We want success. We want top billing. Too often, we overlook the honor in lesser milestones.

Reggie Miller never won a championship. Patrick Ewing never won a championship. To take it a step further, their franchises – the Indiana Pacers and the New York Knicks – are championship-less since 1973. For all intents and purposes, every season since 1973 has been a failure.

Ask Reggie Miller, though, and you’ll find the opposite.

For Reggie, there were two goals each year: to win the championship, and to beat the Knicks. He never reached the first goal, but for one year, during the 1995 playoffs, he accomplished the second, beating the Knicks on the back of one of the game’s greatest performances.

He didn’t win the big one, but the drive to beat his rival was so great that it counted as success. It gave him peace.

In the end, history will play off the Pacers/Knicks rivalry as a third-tier story. It occurred during the Houston Rockets’ repeat championships, during both Michael Jordan eras, and – even later – parallel to the rebirth of the Los Angeles Lakers. It’s a footnote.

Still, there are few chances to see how a team finds ambition and pride in smaller goals. Each game was a challenge, each series a sort of miniature championship.
They fought not just to win the war, but to win each battle therein.

How often does this happen to us? How often do we feel disappointed when we win regionally, yet fail to find success nationally? How often do we look at a promotion as a step toward the top, not as something to be equally proud of? How often do we treat each project as a massive undertaking, instead of taking pride in each detail?

I’ve never written a best seller. I never became a nationally known copywriter. I have yet to headline A List Apart. But, more than anything, I’m learning that this doesn’t mean I’ve failed.

There are differing degrees of success, and we have to take them one at a time.

Reggie never won a championship. But he’s a few years away from becoming a Hall of Famer. He’s a relatively successful broadcaster. And, no matter what, he’s always got that 1995 series against the Knicks, where, for a few days, he felt like a champion.

Who’s to say he never succeeded? Come to think of it, who’s to say we haven’t, either?

Yet, here we are. Less than a month from the end of the season. The postseason hunt underway. And the plucky Indiana Pacers, fresh off of a four game winning streak, are just half of a game out of the playoffs.

The playoffs!

It should probably come as no surprise that I’ve counted them out all season. It’s just not working anymore. Jermaine O’Neal is a shell of his former All Star self. Fans are treated to a barrage of inexperienced and underwhelming players every night. Even supposed bright spot Danny Granger has taken his chance to shine and flushed it down the toilet, averaging just 18.9 points and 5.9 rebounds per game, even with his team scoring more points than anyone in the Eastern Conference outside of Orlando.

But now, here they are. Eleven games below .500. And sniffing at the playoffs.

And here’s the dilemma. If they make the playoffs – if they somehow sneak in and rest themselves firmly at the eighth seed – they’ll be facing the Boston Celtics. The amazingly rejuvenated Boston Celtics, the team poised to bring home the title for the first time since Larry Bird wore green, since before Jordan was a force, since the last power trio graced the Garden’s parquet floor.

The Boston Celtics. The team I’ve taken on as my team of destiny, rooted for and crossed my fingers for and prayed to the basketball gods for. The team that caused me to cheat on my beloved Pacers.

So that’s the trouble. The Boston Celtics vs. the Indiana Pacers. One love verses another. On one hand, I should root for my team – my scrappy upstarts, my fledgling group of misfits – to go all Golden State on Boston’s ass and upset the Chosen Team.

On the other hand, there’s Kevin Garnett. Paul Pierce. Ray Allen. Three superstars that deserve rings. A foregone conclusion to make the Conference Finals, if not win it all. A team that’s infinitely more fun to watch.

If the Pacers make the playoffs, and they face the Celtics, is it okay for me to root for the wrong team?

Is it okay for me to turn my back on an almost guaranteed loser, to root, for one series only, against Reggie and Rik’s team? If only for this one time. If only to see KG get his ring. If only because the Pacers have given me so little to root for over the past three years.

Yeah. It’s okay. But still, I feel so horrible even thinking about it.

