The Indiana Pacers’ offseason has basically been a five-month trip down the terrifying tunnel in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. It comes to a merciful end tonight.
Prospects for this season are dim, particularly considering the sky-high expectations the team and its fans had just one year ago. The basketball gods giveth, and the basketball gods taketh away. And while it’s impossible not to focus on what they have taken since the last time this team suited up for real, let’s take at least a little time to appreciate the small but invaluable gift they are providing tonight.
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The gift of perspective.
Because as bad as things have been since the end of last season, and as bad as they will most likely remain for the entirety of the upcoming one, things could be worse. Much worse.
We could be 76ers fans.
If the Pacers’ 2013-14 season was Jekyll and Hyde, the Sixers’ was Jack and Jill. Sure, witnessing The Struggle unfold at the end of last year was tough, but over in Philly, fans were then in the cold, dead heart of a 26-game losing streak, the nadir (or apex, depending on your point of view) of a tanking effort so blatant that the league pushed for draft lottery reform that would take place this season. Yes, the proposal was voted down last week. And yes, it is better to bottom out and rebuild than to exist in perpetual mediocrity, but when you find yourself rooting for a team so purposefully putrid that the league finds it necessary to intervene, it’s safe to say you’re living through some dark times. And even Frank Vogel would find it optimistic to think things will be getting much better this year.
Joel Embiid, the prize of last year’s ineptitude, will likely miss this entire season while recovering from foot surgery. And unlike Paul George, who has gone toe-to-toe with the league’s best, Embiid is an unknown NBA quantity, a freakishly talented kid who has drawn comparisons to Hakeem Olajuwon but also enters with medical red flags that may remind people of a different can’t-miss center prospect. So while Indiana Pacers fans will have to tough it out through a year without their cornerstone, fans of the 76ers will need to tough out a year without their cornerstone, while also hoping that said cornerstone is actually a cornerstone.
And this emphasizes the point that the immediate pain and suffering in Philly might pay off in the end. But it might not. One freak injury, one blown draft pick, and Sixers GM Sam Hinkie and crew may be jettisoned for new execs with new long-term plans, risking not only relevance but also that precious stability paramount to all successful franchises.
While Indiana Pacers fans will have to tough it out through a year without their cornerstone, fans of the 76ers will need to tough out a year without their cornerstone, while also hoping that said cornerstone is actually a cornerstone.
It is true that, on the court, the Pacers are in a time of flux and uncertainty. But off the court, the franchise is stable. Vogel just signed a multi-year contract extension. Larry Bird and Donnie Walsh have looked over the Pacers, from various vantage points and states of amusement, for decades. The Pacers also enjoy stability in another critical, oft-overlooked department: the mascot.
Since 1991, Boomer has been roaming the stands, manning t-shirt cannons, smashing backboards like NBA Jam is real life, and not producing night terrors. Boomer is a cat, and since you’re familiar enough with the internet to stumble across this little article, I’m sure I do not have to tell you that people freaking love cats. He may not be the flashiest or most recognizable mascot in pro sports, but he is dependable, a whiskered face of stability in an uncertain world.
Philly’s mascot situation is, shall we say, a bit hare-ier. Since 1996, the team’s mascot has been Hip Hop, an obscenely muscular, do-rag wearing jack rabbit. But in 2011, the 76ers announced they would be putting Hip Hop out to pasture, possibly amid rumors of performance-enhancing drugs, or his apparent affiliation with the Bloods. They let fans vote on his replacement, providing three equally ill-advised alternatives: Big Ben, Phil E. Moose, and B. Franklin Dogg. But the next season, inexplicably, Hip Hop was back. Did no one vote? Were the other candidates pressured to drop out? Did Hip Hop have dirt on the Sixers’ front office? Did the Bloods get involved? This sketchy situation is something to continue to keep an eye on, as the current party line suggests that extreme measures have been taken to make Hip Hop disappear, and it’s tough to envision a scenario wherein this all ends well.
Finally, there are the human mascots, the living ambassadors of the respective franchises, the links to happier times in each fan base. I am referring to, of course, Reggie Miller and Allen Iverson. Reggie has seamlessly transitioned into his post-playing career as a broadcaster, doing what he does best: annoying and angering everyone outside of Indiana. When he’s back at the Fieldhouse, he’s there because he has a steady gig. He’s looking dapper as hell, he’s taking in the “Reggie” chants, and he’s probably having some issues controlling the volume of his voice. But it is nothing but fun from our standpoint, a chance to bask again in the greatness of our favorite player ever. And even in this regard, times are more troublesome for our Philadelphia friends.
Now I don’t want to be too callous or tactlessly sarcastic, as Allen Iverson’s post-career struggles are legitimately heartbreaking to those of us who watched him play. An exhilarating hero for the undersized, a true trend setter in the sport and beyond, and one of the single biggest badasses to ever suit up should never be seen begging for change outside of a mall. But if we are going to focus on appreciation, consider that even access to nostalgia, the last refuge of depressed fans bases everywhere, will conjure up images of not only better times, but the heartbreak and humiliation that has followed. So Sixers fans cannot even fully escape the terrors of the present by thinking back to the good ol’ days, as that will bring the baggage of AI’s tragic personal life.
Tonight marks the beginning of what will be a difficult year to be a Pacers fan. When times are really tough, when the offense is unwatchable, when Roy Hibbert is losing battles with gravity, when Chris Copeland is “guarding” LeBron James, remember Young Trece. Remember Boomer. Remember Reggie. And remember the plight of the fans in Philadelphia.
Things could be so much worse.