  He'll be quiet, unassuming, and talented.  Not exactly a "star", but nobody that's going to turn away fans, either.  Maybe he'll make, say, one All Star team.

Next we need an incredibly likeable big man.  Somebody who buys up seats and gives them to fans, stuff like that.  A player who noticeably works hard in the offseason and comes back leaner and with a few more moves.  Maybe he could even make the All Star team one year.

Now for the two-guard.  Get this!  An absolute athletic freak who throws down harder windmills than Don Quixote and plays his ass off on defense.

Fuck yes!  That's a great idea!  We'll bring hometown hero George Hill to Indiana!  He grew up there, played high school in Broad Ripple, and went to college at IUPUI.  Perfect fit!  I only hope our fans enjoy standing room only tickets!

Now how about just a famous collegiate athlete.  Somebody everybody knows.  Not going to impress you with athleticism, but a guy who played four years at school and had success.  A guy who will work hard, get a couple "nice job, (insert name here)" plays a game, and grab some boards for you.

Let's also make sure we get a "veteran presence" guy whose been in the league, had some success, and if he attended a Midwestern college, even better.  Hell, even he's made an All Star team, let's say.

Point guard has to be quick.  He, like every single other member of the team save maybe one, should be an outstanding member of the community.  He can also play four years at a historically great school.  Since we've got three guys that have made All Star teams, let's leave him off.  Still okay, though.

You know those (if they're not on your team, slightly annoying) hustling white guys?  The guys getting scrappy offensive rebounds and put backs?  Let's get another one of those, and let's make sure he has funny hair.  I think I remember Scot Pollard mentioning that people from Indiana love funny hair.

That's pretty good for now.  We can fill out the rest of the roster spots later with guys like Dahntay Jones and Jeff Pendergraph.

What if I told you the team we just made up was a real team?  And I had the numbers regarding NBA attendance?  Let's try to guess where we're at in average attendance!

No, I thought we might be first, too, until I thought about the big market cities.  They just have more people.  Strange concept, huh?  No, the Bulls are actually first.  They brought in a cool 22,000+ a game.  Damn.  No shame in not matching that, I guess.  It is Chicago.  Don't worry, I'm sure we'll come up soon.

Huh.  I used the small-market excuse, but guess who's two?  The Portland Trail Blazers.  Their fans are legendary, so this gives us hope, I guess.  Really thought we might have been there.  I know we're coming up!

Dallas, Miami, and New York are three, four, and five.  Makes sense.  Still not sweating.

Wow, Utah at six?  Over 19,000 people on average in Utah went to every single home game?  That's impressive.

Okay, I'm starting to worry now.  The Lakers and Clippers are next (actually surprised LA was this far down), followed by Orlando and Golden State.  Golden State has had miniscule success in its history in the NBA, and, goddamn, do those fans still show up every game.

Boston, sure.  San Antonio, okay.  Oklahoma City is next, they're good.  The Sixers, fine.  The Timberwolves, can't argue with...wait, what?  The Timberwolves?  In Minnesota?

Denver, check.  Toronto.  Toronto?  I thought I read that wrong.  Did we choose right with Indiana?  Are they really a "basketball state"?  I'm starting to wonder...

DC is next, okay.  Sure.  Cleveland?  Fucking Cleveland beat us!  Their star left and publicly decimated their franchise!  They had one of the worst records in the league last season!  Why can their fans show loyalty and ours can't?  Okay, it's fine, calm down.  We have to be coming up.

Memphis and Phoenix, fine.  Houston and Atlanta, whatever.  Charlotte.

Wait a second.

Charlotte?  The Bobcats?  The historically terrible, obviously tanking, nationally irrelevant but for their woes and owner Bobcats?  They ranked ahead?  Really?

Milwaukee and Sacramento.  Hey, hasn't Sacramento been in the news lately for possibly relocating?

The Pistons are next, awesome.  

And then look who it is, sitting at number 29.  

Indiana.

29 out of 30.  The last team you ask?  The New Jersey Nets, who have already packed their bags and are moving to Brooklyn.  Congratulations, Indiana.  You beat a relocating franchise--by 102 average fans a game.

May I chime in before I hear the should-be-tape-recorded "they were thugs" and "that team turned off the city" lines?  Shut up.  Do you know what this organization did?  They did everything they could to appease your ass.  They traded your "thugs" for squeaky clean guys with half the talent and, would you believe it, the on-court product suffered.  They became easily one of the three to four most irrelevant franchises in the league, and you quit going.

Then the team started cheesy promotions, resembling a minor league baseball team.  Basically giving tickets away.  The Pacers team Twitter feed is a lot like that kid who bounced the ball at the end of his driveway alone, hoping someone would ask him to play.

And now?  They have the roster listed above and are still 29 out of 30.  With a third seeded team in the playoffs.  In a beautiful arena.

And they were 30 out of 30 last season.  And that team made the playoffs, too.