If you’re looking for me, I’ll be the one wearing Celtic Green, a number 5 jersey covering my shame, a paper bag over my head. And when the Celtics win, the bag will come off.

I’m just afraid the smile never will.

——————

(EDIT – The Pacers just lost to the Hornets and now sit between one and two games out, dependant upon how the Hawks and Nets do tonight. Maybe I won’t have to worry about this at all.)

Another basketball season.

Another 82 games of excruciating horribleness.

Another season of rooting for the Indiana Pacers, my arbitrarily chosen team, picked because I loved Reggie Miller and held on to because I still love Jermaine O’Neal.

But this team – the one that was just two wins away from an NBA Championship in 2000 and the only one to ever knock the Jordan-led Chicago Bulls out of the playoffs between 1991 and 1998 – is in horrible shape. Bad trades. Bad personnel. The loss of a great leader and a culture still reeling from The Fight and The Retirement.

The Pacers could be the worst team in the league this year.

Or, they could surprise the hell out of everyone and succeed. They have some of the tools – a bright young forward in Danny Granger, a new energized coach, a lack of distractions and a multiple-time All Star in O’Neal. I hope they do. I hope they’ve filled a team with under-the-radar talent that can at least make a playoff run and prove everyone wrong.

Either way, I’m happy. I’m not watching basketball for just the Pacers this year. I’m watching basketball to watch basketball, to enjoy the game and hope for classic match-ups, great games and spectacular performances. I’m watching LeBron as he tries to follow up a tough NBA Finals. The Suns as they try to leap to the front of the Western Conference. The Spurs as they try to repeat. The Mavs as they try to put last year behind them.

I’m watching new rookies with phenomenal hype. I’m watching superstars in new locales, All Stars in new roles and role players in new races for starting minutes. I’m watching Kevin Garnett find a renewed sense of excitement in a basketball-rich city, and I’m watching Kobe Bryant as the pieces fall apart around him on that basketball-rich city’s biggest rival.

With the Pacers slotted to be horrible, I’m free to accept it and enjoy the game for what it is. And with a new digital cable package, I’m free to watch 85% more games on TNT and ESPN. So if the Celtics are playing, you’ll know where I’ll be. Or the Warriors. The Cavaliers, the Suns, the Spurs or the Mavs. The Pistons. The Bulls. You know where I’ll be.

Another year.

Another basketball season.

And finally, a chance to be a fan of the game. Not just a fan of my team.

I’ll post something about my beloved Pacers as the true beginning of the season looms closer, but until then, check out the current ESPN NBA Power Rankings. Mark Stein (along with his committee of one) has knocked the Pacers down to 29. The Timberwolves, who I followed while living in Minnesota – and for whom I still have a warm spot in my heart – are ranked just below them, at 30.

Both teams are lower than the Clippers. The Clippers – the NBA’s portrait of complete ineptitude, a team that has made the playoffs so rarely in its history that they have a special guaranteed time share in Cabo San Lucas throughout the month of May.

The Pacers have won their first three preseason games – rather convincingly, actually. But that’s preseason.

Let’s just hope that the two teams don’t swap spots. I’d hate to see the Pacers wallowing even lower than the Timberwolves.

It could be a long season.

It begins to wear on you. It’s true. This Dolphins season has been less than savory. After starting out 0-5, the Dolphins are causing must of us who root for the team – for whatever inexplainable reason – to give up hope.

And not just for this yea. The future looks bleak too. With a defense that averages 52 years of age and one of the worst offenses in the history of football, there’s really nowhere to go but up.

Unfortunately, we can’t help but think “up” is a long ways away. We’re not floating close to the ceiling here, fighting to break through. We’re in the floorboards, a tell-tale heart just scratching to make it above the floor again.

The funny thing is that, after a while, you begin to embrace losing. I’ll forever root for the teal and orange, no matter how outdated their uniforms look and how many quarterbacks it takes to get a win, but I find myself rooting for losses, cheering for the difficulty of defeat instead of screaming for a win. The Dolphins are the only team to go undefeated throughout a season. Could it be that, 36 years later, we could see another unheard of feat – the totally defeated season?

