Indy2thaWindy wrote:Not sayin they didn't accomplish anything
No, that's exactly what you were saying with the words that you picked.
We never won a title, if you are okay with that then you are probably a casual who only watches the Pacers when they are doin good.
For most people, there are varying degrees of success and failure. On paper, our team was never supposed to be contenders for so long with Reggie Miller as the face of the franchise.
to make the playoffs 18 out of 20 years and not win a championship seems more like a failure than an accomplishment
.500 and 8th seed is the average when you have 15 teams in the conference. Significantly above that for 18 seasons out of 20 makes us better than most teams in the league. For a team in a small market to pull that off already exceeds expectation.
I feel like a season is successful when it exceeds most of my expectations. When I root for the Colts, I'm expecting a trip to the Superbowl. When I'm rooting for the Pacers these days, I expect us to be around 8th seed.
This is why I never push for tanking, because I believe you can still accomplish something even if you're in the lower end of the lottery after you get knocked out of the playoffs.
Also, calling contenders failures for not winning championships is kind of like calling Ewing, Barkley, Malone, Stockton, Reggie, Elgin Baylor, and George Gervin failures. Through those 20 seasons the Pacers busted their asses off and did their best for everything that they could control. The one thing you can't control is who your opponents going to be( Michael Jordan and Shaquille O'Neal).
I, for one, am okay that the Pacers haven't won a title yet because that's in the past. I'm looking forward, and I will enjoy watching how the Pacers go along on the journey and I will be supporting them every game. If we get a championship, then that's just the ultimate icing on the cake.
Of course, I guess you could call a cake a failure if it has no icing.