Larry Bird doesn’t quite know what to make of what’s going on with his Indiana Pacers: Four players involved in a fight in which shots were fired outside a strip club at 3 a.m. during training camp, Stephen Jackson charged with a felony, Jamaal Tinsley with marijuana found in his car. Then, a few days later, police stopped a car registered to but not driven by Jermaine O’Neal and discovered marijuana.
Call it Hoosier Buffoonery.
It’s not that Bird is exactly naive, having been in the NBA for more than a quarter of a century and traveled the world for the game he loves. But the Hall of Famer and Pacers general manager sometimes has to shake his head that this great game, basketball, isn’t enough fun.
He has seen his share of grass, though only with his mower or 5-iron.
“I came in [the NBA] in ’79 and I couldn’t believe all the talk about drugs,” Bird was saying last week in a quiet corridor of Conseco Fieldhouse after a local prosecutor announced charges against Jackson.
Bird is a bit softer around the middle these days, but his eyes are as hard and determined as ever. You look at Bird and you know he’d still hit that dagger of a jumper and smile knowingly.
“The first year, I never saw any drugs,” Bird recalled. “I was there 13 years and never saw one guy using drugs. Sure, you’d always hear about a Micheal Ray (Richardson, banned in the mid-1980s for drug use). But you’d never see it. The guns, guys had them, but not around.”
Perhaps it was because Bird was all basketball.
I remember what it was like to set up an interview if you wanted to get him alone for a story. Bird would say to meet him at the arena around 4 or 4:30 p.m.
“I’ll be there shooting about 3,” he’d say.
The game started at 7:30.
OK, OK, they don’t make many like Larry Bird.
But isn’t it enough to have a chance to play for a living instead of work? Isn’t that the ultimate high? Not that Bird isn’t standing by his players. He expects Jackson to return.
“We’re around these guys and see the real person,” Bird insisted, his unqualified support for Ron Artest this time last year still haunting him. “[Jackson has] never been arrested. He’s a guy who called us (after turning down a $10 million offer from the Spurs) and wanted to play for us. He’d take (the minimum) $1 million. He wanted to be a part of this.”
Instead, he’s now in the middle of all this.
“It was about ’86 or ’87 and I was at this All-Star Game,” Bird said. “[Pat] Riley came on the bus and it was just me and him alone. This was about when they started all that hip-hop stuff, and everything is real loud, and he says to me, `Our league is changing.’ And I said, `You’re telling me? Willie Nelson singing the national anthem, that’s me.'”
Mama, don’t let your babies grow up to run an NBA team?
Nothing of the sort.
This is a bad time for Bird’s home state team. Since appearing in the 2000 NBA Finals in Bird’s last season as coach and winning 61 games in his first season running the basketball operations (2003-04), the Pacers have had three consecutive seasons of embarrassment and disruption.
There was the November 2004 brawl in Detroit, followed by a lackluster 2005-06 season in which internal fissures were about to crack the solid foundation built over two decades.
And now this, shock and aw, shucks.
“I got the call at 6 a.m.,” Bird was saying about the shooting incident. “It was [team Vice President] Rick Fuson. I thought something happened to Donnie [Walsh].”
Something did.
Walsh is the godfather of a franchise envied around the sports world for its success and compassion. Walsh has been at the wheel for two decades during which the Pacers have been steered to the playoffs, vital for a small-market team. The Pacers have made it 16 of the last 17 seasons after missing in nine of 10 before Walsh took over.
Few organizations have been more media-friendly thanks to Walsh, who is the first name in the unofficial NBA reporter’s guidebook. When new reporters start in the NBA, they are told if they have questions to call Walsh. He routinely treats them like seasoned veterans.
And that’s distant compared to his care for his players.
Walsh is under the impression everyone deserves a second chance, though lately his games of chance have crapped out with Artest and now Jackson. Walsh’s contract expires after this season, and it’s possible he will yield to Bird, who isn’t about to allow Walsh’s legacy to be diminished.
There have been whispers that Bird, whose post-playing career has been sprinkled with hiatuses, may be ready for another career timeout, that it may be time to retire to the big spread he recently purchased in southern Indiana. It’s not the same game or the same guys.
“It’s very frustrating,” Bird admitted. “I’ve never been around anything like this. But I’m not a quitter. I could never think about leaving now. I would never do that. That would be the easy thing for anyone. I would never do that. I’m not like that.”
Bird says he’s intent on bringing the Pacers back to championship contention from this morass. Sure, like some awkward white guy and Indiana University dropout from Indiana State could become one of the dominant players in NBA history?
Oh, that’s right.
“I’ve always said I’ve won championships outside Indiana,” Bird noted. “I never won in college, never won in high school. I couldn’t win as a coach. I just want to see this franchise get back to the Finals. If this team could just get the opportunity to win the thing, I could feel good about myself and retire.”
So it starts again. The Pacers will wait out Jackson’s legal fate, but Bird knows things have to change. Everything evolves.
“You’ve got to be long and athletic now,” he said. “Push the ball. We played the slowdown, drop it in and stand around. Defenses are different now. If you are going to compete, you might as well get out there and push it a little bit.”
So Bird, who has specialized in scouting thus far, continues to do his Bird-dogging.
“It’s going to be harder now,” he said. “We thought with the changes we made we were a better team. It’s another bump in the road we’ve got to overcome. Red [Auerbach] always told me a year is not very long and the draft is really important.
“Also, you take a look at players who may not be playing hard for (a poor team) and if you know they’ve got talent, their mind-set can change. That’s one of our challenges. Believe me, we’ll be standing here next year and saying, `Where did the year go?’
“I remember talking to Slick (Leonard, then Pacers coach and general manager). They had the (1978) No. 1 pick and I met with him. He said, `Are you coming out of school?’ I said I was going back to school. He said, `Gosh dang. It sure would help the franchise.’ They traded the pick. They couldn’t wait.”
Bird’s waiting, but he’s not going to be patient.
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sasmith@tribune.com