The extremes are easy to root for. There’s a gamers high that is often associated with winning. It permeates all of sports – an aggressive loss of inhibition that causes fans to lose touch with reality and claim their squad the greatest. And at the opposite end, there’s a feeling of release. The games ultimately don’t matter – the stress of backing your team is dropped, and you can be a lovable loser, pitied by your friends and understood by your opponents.

Winning is stressful. It’s hard on fans. Losing, however, is expected. It’s easy. It’s relaxing to settle, so settle we must.

No – the real difficulty is being right in the middle – the .500 club, the win one, lose one (or even worse – win six, lose six) territory. This the territory of the Minnesota Twins. And this is the territory of my beloved Pacers – a team that has settled into mediocrity after several years of contending. Now, they’re an also ran – too good to get a decent lottery pick, but too bad to ever even sniff the playoffs.

So it’s odd to find myself torn between rooting for wins and rooting for losses. The Pacers are as vanilla as you can get – a boring team with a new coach in a lame division. They’re already matched up against two Eastern Conference powerhouses – the only two remaining, actually: Detroit and Cleveland. They have little chance of making a splash.

And I’m trying hard not to give up, already, before the season starts. But, even though they won their first preseason game tonight, I can’t help it. I’m already expecting the worst.

It all started with Michael Jordan. Being a Chicago Bulls fan was easy. As a kid, I picked a team that had a chance to win the championship. And just like that, they won it. I was spoiled, thinking my team always had a chance, fooling myself that the opponents held some sort of spell over my team when I knew they had no shot.

And, when I realized what I had, I gave it away. I stopped watching sports and found myself drawn back into different teams – new favorites; no more Cardinals – now it’s the Twins; no more Bulls – now it’s the Pacers.

Those decisions have brought me heartbreak. The Pacers were very close for a while. Very close – several Conference Championships and a Finals appearance. And the Twins, well, they’ve created some amazing second half heroics in recent years.

But regardless of the surges they’d make, they would ultimately came up short, leaving me exhausted and somewhat betrayed. My lucky card never came in; my wishes never came true. The photo finish I always dreamed of is still just that – a dream.

So you’ll have to forgive me. It might be hard to watch a loser. But it beats going through the tulmultous ups and downs that accompany a mediocre team’s season – the maybes and the could haves and the almosts.

It’s easier to just accept loss. At least the only place my expectations can go is straight up.

Straight from the basement to the floor.

Kerrie and I sat in an Old Chicago in Sioux Falls, surrounded by Timberwolves fans, blasted out by cheers and pummeled by the sound of thunder sticks. The Timberwolves won the crucial game, 83-80. The score sounds ugly. The game was exciting.

The Wolves went on to lose to the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals. That same year, the Pacers lost out to the Pistons in the Eastern Conference Finals, thus barring my team’s entrance to the Finals for the first time since 2000. It was a summer of near misses in NBA basketball. High expectations, crushed.

The real significance of the game, however, is personal. That night, sitting there in front of a television that was hung from the ceiling, nursing several beers and inching closer to my goal of World Beer Tour completion, I watched a sports contest all the way through, from start to finish, uninterrupted, with my full, unbridled attention.

I haven’t done it since them.

I’m a sports fan poseur.

I don’t watch sports. But I’m a sports fan.

I’m attached to the words and numbers that create the bare bones of a sports contest. I’m latched on to the box score that serves as a numerical blueprint for reproduction of the game. I know names, not people; stats, not performances. I’m ashamed, but yet, I’m comfortable with it.

I don’t watch sports with an attentive eye. I have them on, sure, and I watch them for the most part, but I’m always focusing on something else. And, realistically, even those times are rare, what with the low level of television time I afford myself. I find that I don’t need to watch an entire game to get the gist of the contest. I listen to sports radio and get the blanks all filled in.

I’m a sports fan dedicated to the standings. I celebrate wins without seeing a pitch, a throw, or a single basket. I receive text messages and lament losses without even knowing how the loss transpired or if it was even a good game.