People can still call Indiana the hotbed of basketball.  They should just put an asterisk next to it that signifies the professional team doesn't count. 

This team should be a real threat to relocate.  The sad part is, it's deserving. 

Fourteen Months

Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts lost to the New York Jets in the wild-card round of the playoffs in January 2011--Manning's last game as a Colt.  Of course, no one knew that then.  To suggest this that night would have been absurd--you would have been laughed out to the street.  You lose.  Good day, sir.  Of course Manning would retire a Colt, seeing as how he surely had a good four to five very effective years left in him, and even if he did hang on a year or two, the Colts and their fans owed that to him, and should appreciate his cerebral adjustments when his body began to give. Duncan's a Spur, Jeter's a Yankee, and Manning's a Colt.

And yet since that night, the Indianapolis Colts had lost Manning for an entire season, finally drinking the poison that was the tangible collective fear the Mighty Manning may actually go down. Luckily, Colts fans were not subjected to The Blindside Hit, or The Knee Explosion, or a similar signature "ended the season" moment.  Seeing Tom Brady take his, three years before in the first quarter of the first game after 18-1, made me, a Patriot hater, more sad and disappointed than anything. Yes, it was to a great player and a guy I wanted the Colts to get a shot at, but more so it was another reminder that Manning spins the same wheel.

Since that night, the Colts-Jets playoff game that is, the Colts have fallen from NFL royalty at an astounding rate. Prime time games, normally incredibly entertaining and victorious nights, evolved from humiliations to extinct. 62-7 happened. Jim Caldwell, who I'm sure is a good man, happened. Video evidence exists that Curtis Painter was involved. Rumblings of an inverted perfect season (0-16!) happened. This to a team who, twice in five years with roughly the same core sans #18, had an undefeated record going into their 14th game of the season, with everyone's minds going towards perfection, trophies, and immortal legacies.

Since that night, Bill and Chris Polian were fired, and Bill is now a PUNDIT and mouthpiece on ESPN. If only FFGP2's illustrious street cred could grant it access to a digital video library of just how many times Polian has ripped on exactly these men.

The aforementioned and overmatched Caldwell, since calling one of the dumbest timeouts in someone with a really good memory's memory in the Jets playoff game, was shown the door. He was 14-2 his first year as the head coach just two seasons prior.  The Colts could have sold lottery tickets to pack his bags.

Some burly, white-shirt-with-tie man named Ryan Grigson came over from the Eagles to be the new general manager.  Some guy named Chuck Pagano, who sounds like a wire-tapped informant's fake wiseguy name, came over from the Ravens to be the new coach.

Since Nick Folk's kick ended that season, the likeable, fan-friendly, historically good core from The Manning Era had been gutted and left on the curb like a fish.  90% of the city's jerseys became vintage in an hour, and although it was visibly draining and difficult, you couldn't end an era without ending the man who shares its name.

And so, Peyton Manning was released by the Colts.

And with that, Peyton Manning was a free agent.  He was immediately courted by 3/4 of the league.  Wined and dined, even.  

Since Mark Sanchez won his last playoff game in Indianapolis that January night, Peyton Manning held up a fucking Broncos jersey with a "yeah, I like my second wife, but my first was the love of my life" face.   He's preparing and practicing, relentlessly, to win the Super Bowl...for the Denver Broncos.  It's Indiana-Texas Tech Part Deux, and I would be interested in comparing last season's numbers with this year concerning Broncos games ratings in Indiana homes.

Andrew Luck, who bypassed the draft last year knowing full well he would be the number one pick, was drafted by the Colts, a team--much like the Spurs and Duncan--essentially being historically rewarded for one bad season, and allowing the organization to kick sand in the face of every organization desperately seeking its next (or first) pearly white, cereal box, endorsement-hawking, Lombardi-raising face of the franchise.   People who know say he's the most pro-ready quarterback in the history of the NFL, and how can you argue?  You can't compare the position of quarterback now, in the ESPN Vomiting All Over Itself Era, with any other time in the league's history.  And apparently, this kid is as prepared for the game and the celebrity attached as...well...

The last fourteen months or so have been, roughly in order, incredibly curious, cruel, heartbreaking, hopeful, and, yes, lucky, for Colts fans.  It was so easy to take the winning for granted.  It was so easy to pencil Manning in every game.  More than anything, it was easy to predict the future:  Manning retiring with every record, one or two more trophies, and, the surest bet of all, as a Colt. 

And yet, this is how it works.  I met my newest, unconditionally-loved favorite players the last two days, and will cheer for them because they play in my hometown.  As of this day, I'm fairly certain Andrew Luck will break every NFL passing record, win three to four Super Bowls, and retire a Colt.  Why should I, a crazy fan, not think this?

LeBron's a Cav, Albert's a Cardinal, and Manning's a Colt.

And now, so is Luck.

Something doesn't add up.