Empty seats show Indiana fans have tuned out problem Pacers
The upcoming Iowa caucuses are too close to call. But the Pacers already have been declared a loser in the Indiana polling.
There was an interesting sequence in Indianapolis last week. First, Pacers coach Jim O'Brien basically forgave guard Jamaal Tinsley for the latest late-night incident involving an Indiana player.
After returning from a nightclub, two of Tinsley's cars were struck with bullets outside a downtown hotel at 3:30 a.m. Tinsley wasn't hurt, but the conflict was far from harmless. Pacers equipment manager Joey Qatato was shot in both arms while sitting in one of the cars.
"(Tinsley) didn't do anything wrong," O'Brien was quoted in The Indianapolis Star News. "Frankly, (a punishment) never crossed our minds. What do you punish somebody for? He went to a nightclub. There are no rules against being around a nightclub. He did nothing that would warrant any discipline whatsoever."
A day after O'Brien's quotes ran in the paper, there were acres of empty seats at Conseco Fieldhouse for the Bulls-Pacers game. The crowd was announced at 10,000, but there had to be no more like 7,000 in the building. Not long ago, vacant seats were rare for Indiana.
True, the Pacers missed the playoffs last year, but this season they are doing better than expected. The obvious conclusion is that the fans are fed up with repeated off-the-court incidents.
The most infamous happened last year when Stephen Jackson, now a member of the Warriors, was hit by a car and fired shots into the air in a strip-club parking lot.
Team president Larry Bird took a different approach to Tinsley's experience.
"There have been some things that happened here that have really bothered me, bothered our fans and bothered the whole state," Bird said. "I don't really have a problem with these guys being out until 3:30, but you've got to know your surroundings.
"They were out at a place they shouldn't have been at 3:30 in the morning. We have to make a change, there's no question about it."
• News that the Pacers equipment manager was shot in both arms brought back memories of the Dennis Rodman era for Bulls equipment guru John Ligmanowski.
Few people were as dedicated to sampling the night life as Rodman, but I can't recall any notorious late-night incidents during his Bulls career -- at least none that garnered much publicity.
This isn't meant as an indictment of any other NBA player, but it probably helped that Rodman didn't run with a rough crowd.
He usually included teammates and team employees in his traveling party, and if any friends from home joined in, it was his unofficial little brother, Bryne Rich, whom Rodman befriended while attending college in Oklahoma.
Then again, Rodman often had Carmen Electra, Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder or Smashing Pumpkins' frontman Billy Corgan in tow, and those kinds of friends aren't available to everyone.
• Here's the optimistic thought of the week regarding the Bulls: During the 2004-05 season, when the Bulls finished with a 47-35 record, they hit .500 for the first time on Jan. 22 and were 32-31 as late as March 18.
So even though they're still not showing many positive signs, there is time to turn things around.
The Bulls will finish the month with road games against the Celtics, Wizards and Spurs; as well as home dates against the Lakers, Houston and Orlando, so holding steady at five games below .500 by Jan. 1 wouldn't be a bad scenario. January is when the schedule gets easier for the Bulls.
mmcgraw@dailyherald.com
Associated Press
Indiana Pacers CEO Donnie Walsh, left, talks with guard Jamaal Tinsley during practice at Conseco Fieldhouse just hours after Tinsley apparently was targeted in a Dec. 10 shooting that wounded the Pacers' equipment manager.
[NA105 Pacers Tinsley shooting]