I live my sports life through newspapers, much like those years before Sportscenter lived, listening only to snippets on the radio, yet knowing enough that Pat Neshek should have been voted into the All Star game.

I’ve seen only two highlights from the Dolphins this year. I’ve watched only about 20 complete innings all Twins season. I’ve been known to go until the first nationally televised game without even knowing the play by play of the Pacers’ wins and losses.

I love sports. But I don’t know why I don’t take the trouble of watching them. I mean, I can’t count the number of times I’ve been at work and someone has come up to me to talk about a previous night’s game. I know all of the key plays. I know who won. I know who scored, and what it means, and how the standings are lined up and how the playoffs are falling into place. But when he says “Did you see that play?” I simply shake my head and avert my eyes.

“No,” I have to admit. “I didn’t see the game.”

I don’t know why – I’m fine with it any other time. I simply don’t make time to watch the games; they take too long and are riddled with boredom and long winded commercial breaks. To me, seeing sports live has ruined the feel of a television game. I’m so easily distracted while watching it on the small screen. I don’t get the same feeling I do when in the Metrodome or at the Arena.

So I live my sports life through stats, scouring the standings and adding up home runs and comparing scoring averages instead of watching the subtle footwork and guile and teamwork that makes sports fun.

I haven’t watched a single television game straight through. For over three years. I’m a poseur. A fraud. A fake. A sports fan with no sports, a paper champion, a slave to the reporters and a cause for worry.

But to me, I’m okay with it. The 1910 baseball season wasn’t televised. Only your local team was heard on the radio. And sports were still as rich as they are today.

It makes me think – what is it about sports that’s important? Is it the physical act, the actual movement of sport and the visual aspect that encompasses nearly every television at some point in time? Or is it the underlying story, the results and the hard facts and the relationships that aren’t even brought out during the live event. Is it the act or the result that’s important?

And if the act’s what matters, why is so much focus placed on the results?

The report says he’s stepping down. I have a hard time believing it was that easy. We all know he was being pushed out. Welcome to the NBA Coaching Carousel.

I don’t care what reports say. Rick Carlisle isn’t stepping down on his own accord. I don’t know anyone as young as Carlisle and with as much bad luck as Carlisle has had that doesn’t think they can keep going. I don’t know any coaches who, this early in a coaching career, hang it up, who can afford to miss the paychecks and are willing walk away from coaching under a good friend, where the coach/GM relationship is as tight as could be.

Or maybe we’ve been lied to all these years. Maybe Bird has soured on Carlisle. Maybe Donnie Walsh let Carlisle come on as a favor to Bird. Maybe Carlisle has felt enough pressure to succeed with some of the least talented rosters in all of sports, rosters that have been driven by potential, not results; the future, not current success.

Here’s what I know. I know that Rick Carlisle took a talented Indiana Pacers team to the brink of the Finals during his first year of service, where he came up against the team he had just left – a juggernaught Detroit Pistons team that no one believed in but everyone feared. I know that the next year his plans were torn apart because of the hot-tempered screwball that many know as Ron Artest, thanks to a brawl that threw the lineup out of whack, causing Carlisle to use about 16,000 starting lineups throughout the year.

And the year after that, Carlisle found himself staring down the barrel at another Artest blow-up, this time a self-induced team suspension as a result of a trade request. He was traded, eventually, and a gimped-up Peja Stojakovic was brought in on a rental basis. All of us Pacers fans rejoiced for a month or so, happy to have the Artest Train Wreck out of town, then watched Peja take his services elsewhere – to New Orleans, of all places.

And then this year. We trade to get Al Harrington – a player we let go on free agency just a year before, giving up our draft pick in the process. And then we trade him again, along with gun-brandishing Stephen Jackson, to Golden State. In the meantime, we get two horrible contracts and two of the whitest players in the league. We lose 11 straight. If we could go three games without someone being a complete and utter distraction, we might have hit .500.

