You can call them stupid or crazy, but while other teams like the Miami Heat and Memphis Grizzlies are blatantly throwing in the towel to try get a hold of phemon Michael "Beastly" Beasley (deactivating Dwyane Wade, giving Pau Gasol to the Lakers for peanuts), the Indiana Pacers are pushing for the eighth and final spot in the Eastern Conference. Even though they would face a seemingly unstoppable force in the star-studded Celtics, they still have the desire to win. It's a tribute to the team almost as it is to the current state of the Eastern Conference (since when does a team that is 31-43 even sniff the playoffs?). This is a team that hasn't had its best player in Jermaine O'Neal for 33 games and its starting point guard in Jamaal Tinsley for 35. The play of Mike Dunleavy and Danny Granger  has kept the team in the playoff hunt. Dunleavy should get a long look as the league's most improved player. He has gone from a draft bust to a really good player just not the type of go-to guy the Pacers' have been missing in Jermaine O'Neal's absence (whether Jermaine O'Neal is a go-to player is another subject entirely, but he's paid like one).           
     The Pacers have always been about winning. They have been since their ABA days, and they were constantly an Eastern Conference contender throughout the 90's and early 2000's. Even today, at the franchise's lowest point, where attendance is at it's lowest and the fans don't seem to care, the Pacers are still all about winning even though a better "ping-pong ball" could be at stake. It's what separates them from perennial losers like the Hawks and Clippers. What these franchises don't understand is that you can accumulate all the young talent in the world, but they'll never develop if they don't have the proper winning atmosphere. I'm not saying the Pacers do either right now, but at least they are attempting. The thing is, is that losing is contagious. Tank one year, and your team may never sniff the playoffs for another ten years because once young players get the idea that losing is acceptable, they may never learn the error of their ways. The Clippers accumulated a ton of young talent throughout the mid-90's. They acquired Elton Brand, Lamar Odom, Darius Miles, Quentin Richardson, and Michael Olowokandi through means of the draft. You want to know how many of those players are still in uniform for them? 1. The combination of bad drafting and a losing atmosphere doomed the core that the Clippers had invested so much in. I care too much about this storied franchise to see that happen.     
      Call me crazy, but I'd take trying to win over betting my franchise's hope on a ping-pong ball any day because history doesn't lie. Apparently, Larry Bird feels the same way. Good for him, but the road still won't be easy in restoring this franchise back to its glory days. It will take some smart drafting and maybe a few shrewd trades as well as getting the overall team healthy. To end on a positive note, even though the team's winning fortunes have changed, at least the franchise still stands for what it did 40 some odd years ago. The navy and gold stands for winning, and hopefully, it always will. Still, it won't stop Pacer faithful from convulsively crying out the name of Reggie Miller though from time to time. Trust me people, he's not coming through that door, but maybe someone like Texas's DJ Augustin is...and maybe, just maybe, we can make the playoffs at the same time. I think it's a chance that's worth fighting for. It's the winning way. It's the Pacer Way.