It says here Larry Bird, who has sold his Indianapolis home and is moving back to Florida where his son plans to finish college, general manager David Morway and Vogel are on the precipice of becoming ex-Pacers.

Well, it says here that the nugget of actual info is about the sale of Bird’s house and his impending move to Florida, and that nugget is surrounded by trademark Vecsey speculation.  The rest of the column (related to the Pacers) is more of the same, but it’s worth addressing nontheless.  Here’s are the key points of what Mr. Vecsey thinks might happen:

I’m not saying owner Herb Simon won’t try to re-enlist Bird, though that’s a distinct possibility. Should an offer be extended, however, it definitely won’t be remotely near the $5 million he will have banked for eight straight seasons — more like $1 million, tops, per year for three or four.

That’s quite the haircut.  I don’t know whether it’s true or not, but if it is, it raises two seriously disturbing questions about Herb Simon.  First, what is it exactly about the job that Larry Bird is doing that would make Simon think, “You, at $5 mil, he ain’t cuttin’ it, but at a mill, I’m cool.”?  Second, and more importantly, does this mean that he’s willing to forgo fundamental basketball goals for fiscal concerns?

For whatever reason, if Simon and Bird do part ways, the natural progression is for Donnie Walsh to return from whence he came and where his wife, daughter and dogs still live on adjoining properties.

Regardless whether James Dolan wants Walsh back next season or not, it’s easy to conceive the Knicks’ president concluding his health would be better served by escaping New York’s laboratory and its microscope-wielding multitude, and perhaps re-stake his claim to his former Pacers position, if not re-control of Conseco Fieldhouse.

Vecsey himself acknowledges that this is possibly a fantasy, but it’s one that makes some degree of sense — at least from Herb Simon’s point of view.  For roughly 22 of the first 25 years that the Simons owned the Pacers, Donnie Walsh was their de facto binky.  He basically ran everything.

In 2008, Frank Isola of the New York Daily News reported that Herb and Mel Simon preferred to keep Donnie Walsh and fire Bird.

Walsh’s future with the Pacers also remains up in the air. According to a high-ranking Pacers official, the team’s co-owners, Herbert and Melvin Simon, are hoping to retain Walsh and fire team president Larry Bird. The same source indicated that Walsh has too much respect for Bird to fire him and then reassume full control of the team.

So, will Donnie Walsh be coming home to the Pacers?  While I can’t say that that interest exists in Donnie Walsh’s mind, or that any plans are being made in Herb Simon’s, I have little doubt that Simon would be perfectly fine with such a scenario.

If I had been the director, however, it wouldn’t have even been Winning Time. No, the title definitely would have been “Man, Did This Dude Just Did This?”

This is the exact phrase that John Starks used to describe what was going through his mind after Reggie hit the back-to-back threes that made up 75% of his infamous 8 points in 8.9 seconds outburst in 1995, which, if you’re new around these parts, is the very same sequence for which this blog is named.

Mostly, I would call it “Man, Did Dude Just Did This?” to highlight the true source of greatness for this flick: the interviews. Director Dan Klores spoke with most of the principals from the 1990s Pacers/Knicks rivalry and got some stellar content. But more than just running a camera to record people talking and calling that good, he expertly weaved the comments together to create a fantastic, patch-work, uninterrupted narrative from many different voices that perfectly describes everything the viewer needs to know.

For someone such as myself who knew 90% of the material going in, it is the craftsmanship displayed in this regard that is both the most impressive and the most entertaining part of the documentary.

Insight. Humor. Stage-setting. It’s all there. And there’s so much of it.

Thus, here are my favorite 46 quotes from Winning Time, including the wonderfully grammatically challenged one that could have made this thing a John Starks joint.

On Reggie

Pacers play-by-play announcer Mark Boyle: “The first time I saw him, I was taken aback. The guy looked like Mr. Potato Head on a stick.”

Cheryl Miller: “He’s maddening. He is a maddening human being.”

Patrick Ewing: “He was a great con man. Ya know, he was always crying to the ref, running off, flopping. Ya know, knock you down, smack you and act like he was the one getting smacked. I … ya know … tell ya … I hated Reggie.”

Reggie Miller: “Seventy percent of me talking on the court is personally for me to get me motivated and going. Thirty percent is to see if I can get into the opponent’s head.”

