Hoosier Hysteria, its ego, and the future of the Indiana Pacers

Hoosier hysteria, its ego, and the future of Indiana Pacers basketball. Here’s one Indianapolis native’s response to Mark Titus’ blog about the state of the Indiana Pacers.

Basketball and Indiana go together like peas and carrots. As a born-and-raised Hoosier, some of my earliest memories are about basketball. Shooting baskets on the plastic little tikes hoop as a toddler, hitting fictitious game winning 3-pointers and watching Reggie Miller put the Indiana Pacers on his back to numerous wins in the heat of clutch performances.

It’s no secret; Hoosiers love basketball and the Pacers have been a cornerstone of Hoosier Hysteria for 50 years now. Its storied history stems from championship pedigree as a three-time ABA champion, to a staple of the NBA landscape for two decades.

But Indiana hasn’t won a championship since the 1972-73 ABA season and has only made one NBA Finals appearance since the NBA-ABA merger in 1976.

Much to the dismay of Pacers fans, The Ringer’s Mark Titus poses, “an uncomfortable question;” should the Pacers make like the Baltimore Colts, relocate, and get a fresh start on NBA relevance?

Understanding Hoosier hysteria

First and foremost; Mark Titus is a no-brainer to plan a Pacers resurgence. Titus is an Indianapolis native, (Hoosiers love it when one of their own makes it big) who played alongside local basketball legends Mike Conley and Greg Oden before beginning his career as a writer.

Titus knows about “Hoosier Hysteria,” better than most and he believes the Pacers are in “basketball purgatory,” because of local fans allegiance to the amateur game.

"Indiana’s relationship with the Pacers is unique in that the fan base apathy is more complicated than it would be if the fans simply didn’t care about the team and/or pro basketball. Sure, Hoosiers clearly prefer the college version, to the extent that I’d wager that at least 70 percent of Indiana natives who went to an in-state school would rather have their alma mater win one NCAA national title than have the Pacers make 10 straight NBA Finals appearances."

Titus is right. The Pacers consistently rank in the bottom half of the NBA in attendance year after year. Local fans would rather watch IU at Assembly Hall or Butler at Hinkle Fieldhouse than buy a ticket to watch the Pacers.

I’ll be blunt; Titus is correct about a lot of what he states in the article. Do Hoosiers care more about high school and college basketball than the profession version? Yes. Has the franchise been struggling to regain its popularity amongst fans since the 2004 “Malice in the Palace?” Absolutely. Would fans storm Bankers Life Fieldhouse in troves is the franchise assembled a roster of “local legends,” and had Red Panda perform at halftime of all 41 home games? Unequivocally yes.

But Titus merely beats around the bush of what has certainly stunted the Pacers’ growth; Hoosier’s ego. “After all, what Hoosiers love more than anything is having the rest of the country think of Indiana as a basketball Mecca.”

The real problem with the Pacers

The reason Indiana has been unable to capture an NBA championship is stubborn leadership founded upon the belief that Hoosiers have too much pride in being the best basketball state to support a rebuilding team.

Think this is wrong? Think again. Remember the first half of the 2013 NBA season; The Pacers roared out of the gates to a 9-0 start and entered the All-Star break with a league-best 40-12 record. To quote Tony Dungy and the 2006 Indianapolis Colts, this was supposed to be “our time.”

The Pacers were so good that GQ did a photoshoot with the starters, Stephen A. Smith interviewed the team, who stated on record that the 2013-14 season was, “championship or bust.”

Couple the 2013 team’s unwavering “gold swagger,” with Larry Bird’s unwavering competitiveness and the result was a disaster. Bird made a handful of “win now,” moves that internally broke the team.

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First, Bird signed former all-star center Andrew Bynum, a move that reportedly shook Roy Hibbert’s confidence. Next, Bird and company traded veteran wingman and locker-room favorite, Danny Granger, for Evan Turner and Lavoy Allen. Neither of these moves panned out. Hibbert became a shell of his former self and Turner was so disruptive to the team’s chemistry that he and Lance Stephenson traded punches the night before their first playoff game.

The 2013 Pacers had the makings of a championship caliber team only to be derailed by a local legend trying to fulfill his manifest destiny of bringing a championship to the state of Indiana.

Fast forward to Today, Bird is out of the front office but left a once contending franchise in shambles. He publicly shamed Roy Hibbert after the 2015 season, a move which agitated David West to the point he gave up nearly $12 million to leave the organization. Then, Bird chose not to re-sign head coach Frank Vogel, the winningest coach in Pacers history, in favor of Nate McMillan. Finally, Larry Bird inadvertently drove Paul George out of Indiana with clumsy organizational moves since that infamous 2013 season (see: “He don’t make the decisions around here,” and how NOT to appease your star player).

Moving forward

Times have been tough for Pacers fans since 2014. It’s been a roller coaster of emotions to go from 48-minutes from an NBA Finals appearance to watching the most talented player in franchise history walk out the door with no remorse.

But the franchise has a real opportunity to hit the restart button. There are no championship expectations this year, no “win now” ideology fueling front office decisions, and no Paul George drama engulfing the locker room. It is a new era in Indiana, marketed by a young star in Myles Turner, and new aesthetics flowing through the organization.