Aldridige puts in his .02, and I respond...

[Snoopy the Celtics Beagle <snoopy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm going to respond to Aldridge's article as we go....


By David Aldridge
Special to ESPN.com

This is what is understandable about Larry Bird's decision to fire Isiah 
Thomas a month before the start of training camp.

"I came in July 14th," Bird said on the phone Wednesday. "When I first came 
here, I came in with an open mind. But I was uncomfortable with some 
things. I wanted to take the time to talk with Donnie (Walsh, who was moved 
upstairs on the Pacers' food chain to make Bird the general manager). We 
both had concerns about what happened to the team at the end of the regular 
season. I just was uncomfortable with that."

Instead of leaping to a conclusion, Bird took the time to see if he was 
right, if there was something that could explain what he thought was 
rampant selfishness among the players at the worst possible time of the 
season. It is one of Bird's beliefs about basketball that a playoff team 
should be clicking and peaking when the postseason begins, not losing and 
bickering. And he saw too many players playing for themselves instead of 
for the Pacers.

And at the end of that period, Bird decided that a) Thomas hadn't done 
enough to stop the slide, and b) that was enough to fire Thomas, with Rick 
Carlisle waiting in the wings.


Isiah Thomas, like his young Pacers, was a work in progress.
OK. Bird is now the boss in Indiana, and it's his call. If he thinks Rick 
Carlisle is a better coach, that's his prerogative. That's understandable.

Here's what isn't.

If you don't like the way Thomas has done things and you're thinking about 
firing him, don't you owe him a meeting to discuss it? To allow him to give 
his side of the story, his reasons, his philosophies, his take on the 
players involved? Especially since Thomas would be more privy to the 
day-to-day workings of the squad than Bird -- who, after all, wasn't there 
last season?

But Bird, by his own admission, never had a face-to-face with Thomas. It's 
not hard to find Isiah, who is among the more accessible superstars that 
I've ever encountered. It usually doesn't take more than a couple hours to 
track him down. I talked with him for half an hour on the phone a couple of 
weeks ago about what pieces he believed the Pacers still needed before 
training camp (think guard) and his hope that the team would get off to a 
good start.

I don't doubt Bird when he says he didn't want to make a rash decision. But 
I also don't think there was any doubt about what his decision was going to be.


I SAY: Nor should you.  Everyone last season--Thomas included--knew that 
his job depended on delivering in the playoffs.  He knew it going into the 
season and going into the playoffs.  The only surprise was that he lasted 
this long after the Pacers were taken down.

Thomas' ouster will no doubt be good news for the many critics that had 
attached themselves to him like barnacles the past three years. They seemed 
to revel in his team's playoff losses (never got out of the first round!) 
and lack of Central Division pelts.

But play along with me here for a minute.

Isiah Thomas was 0-3 in the first round of the playoffs.

Flip Saunders is 0-7.

Does that mean Flip is more than twice as bad a coach as Isiah?

I SAY: Ummm...Yes, it does.

(By the way, Kevin Garnett is 0-7 in the first round. Tracy McGrady is 0-4. 
Should they be traded?)


I SAY: Yes.  Kevin needs to go to a real contender, and McGrady just needs 
to go.  I sympathize with his back problems, but I'm not idiotic enough to 
risk my continued ability to hobble around by playing a game for money I 
don't need.


Come on. Indiana went from a .500 regular season in Thomas's first year as 
head coach to 14 games above .500 this season. There was a decided slump 
the second half of the season, to be sure. But can't some of that be 
explained by the personal tragedies that befell Jermaine O'Neal (his 
stepfather's attempted suicide in his mother's home), Jamaal Tinsley (his 
mother's losing battle with cancer) and Austin Croshere (his 
father-in-law's sudden death) all at once?

The reasons teams lose in the playoffs usually are directly correlated to 
their lack of postseason experience. The Pacers have been the youngest team 
in the L the last two years. Their stars, O'Neal and Ron Artest, are 
picking things up as they go. (For example: you don't have one good game 
against a team and then say they can't guard you, as a certain star forward 
did last year against Jersey.) There's a reason that the Jazz, against all 
logic, continued to be formidable playoff opponents.

Because their two superstars had played in a few hundred playoff games.