On Cheryl Miller

Reggie Miller: “Cheryl was the king of the block — and that was over the guys and the girls. She jumped the highest. She played the hardest. And she hit the hardest.”

Reggie Miller: “I learned a lot form the beat downs. Cheryl’s tough. Very tough.”

Cheryl Miller: “I would kill him. I loved killing Reggie. And dad would come out ‘Don’t hit your brother’ and all that kind of stuff. But he was … just … that … annoying.”

Cheryl Miller: “I was physically bigger and better than him. So every time that he would come in the middle, I would send it back. And I would laugh about him and give him a hard time and say ‘Alright. Alright, you sissy. This is where the big girls play.’”

On the John Starks Head Butt (Game 3, 1993)

Reggie: “Looking at Oakley, I was like ‘Your boy is really, really dumb. I mean he is really, really dumb. Are you serious?’”

Antonio Davis: “I’m surprised he didn’t have, like, a pack of ketchup and just put it up to his head, and you look and you think he’s bleeding.”

Reggie Miller: “I don’t talk trash. I keep telling you that. I’m a good guy.”

On the Rivalry’s Physicality

Antonio Davis: “Against the Indiana Pacers, you wasn’t coming down the middle. If you came down once, you definitely knew you couldn’t come down again.”

Greg Anthony: “We would say, ‘Hey, we’re gonna win something tonight. We’re either gonna win the game or the fight.’”

Patrick Ewing: “If we knocked someone down, it was a fine to pick them back up.”

On the 25-point Fourth Quarter (Game 5, 1994)

Mark Boyle: “The Knicks were a really strong defensive team. And they had a nice lead going into the fourth quarter. And, you thought it was over.”

Reggie (on Spike): “You pay a lot of money for those seats … OK, you’re gonna be part of the game now … He became part of the game.”

Spike Lee: “I had never ever had any interplay with an athlete before like that. Ever.” *cut to footage of Spike and Scottie Pippen getting into it*

Ahmad Rashad (on Spike): “If you go to playgrounds across the country, there’s always one little guy who can’t play very well, but he stands over there and talks all the crap. He’s the instigator.”

Spike Lee: “I didn’t mind the choke sign, but to grab his nuts. My wife’s sitting right there. C’mon.”

Reggie Miller: “I remember going to the Davis boys and Rik and saying ‘You guys just set screens. I’m gonna make everything.’”

Herb Williams: “I think if Spike had of just sat there and not said nothing, Reggie might have missed his next ten shots.”

Marv Albert: “He had two games going. He had one with Spike. And he had one with the Knicks.”

Larry Brown: “I think as soon as he got over half court, he was in range.”

Spike Lee (on the following game, Game 6): “I’m praying to God, because I know, we lose this game, it’s gonna be hard for me to live in New York City.”

On 8 points in 8.9 Seconds (Game 1, 1995)

Donnie Walsh: “Mel Daniels started banging on the door, and he said ‘Donnie, Reggie just tied the game up.’ And I said ‘Stop screwing with me — I’m not in the mood.’”

Ahmad Rashad: “…presence of mind to not take the two — to step back and take the three. Now that takes … huge … … balls … to do that.”

John Starks: “I’m walking to the free-throw line and I’m thinking, like, ‘Man, did this dude just did this?’”

Greg Anthony: “I had never heard the Garden that quiet. We’ve had shootarounds at the Garden when there was no one there but the janitors, and it wasn’t that quiet.”

Mark Jackson: “We watched John’s eyes. And he wanted no parts of those foul shots.”

Spike Lee (on Anthony Mason fouling Reggie): “Our basketball IQ is not the highest.”

Jeff Van Gundy: “That sequence was the biggest meltdown that I can remember ever seeing in the NBA.”

Reggie Miller: “The joy of them choking, and that satisfaction of doing it in New York? John missing two free-throws at home? That’s the joy of it.

On Ding Dong, the Witch Is Dead (Game 7, 1995)

Antonio Davis: “It’s the Garden. It’s New York. You’re just so fired up. You can’t sleep. You can’t eat. You just wanna play.”

Byron Scott: “Rik Smits hadn’t said anything for six games, and we got in our huddle, and Rik Smits said ‘Let’s go out and kick their ass.’ That was it. We was like, ‘Ahh, it’s on.’”

Cheryl Miller: “Going back to New York, no way they win it. I thought it was done. I thought it was over.”

