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Are Pacers too white? No, all Bird cares about are finding guys who can play By Mike Wells

In Indiana, and in many other parts of the NBA-watching world, it's the giant white elephant in the middle of the room.

Is Pacers president Larry Bird specifically trying to build a team dominated by white players?
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It's an uncomfortable question to ask in these politically correct days, but how do you ignore a roster that includes Mike Dunleavy, Troy Murphy, Josh McRoberts, Travis Diener, Jeff Foster and now, first-round pick Tyler Hansbrough?

In a league where little more than 10 percent of the players are white Americans, the Pacers roster is racially split down the middle, making them one of the whitest teams in the league.

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We all joke about this. Because, well it's funny. I'm surprised to so someone actually ask Bird about it, and him respond.

did anyone catch kravitz this morning? talking bout the pacers and being such a white team...interesting to have around the horn and pti lead off with this subject...we are the whitest team for sure...but as kravitz said...winning and losing is all that matters.

This could turn into a touchy subject fast, but I will say that I think Bird wants basketball players first and foremost who embody that same heart, toughness, and will to win that he does. The Pacers do have more white guys than the average NBA team, but they also have an offensive system that needs good 3 pt shooters, and a lot of the league's best quality shooters, happen to be white.

Since taking over the draft process, Bird is 8/10 drafting black players over white players. End of discussion.

fj20 wrote:did anyone catch kravitz this morning? talking bout the pacers and being such a white team...interesting to have around the horn and pti lead off with this subject...we are the whitest team for sure...but as kravitz said...winning and losing is all that matters.

Utah is whiter.

ha... love having people point that out.

I dont know about everyones else feelings about this but i think this statement is ridiculus! Who cares I dont. Now I know Kravitz is white and all but why is this right for him to say? To me someone of his position should of thought twice about printing this. (Pacers too white) i think if somebody said that the hawks(just an example) had all african american players there would be an uproar. There is somethings that should be kept to them self.

slickrick03rk wrote:I dont know about everyones else feelings about this but i think this statement is ridiculus! Who cares I dont. Now I know Kravitz is white and all but why is this right for him to say? To me someone of his position should of thought twice about printing this. (Pacers too white) i think if somebody said that the hawks(just an example) had all african american players there would be an uproar. There is somethings that should be kept to them self.

I mean, who can honestly say that the thought never crossed their minds? Like Kravitz said, it's the elephant in the room. I don't think it has anything to do with race, but I like that he wasn't afraid to tackle the issue.

I personally thought it was taste less and i'm a huge pacer fan. So what that half our team is white who cares and why did it need to be brought up.

Diener and Dunleavy are not playing much next season. McBob might see more action, Rasho won't, Psycho is a rookie, and Foster is awesome. I don't think we're THAT white, and in terms of production, we're not depending on anyone seriously besides Murphy and maybe Foster.

We all know that Granger and the TJ/JJ combo ran the show last season.

We are way too white. I really don't care but if you want to win, most of the guys on this team will not get it done. Our bigs are laughable. McBob, Foster, Rasho need to be shipped out of here. Keep Murphy, Hansbrough, and Hibbert and add a great veteran. O and what is with all of the Duke players?? Haha that is pathetic.

the only reason it seems suspect at all is that it coincides with our efforts to rehabilitate our public image. and let's face it, we have one of the whitest fanbases in the league, in part because indianapolis is relatively not diverse, but mostly because white people there still largely care about the NBA, which can't be said about a lot of other NBA cities. This is not a bad thing, it's just a reality.

What does make Indiana stand out is the amount of white American players. I don't know what to think about that, it could be pandering towards the Hoosier ideal, but this has been happening for a couple years now. I don't know why it took Hansbrough getting picked for everyone to notice, the team at least has legit basketball reasons to draft him. Signing Diener and trading for Dunleavy and Murphy were a lot more transparent moves in my book. In fact, I'd say any speculation regarding a white team building strategy now is both late and irrelevant. The team has shed it's negative image, and has a group of character guys (black and white). Bird's not some white supremacist, he'll be looking to sign/trade for/draft the best players for the team, which will mean that, in accordance with league averages, you'll probably see the amount of white players decrease.

It is rather crap that Bird, just because he was the NBA's great white hope, has to contend with questions like these when he's trying to build a team. If he were someone else, we probably wouldn't be talking about this.

The Al Harrington/Stephen Jackson for Dunleavy and Murphy deal was the worst trade I have ever seen. We finally got Harrington and traded after a season. I understand nobody wanted Jackson but at least get equal talent. Both of the players are better than Dunleavy and Murphy. We also gave up Diogu, who I thought did well for the Pacers. He was a solid big man, much better than some of the ones we have now. I've noticed how white we've become after that trade.

^^That was a bad trade?

Maybe from a talent standpoint. But it wasn't a talent-driven trade (nor a racially-driven one). It was a franchise-driven trade, and it ended up fairly well until Dunleavy got injured.

I know it wasn't racially driven and you prove my point that it was franchise driven. It was a terrible trade and a franchise should try and get better. You don't get better by trading away good players for not as good players. You can't convince me otherwise because Jackson is better than Dunleavy and Al Harrington is better than Troy Murphy. I understand, like I said, that nobody wanted Jackson here, but to give Al away like that is really stupid. We couldve gotten much better players than Dunleavy and Murphy, but we didn't. What a shock.

I'll concede to joking about it from time to time. However, the accumulation of these guys I think is pretty random. Foster has been here for ever. The acquisition of Dunleavy and Murphy was simply the best that could be done when it became apparant the fan base was in revolt over the behavior of Jackson. McRoberts was a throw in who happened to be a local kid and Hansbrough fit the criteria (experienced college player with and NBA ready game).

I can live with Hansbrough, he is a very solid player I think. And he is a proven winner. However, McRoberts was terrible in college and still hasn't shown anything really in the NBA. Foster has been here forever, so that's fine. I believe the Pacers couldve done better than the Murphy trade. They should have taken more time and not jump the gun.

rhcpjf4 wrote:The Al Harrington/Stephen Jackson for Dunleavy and Murphy deal was the worst trade I have ever seen. We finally got Harrington and traded after a season. I understand nobody wanted Jackson but at least get equal talent. Both of the players are better than Dunleavy and Murphy. We also gave up Diogu, who I thought did well for the Pacers. He was a solid big man, much better than some of the ones we have now. I've noticed how white we've become after that trade.

Terribel trade?

Harrington Scores more, but Murphy rebounds much better and passes out more assists. My motto is that when you have a choice between players when the production is a wash, you always go big. Murphy also has a much better effectiveness rating than Harrington. Murphy fairly easily.

Jackson vs Dunleavy--to assess this one, you need to compare 2007-2008 Dunleavy vs Jackson. I don't see that Jackson has any real edge over Dunleavy, who was argueably our best player late in the 2007-2008 season before his injury.

Diogu had some flashes, but face it--he was a bust and still is. What has he done since he left us?

I don't care how white we are if we have guys who play hard and work to win. The reason there are more blacks in pro sports has less to do with inherent athletic ability--though generally they seem to be more athletic, largely due to selective breeding in the slave era (shameful, but it happened)--than it does with socio-economic factors. For a long time, entertainment and sports were the only outlets where blacks had an opportunity to succeed. Other avenues to success were blocked by racism.

We won that trade, somehow. But that still doesn't mean Bird sold Jackson and company for about 5% of their worth.

In terms of value and talent that trade was pretty even, and on top of that we managed to let go of one disgruntled employee and one extremely off-kilter personality.