Has more bad luck ever happened to a good coach? What’s next? Jermaine O’Neal breaks his leg two games into the season? Mike Dunleavy snaps and starts waving a gun at mid-court? Jamaal Tinsley misses half of the Pacers’ games? (Whoops – that last one hits a little too close to home for him.)

Really, does anyone out there actually think that any of this was Carlisle’s fault – that after four years of trying to coach the crap that Donnie Walsh and Larry Bird had thrown together like some kind of has-been player casserole, Carlisle was somehow to blame?

Through a year of adversity, Carlisle coached a playoff team that somehow made it to the Conference semi-finals. Carlisle made Eastern Conference contenders of a team without its second best player and no viable scoring options. Through injuries, Carlisle kept the Pacers competitive.

And though boneheaded moves, horrible judgment and moronic choices, Walsh and Bird threw it all away, every time. Now, we have one bright spot: Danny Granger. That’s it. Everyone else has worn out their welcome or proven worthless to the team, unable to pull teammates together in some semblance of a professional outfit.

Jermaine O’Neal needs to go. Jeff Foster needs to go. Jamal Tinsley needs to go. Everyone on the team not named Danny needs to go. After four years of steady decline – prompted by the brutes and scrubs that upper management has put together – Larry Bird needs to go. Donny Walsh needs to sell the team to someone competent – someone willing to spend and choose great players and attempt to create a great team again.

Out of everyone, there’s one person who really DIDN’T need to go.

Rick Carlisle. He’s the only thing that kept the team together. And now he’s being shoved into the role of patsy.

It’s too bad. I had high hopes for the next season – a cleared out roster and a new direction, a focus on the young players Indiana could get and a sharp drive from the old days of boring, brutal basketball.

Now I can’t. I’ve been let down again. I’ve lost nearly all respect I had for my favorite team. I’m ready to jump off of the ship, to swim to better luxury liners – the ones that cater to the fans while fielding a competitive team. Because I’m starting to have a hard time recognizing this team – my favorite team in all of sports.

None of that was Rick Carlisle’s fault. But he’s stepping down anyway. I’d be surprised if it was of his own accord. All I know is that some team is going to pick up a great coach. And the Pacers are going to regret letting him go.

When Dirk Nowitzki was a rookie and Steve Nash was freshly traded to the Mavs, the Dallas fans mercilessly booed them.

They booed Dirk Nowitzki and Steve Nash in Dallas.

Can you believe that now? After two MVPs for Nash and a nearly inevitable one for Dirk this year?

I just read that in a fantastic article about Dirk and Steve in Sports Illustrated. And it reminded me of one thing: It’s playoff time in the NBA.

This is more than just an excuse to post a picture of rookie Dirk and sophomore Steve. With the Pacers out for the first time in years, I’m ready to fully appreciate everything that the games will bring – the uncertainty and the sure-shots, the tremendous match-ups and star players. I’m ready for another Mavs/Suns series. And I’m ready for one of the two teams to finally step up and win it all.

I’ll admit — I’ve been a little lax in my Pacer fan-dom this past year. After all, they didn’t give me much to root for. It’s been all about watching these two new style teams – the new 80s Lakers and Celtics. The Mavs and Suns could play every night of the season, and it would be fine by me.

If I can’t watch, I’ll at least follow every shot, every dunk, every no-look pass and thundering alley oop, every botched play and drastic recovery, every launched trey and every clanked free throw. Baseball won’t get interesting for months. Football is a season away. This is it — the end of my personal sports season, the twilight of the year, when everything comes together.

The World Series is a teaser. The Super Bowl is like an All-Star Game. The NCAA Tournament, my personal playoffs, rife with intensity and worked to perfection. The NBA playoffs — the ultimate ending.

This is what it’s all about. I’m kind of totally excited. Bring on the action. Bring on the spectacle of my favorite sport at a time when everything counts and everything is brilliant.

Bring on the playoffs.

Good. I’m glad.

Wait, what? What’s this? Mr. Can’t Stand The Pistons is happy they won? Mr. Believes The Pistons Cost Reggie Miller A Championship is actually rooting against his home team?