Peter Vecsey: “It was gonna be done again and it was gonna be done in Madison Square Garden … Manifest Destiny.”

Ahmad Rashad: “The whole city of New York was involved. Patrick Ewing. Reggie Miller. The Knicks. The Pacers, their arch-rivals. And it was their peak — their chance. And it hinged on one play.”

Rik Smits: “I’m thinking ‘Wow. The same thing is happening over again. We’re gonna lose.’”

Patrick Ewing (on his failed finger roll): “I see the ball hit — Ba-dupe … Ba-dupe.”

Charles Smith: “That shot put the lid on the basket for all of our careers moving forward.”

Mark Boyle: “Ding dong the witch is dead.”

On Other Stuff

Peter Vecsey: “We used to call it Nap City — probably still is called Nap City — because most players, when they get there, they do go to sleep and wait for the game.”

Spike Lee: “The first season tickets I had, I got the day after we got Patrick Ewing in the Draft.”

Reggie Miller: “Larry Brown is a perfectionist in an imperfect game. You always hear him say ‘Play the Right Way.’ During it? You couldn’t stand him. We all couldn’t stand him. But, in a sense, he was bringing us closer together as a team, because we were all ‘Hey, we can’t stand the coach, but we got to do the right thing.’”

Cheryl Miller: “I didn’t even know Indiana had an NBA team. I didn’t even know they had a franchise.”

Mark Jackson (on being traded from the Clippers the Pacers): “That’s probably the first time somebody was thrilled to move from LA to Indiana.”

Some young, unidentified Pacers fan: “I shaved my head. And … painted it.”

Mel Daniels, whose ABA number is retired by the Indiana Pacers, was fired as the team’s director of player personnel.

In today’s message-conscious world, the word “fired” isn’t something you expect to hear associated with Mel Daniels. Mel was — and still is — a Pacers icon. He led the franchise to three ABA titles and has been in the front office in various capacities since 1986.

It seems to me that someone of that import to the organization and the community would merit more than an apparently hastily prepared 71-word report. The Pacers press release used softer language, but did nothing to indicate that this action had been well-planned:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Oct. 23, 2009

INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Pacers today confirmed that Director of Player Personnel, Mel Daniels, is no longer with the organization.

“Mel was a great basketball player who helped make the Pacers a well-known franchise”, stated Larry Bird, President of Basketball Operations, “and we wish him well.”

The Pacers are working with Mel, and we are hopeful we will be able to make a joint statement in the near future.

The way the news is being reported, and the fact that the Pacers are confirming that Daniels is no longer employed, leads me to believe that these are relatively rapidly changing events, rather than a pre-planned, cost-saving reduction or termination.

Many Pacer fans, including myself, were somewhat dazed by the move. Events took a further turn when Peter Vecsey unloosed a volley at the Pacers in his blog for the New York Post. Some of his more inflammatory comments included:

Owner Herb Simon and team president Larry Bird should be ashamed for not superseding GM David Morway’s decision to hatchet one of Indianapolis’ most revered sports figures, something he’s wanted to do for months; conveniently he was out of the office, in Orlando, when the execution was implemented.

… and …

Donnie Walsh should be embarrassed he ever hired such a paperweight as Morway, a former player agent whose basketball opinion rings hollow at his own family dinner table, to understudy him.

At first blush, I had to wonder why Vecsey, or anyone outside of the immediate Pacer community, would take any notice of Mel’s termination. Secondly, it struck me odd that he was so vitriolic in his comments. Almost immediately, however, I realized that this wasn’t the first time this week that Peter Vecsey had led off his column with a story about the Pacers. On Sunday, October 18, he published a piece headlined, “Sources: Bird set to go at end of season.” In the piece, he said two sources, a  former and a current employee of the Pacers, had said that Larry Bird would step down at the end of the season. The reasons given were health and “lack-of-enjoyment” issues.

For those who have followed the Pacers, this is an entirely plausible scenario. Though he was a successful coach, Bird’s post-basketball career has never even approached the success he experienced as a player. The humiliation this franchise has suffered (much self-inflicted), along with the paucity of talent and scarce financial resources, can’t make that job pleasant for anyone. However, Vecsey did not stop at that. Perhaps the most potentially incendiary comment came towards the end, quoting an unnamed source:

One thing’s for sure, “Our players were sick when they heard about the extension,” someone on the scene accentuated.