The Pacers that went belly-up in the playoffs weren't the Pacers that Bird 
coached to the Finals in 2000. After Rik Smits retired, any hopes of riding 
that group on another long postseason run pretty much evaporated. Walsh 
made the decision to rebuild on the fly, trading Dale Davis for O'Neal and 
moving Jalen Rose for Artest and Brad Miller. Indiana never had to dip into 
the lottery for players. Walsh, as usual, did a masterful job.

But by definition, that meant the Pacers had to learn everything about the 
playoffs all over again. That usually results in early exits. (By the way, 
did Thomas have anything to do with Reggie Miller going 4-of-25 from behind 
the arc against the Celtics? Or with Miller gutting it out all season on a 
bad ankle -- admirable, but ultimately detrimental?)

I SAY: Baloney.  EVERY "expert" on the NBA, the playoffs, and basketball in 
general said--in so many words--that the only way the Pacers don't beat 
Boston in five games is if they sweep in four.  The intimation was that the 
Pacers should have smoked the Celtics with ease, and that Thomas would have 
until the second round to prove his theoretical coaching skills.


I am not saying Thomas carries no blame at all in all of this. He was the 
head coach and the Ws and Ls went on his record. (If you say that he should 
have had a firmer hand with Artest while the young forward went berserk the 
last couple of years, I'll accept it -- but only if what you would have 
done would have produced a better result.)

I SAY:  What I would have done:  "Ron, if you don't act like your age 
instead of your shoe size, you're suspended until I find a team willing to 
babysit you until you grow up."


And yes, the Pacers did look terrible getting bounced by Boston, especially 
in their Game 1 meltdown at home when they didn't have timeouts available 
in crunch time. That's the coach's responsibility. What I am saying is that 
the Pacers, like their coach, were a work in progress. Bottomline, I'd say 
going from 41-41 to 48-34 constitutes progress.

I SAY: Not when the team want to the Finals under the previous Coach.  And 
don't give me this garbage about who left, retired, or whatever.  Everyone 
assumes the EC is the equivalent of Moses Malone's "five guys".  The 
implication inherent was that at the very least, the Pacers should have 
been major contenders in the EC--instead, they went down like the WWI 
Flying Ace after Boston's Red Baron got to them.


Thomas told me on Wednesday that he wants to continue coaching. I have no 
doubt he will be back on the bench within a year. Because the mark of a 
good coach is the answer to one question: Do his players play for him? I 
really don't think anything else matters. And Jermaine O'Neal played for 
Isiah Thomas. Al Harrington played for Isiah Thomas. Ron Artest played for 
Isiah Thomas. They were better after working with him than before.

I SAY:  Jermaine BETTER play well for Isaiah, after Thomas featured him in 
the All-Star Game this year, then went to him in the playoffs at the 
expense of Reggie Miller--when Reggie might have pulled them out of their funk.


I don't believe for one minute that Larry Bird fired Isiah Thomas because 
their teams were bitter rivals in the 80s, playing for rings. They're both 
too smart and professional for that -- and, I think, too respectful of the 
other's accomplishments. But maybe it's better that they go through the 
next chapter of their lives on different teams, building contenders in 
their own separate ways.

I SAY: Aldridge has been smoking something really nasty if he believes 
this.  Bird and Thomas, for all their public civility, simply do not like 
each other.  They never have.  And Isaiah never played against Larry for 
rings, not in the same Conference.  Larry, in fact read Thomas well enough 
to steal a pass from him.  Also, Isaiah has never had good clock management 
skills, dating back to his own playoff days-as Celtics fans can happily attest.

It's obvious to me that Aldridge is a fan, if not a friend, of Thomas.  He 
seems to want to take his side to the extent that he has become an 
apologist, glossing over Thomas' failure as a coach, and his utter refusal 
to treat players he doesn't like civilly.  Yes, I'm talking Pierce and 
Walker.  Thomas was a player who thrived on a team that prized physical 
abuse over finesse, and fought his way to the Finals by team thuggery.

But for Snoopy's sake, isn't he theoretically a journalist?  All that Fair, 
Balanced, stuff--and Fox shouldn't bother suing me, I'm not worth any 
money--is it just a joke now?  I can understand if Aldridge worked for say, 
the Indianapolis Star.  But this is ESPN.  I know--none of these bozos seem 
able to present an equitable story, considering another ESPN headline said 
that the USA win over Mexico was a "rout"--despite the fact that Mexico led 
in the first quarter, and were close through three quarters.

If Bob Dylan was a basketball fan, he might ask, "Where Have All the Good 
Sportswriters Gone?"


Snoopy the Celtics Beagle
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