Yes. I’m officially rooting against the Pacers. Against the team that I consider my favorite, not just in basketball but in all sports. I’m hoping against hope that they lose every game from here on out. I welcome tanking. I have no pride left. How could I?

It’s been a trying three seasons for Pacers fans. We’ve watched our legend – the best player to ever put on an Indiana uniform – robbed of his title by the most widely publicized brawl in sports history. We’ve weathered high predictions, only to find our star player wants to be traded. We’ve taken on a horribly overrated player, only to lose him when free agency comes around. And now? We’re suiting up a team of random players with horrible contracts.

There’s no end in sight. We’re saddled with a bench full of scrubs and a team that can’t even contend in the league’s weakest conference. And get this – if the Pacers end up with the 11th pick or worse, they have to give it to Atlanta. It’s part of the trade that brought Al Harrington back to Indianapolis. First pick through tenth, we keep it. Otherwise, it’s a wasted draft.

The Pacers are horrible this year. But, unfortunately, they’re not horrible enough to matter.

In professional basketball, being a team stuck in the middle is hell. It’s impossible. The league is set up so that the best teams are always the best. Only by divine luck or pure organizational savvy can you create something out of nothing. The same teams are always winning. The same teams are always losing. You need to hit the lottery twice in order to create something new, or else you need to be able to pick up talent for less than it’s worth.

Larry Bird is not proving himself well as the Pacers’ GM. He’s made some boneheaded moves. He’s drafted well, but he’s locked in at a mid-teens pick every single year.

What we need is to cut our losses. Call this season a wash. Call next season a wash as well. Get some lottery picks – someone we can actually develop into a quality player.

In order to get a decent draft pick, we can’t just suck. We have to suck more than the other teams in the league. We need to collapse monumentally. We need to lose every game from here on out. Because the worst could certainly still happen – we could miss the playoffs and STILL be without the consolatory reward: a young draft pick. The worst of both worlds.

That’s the Pacers, my friends. Always in the middle. Indy .500. The most average team ever to grace the league.

It pains me to root against my own team. But it’s necessary, for the good of the team, for the good of the city. Indianapolis doesn’t need to think about basketball, not after their beloved Colts won the Super Bowl. We can’t forget their plight – the Pacers are better than this.

So you’ll have to forgive me if I root against the Pacers. I can’t help it. I’d like to still think there’s hope for the team.

Most of us Pacers fans are tired of rooting for average. It’s just too exhausting.

Now someone is suing the Pacers’ MASCOT.

From an AP article on MSNBC:

It never ends for Pacers — mascot sued
Man claims ‘Boomer’ tackled him from behind, caused permanent injury

After taking part in the free-throw contest, the lawsuit states that Jackson began to leave the basketball court but was tackled from behind by the team’s mascot, “Boomer,” a 6-foot-tall blue cat with gold whiskers.

The employee who knew about Jackson’s back surgery immediately told the mascot about the surgery, and Boomer responded by kicking at Jackson’s legs, the lawsuit alleges.

I don’t know what’s more ridiculous:
• That someone is suing the mascot.
• That the mascot has the same mean streak as the rest of the Pacers that have been filtered through the locker room over the past three seasons.
• That the Indiana Pacers’ mascot is, inexplicably, a large feline.
• That I just saw Boomer a few weeks ago, at Crunch’s Birthday Party, and didn’t even realize that the Pacers HAD a mascot.
• That the mascot’s name is, just as inexplicably, Boomer.

It wasn’t that long ago that the Pacers were 29-24, looking to squeeze into that 4th playoff spot and get home court advantage for the first round. Now, after losing seven in a row, we’re two games under .500 and sinking fast.

Just stop this season, please. I thought it was bad being a Timberwolves fan. But at least they have a bright young rookie and Kevin Garnett. In Indiana? We’re the 7th seed in a horrible conference, which means that even though we suck, we’re still not going to get a lottery pick.

And now even our mascot has taken to the usual Pacer-esque drivel.

*Sigh*