Of course, “the extension” refers to the Pacers decision to pick up the 2010-2011 option on head coach Jim O’Brien’s contract. If this news was in fact true, in part or in total, it would be very reminiscent of the dysfunction that’s plagued the Pacers for years.

In any case, the nature of Daniels’ firing, coupled with the quick response from the distant Vecsey, led me to strongly suspect that Mel Daniels might be his source inside the Pacer organization.

This story is far from completely told, however. While I was writing this piece, Bob Kravitz of the Indianapolis Star posted a column on Daniels’ ouster. In it, he notes others’ speculation that Daniels was the source for Vecsey’s story, but he also mentions that Daniels denied that charge on the record. He gives the outline of political infighting in the Pacers’ front office. This is hardly news. Anybody who has worked in a corporate setting has witnessed this type of feuding first hand.

While he notes that the biggest battles were between Daniels and Pacers’ GM David Morway, he does cite that Daniels also apparently had ongoing disputes with Coach Jim O’Brien and Director of Scouting Joe Ash. Mel, unsurprisingly, was apparently loud and unapologetic in voicing his dissent. I clearly do not know this specific dynamic first hand, but I can tell you that the value of that particular approach in a management setting is variable, at best.

Both the Pacers and Daniels are being relatively mum on the subject. The only person Kravitz quoted in his column was former Pacer Bob Netolicky, a long-time teammate of Daniels:

Netolicky believes Bird and Morway wanted to be surrounded by yes-men and they chafed when Daniels had the temerity to disagree.

“Mel’s basketball knowledge is so great, he knew more about the game than all of those (front-office) people put together, especially in terms of seeing a player and understanding how he’ll fit in,” Netolicky said. “All I know is, some people just dance to the beat, and Mel made the mistake of voicing his opinion.”

Netolicky had also been let go by the Pacers in May. He had been with the team for 10 months, and they told him “it was a cost-cutting thing.”

Kravitz finishes his piece with the following dark words:

The wounds are deep. The anger is real.

So real, it wouldn’t shock me if Daniels demanded his jersey be taken down from the fieldhouse rafters.

We haven’t heard the last of this.

Now, Kravitz, like Vecsey, loves the drama, and isn’t above valuing a provocative comment over any actual truth or substance. That could certainly be the case here, but this news is coming to the Pacer nation pretty hard and pretty fast. The problem that Bird, Morway, et al, face is that all of the issues occurred behind closed doors. This isn’t a GM with a history of bad moves or a coach with a long losing record. The Pacer community as a whole will never really know what happened. So what it will come down to is what — or more accurately, who — people are going to believe.

Who’s got more credibility with the Pacer faithful: The guy whose number is hanging in the rafters or the guy in this picture?

There are so many ways that this can go, and almost none of them are good for the franchise.

If what Vecsey, Kravitz and Netolicky are claiming is true then the Pacers have replaced an old dysfunction (the apparent inability for Bird and Walsh to reach mutually acceptable decisions on personnel) for another (a front office unwilling to listen to opinions it doesn’t want to hear). And even if the sentiments expressed by those three prove exaggerated or simply untrue, but Daniels decides to play the victim, a large portion of the fanbase will be alienated. That, in some ways, could be just as bad or worse than a dysfunctional front office, because we’re talking about the absolute hardcore fans here — and even they only have so much patience.

In either case, the Pacers, as usual, are screwed.

If I were to speculate (which I’m gonna do), I’d guess that Mel had effectively become more trouble than he was worth. I’d also say that it seems likely that Bird and Morway believed that he was Vecsey’s source, despite his denial. (Given Vecsey’s response, I’d consider that to be reasonable speculation.) I’d have to believe they had some pretty strong motivation for letting him go, and for doing it now. Unless they’re completely naive, Bird and Morway would have to know that this would get an ugly reaction from a PR-standpoint. The timing couldn’t have been worse (effectively eclipsing the positive image surveys by Frank Luntz), and the handling could not have been more ham-handed. (I should probably wait on making that judgment until this all plays out. It can always get worse.)

I’m beginning to wonder if the Pacers should forgo trying to come up with a new slogan each year (this years’ tagline is “Passion. Pride. Pacers”), and simply contact Dorothy Parker’s estate and acquire the permanent rights to “What fresh hell is this?”

If that’s too high-brow, perhaps “D’oh!” will be more appropriate.