Bad Time to Start Writing a Pacers Blog?

Nope. It's the PERFECT time.

The Indiana Pacers are a team that is perpetually on the brink: on the brink of collapse, on the brink of insanity, and once upon a time, on the brink of greatness. At times the Pacers have bristled with talent, stepping with the swagger of a team that knew it deserved more than it got. At other times they have been a team surrounded by controversy, with an image tarnished by arrests, suspensions, and awesome, awesome violence*.

Where once they cultivated the Hoosier ideal of sublime three-point shooting during the days of the Reggie Miller vanguard, now they flounder for an identity as a run-and-gun team without enough ammo. Where once they thrived as a lockdown-defensive team anchored by the prowess of basketball cancer Ron-Ron Artest, they now part like warm butter upon the knives of the nightly opposition, allowing a 25th ranked 105.8 points per game.

The 08-09 Pacers are sitting at 29-42 for the year, 4.5 games out of the playoffs, and the team is losing money to the point where Mel and Herb Simon need help paying the upkeep of a desolate and empty Conseco Fieldhouse.

I’ll be honest. I only started liking the Pacers because Reggie Miller was the best three-point shooter in NBA Jam and he could catch fire like no other. I am not from Indiana. I have never been to Indiana. I am from California, grew up in the Bay Area, and now reside in Lala Land surrounded by Black Mamba fanboys. I can count the Pacers fans that I know on one finger, and that’s including myself. But THAT IS THE POINT.

If people thought it was bad to be a Pacers fan after the Palace Brawl, now I feel worse. There’s only one thing worse than controversy and that’s vast indifference and apathy. The Pacers are fading within the consciousness of the NBA landscape and it’s starting to hurt (That being said, I can’t even imagine what it would be like to be a Kings fan. Sorry Sacramento).

My Pacer fandom is a lonely existence - after all I live in Kobe-town. So I figure I have to let it out somewhere. The frustration. The moments of fleeting joy and terror. The fact that the Pacers have played all of 19 games this year decided by 3 or fewer points and have only won 7 of those. The fact that I’ve watched those games – watched CP3 and Dirk and BRoy and Kobe all stick game-winning daggers into Danny Granger’s heart. The fact that despite the heartbreak, the Pacers have inexplicably beat the Lakers, Celtics, Cavs, and Magic and remain the only team in the Association to do so. The fact that nobody gives a shit because the team is lottery-bound anyways.

So now, in the twilight of a lost season, during an epic economic recession that is tearing down the country, I declare that this is indeed the perfect time to pop my blogging cherry with a blog about an inconsequential NBA team that nobody cares about. A team that, by all intents and purposes, nobody should care about, especially not a California kid such as myself.

I am living proof that Pacers fans can exist outside of Indiana, and I stand here with my Indiana Pacers on the brink of insignificance, with the vain hope that people will start paying attention to us. Because if we don’t start winning, Danny Granger will soon jump off that brink along with the hopes of the franchise.

If there even is a franchise after 2010.

If there even is an NBA as we know it after 2010.

So like I said: the perfect time to start a blog about the Pacers.

* Violence I don't condone, but cmon...Jermaine Oneal's sliding punch to the poor schmuck trying to stand up is gold on repeat viewings and is still an integral part of my basketball conscience (Imagine being that guy? Or any of the guy(s) that Artest clocked?! From now on, whenever they think of the Pacers, or maybe even anything related to the NBA, their jaws probably start aching).