Overly Caucasion Insinuation

The 2009/10 Pacers schedule was released yesterday, and it actually looks pretty promising early.

Nine of the Pacers’ first 14 games are at home, and only five of the first 13 games are against opponents who made the Playoffs last season. For a re-tooled roster featuring at least five new faces, starting off the season well is important. Hopefully, a manageable November schedule will help them gel early and set the tone for more wins this year.

It looks like Santa has blessed the team as well. Just following Jesus’ birthday, from December 31 – January 15, the Pacers have a eight-game stretch where they play Memphis, Minnesota, New York, Orlando, Minnesota, Oklahoma City, Toronto and Phoenix. Obviously, those teams may have improved over the summer, but the Magic are the only Playoff team from last season that the Pacers will play during that run.

On the other hand, the post-All-Star Break Playoff push is pretty brutal.

Feb 17 San Antonio
Feb 19 at New Orleans
Feb 20 at Houston
Feb 22 at Dallas
Feb 24 at Chicago
Feb 25 Milwaukee
Feb 27 Chicago

Mar 2 at L.A. Lakers
Mar 3 at Portland
Mar 5 at Denver
Mar 6 at Phoenix
Mar 9 Philadelphia
Mar 12 at Boston

Indy starts the second half of the season with nine out of 13 on the road and, even including the home games, the Bucks are the only cupcake team of the bunch. Injuries and other things could easily re-route a team like Portland, for example, towards mediocrity, but I think we can circle these 13 games on the calendar as a barometer to gauge how far the team has come.

In other news, the Pacers will play 22 back-to-backs, five of which are road/road and none of which are home/home. (Home/home back-to-backs are actually very rare. The NBA tries to avoid them, possibly because there is a belief that a home crowd would be burnt out/not show up for two straight nights, and there are only two home/home back-to-back sets scheduled across the entire League next season, both of which happen to hosted by the Bobcats in Charlotte.)

Sure, 22 is a lot of back-to-backs, but the average is about 20 per team and a few teams actually have to play 23 sets of them, so it could be a little worse. Here’s the full list via TrueHoop.

Charlotte Bobcats 23

Chicago Bulls 23

Detroit Pistons 23

Atlanta Hawks 22

Indiana Pacers 22

Houston Rockets 22

L.A. Clippers 22

Denver Nuggets 22

Milwaukee Bucks 22

Toronto Raptors 21

New Jersey Nets 21

Washington Wizards 21

Philadelphia 76ers 20

Memphis Grizzlies 20

L.A. Lakers 20

Golden State Warriors20

Sacramento Kings 20

Minnesota Timberwolves 20

Dallas Mavericks 20

Phoenix Suns 20

Orlando Magic 19

Utah Jazz 19

Portland Trail Blazers 19

New York Knicks 18

Boston Celtics 18

Miami Heat 18

Cleveland Cavaliers 18

Oklahoma City Thunder 18

San Antonio Spurs 17

New Orleans Hornets 16

And in what is likely the most important factor in gauging the national interest in the Indiana professional basketball, the Pacers, for he second straight season, have a total of zero games on either ABC or TNT. Their final game of the year in Washington on April 14 will be shown on ESPN, however, for whatever that’s worth, and they do have two games that will be broadcast on NBA TV at least — which I believe is twice as many as the one Pacer game that the League-run site aired last season. (The two games are Indiana @ Golden State on 11/30/09, and Utah @ Indiana on 3/26/09.)

I’m not sure Pacers fans should be surprised by any of this, honestly. Jimmy O’Brien’s offense is fun to watch, sure, but all the outside world (aside from Kelly Dwyer) really sees in Indiana these days is mostly boring, mediocrity.

And white people. They see lots of white people.

conseco fieldhouse

Hopefully, more people show up to the 41 games in Conseco this season.

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As we’ve discussed, there’s been a lot of action inside Conseco Fieldhouse of late. Jarrett Jack and Marquis Daniels have left the team. Tyler Hansbrough, AJ Price and Josh McRoberts got to know and play with Brandon Rush and Roy Hibbert in Summer League. And Dahntay Jones and Earl Watson have joined the franchise.

Despite all the transactions, Pacers President Larry Bird found some time to chat with Derek Schultz on the Zone on XL950 about everything going on in Pacerland. Here’s link to the full audio, (via Indy Cornrows) but, honestly, Larry didn’t have a ton to say aside from (and possibly including) the following:

On losing Jarrett Jack:

“Jarrett was great here. He did everything that we asked of him. He’s a great young man with a lot of skill. But that offer sheet Toronto gave him was a little too much for us at this time.”

On improving the defense this off-season:

“With the addition of Hansbrough, AJ Price and Dahntay Jones, we feel that we really upgraded our defense, and hopefully [they'll help] pick up the rest of the guys and we’ll play better on the defensive end. We’re going to score points — we know that — but we’ve got to stop other teams.”

On Derek Schultz asking him whether or not he was surprised by Tyler’s good play in Summer League:

“Not at all, Derek I’ve been watching this young man since high school. He’s a battler. He’s going to give you everything he’s got every night. He’s going to improve because of his ability to work hard and, I think he’s going to be a great fit for the Indiana Pacers.”

On AJ Price:

“He played at Connecticut — played against tough competition. I think it’s just going to take him time to get a feel of the groove — of the speed of the NBA game. But once he gets it, he’s a smart player and I think he’ll adjust just fine.”

On Bob Kravitz’s article about the Pacers highly caucasian make-up:

“I don’t pay much attention to it. I do my job — try to get the best players we possibly can get. Obviously Bob wanted to get a little headlines for himself.”

On the progress of Brandon Rush and Roy Hibbert:

“I expect big things out of both of them. I don’t expect them to make All-Star teams this year, but just as long as we get great improvements each time we go out. They got a lot of experience last year and, as we go forward, I think you’ll see them play more and more — and improve along the way.”

On his overall plan for the franchise:

“We’re trying to get a lot of young players mixed in with our veterans and trying to get a good mesh here. Trying to change the culture and get a good locker room — we had an excellent locker room last year — and build upon that.”

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