The Fellowship Sans Ring

Reggie Miller's Love for the League That Hates Him Back

BY MATTHEW SLEDGE

Click to see full size
Illustration by Hilary Falb
Image

Sixteen point four seconds were left on the board, and the Pacers were down by six points. At this moment in the game—a playoff game in 1995, against the Eastern Conference powerhouse New York Knicks—any reasonable player would have given up. It would have been easy to throw in the towel, practice harder, and hope for better luck in the next match-up. But Reggie Miller was never reasonable, particularly not with Spike Lee in the crowd. So he blew up: in 8.9 seconds, he drills a three, steals a ball and nails another three, and sinks in two behind the free-throw line. The word "sick" was invented for moments like this.

In the 1990s, the Pacers were Reggie Miller. I was born in 1986, and my conception of the team and the man were indistinguishable. He served for 18 years, all for Indiana. There was never a serious question that he might leave. In an age of free trade maneuvers and egotistical, independent superstars who treated themselves as the only franchise that mattered, it was an astonishing fact. Inside the state, he inspired a sort of devotion that is difficult to express to those who haven't been brought up in a monolithically basketball-mad culture. Strange, then, that outside Indiana Reggie inspired widespread resentment. The other stars who were drafted at roughly the same time—David Robinson, Scottie Pippen, and Karl Malone—were members of a basketball era of good feeling, a time when stars were fan and camera friendly and the Dream Team seemed to be the greatest step towards racial reconciliation since the March on Washington. Reggie was an anomaly and an enigma, the bad boy who did his town proud. He loved the game, but only Hoosiers loved him back.

Career In The Clutch

It wasn't always like this. During his first year, 1987, even people in Indiana didn't like Reggie very much. He'd been the Pacers' first pick in the draft, an unpardonable crime for those who had wanted Indiana Hoosier star Steve Alford to stay in state. But Alford's skills weren't well suited for pro ball, and he wound up as the 26 pick, which at the time put him in the second round. Coming from UCLA, Reggie had a lot to prove. That first season was far from jaw-dropping (he averaged ten points a game), but fans got a taste of things to come: he broke Larry Bird's rookie three-point record.

The irony of the brouhaha over the pick was that despite his far-away birthplace in Riverside, California, his style of play was suited perfectly for the Hoosier state. Nearly impeccable behind the free-throw line, he was as much a tribute to the virtues of practice, teamwork, and general gumption as the Hick from French Lick, Larry Bird. Because of a birth deformity, he had to wear leg braces until he was five. But he made his way onto UCLA's team, where he dominated.

When Reggie was with the Pacers, no game was ever really lost. He had a hidden quiver of three-point shots awaiting the desperation of inveterate pessimists. It was doubly hard to be depressed in Indianapolis: the Pacers were always blowing big leads, and Reggie would prove you wrong if you thought there wasn't a chance left.

There's a picture of a Pacers-Knicks playoff game on May 10, 1998 that shows Reggie launching the crucial three, the one that ties the game and ruins Madison Square Garden's collective hopes and dreams. In the background is this pudgy kid in a red jersey who's simultaneously watching the shot and losing any shred of innocence. His eyes look up and his face hangs down in an expression of utter, open-mouthed horror. This was the crystallization of what having Reggie Miller on your side was all about. This was the real reason why everybody else hated him.

Miller was the quintessential player on The Team, the mid-90s crew that seemed like the only stable force in a postmodern, post-Soviet world. Rik Smits, the impossibly clumsy looking native of the Netherlands who was inevitably tagged the Flying Dutchman, was surprisingly nimble at center. Mark Jackson was the other guard, the Brooklyn kid who bounced around with the Knickerbockers and Clippers before he wound up in 'Ana, where his mischievous grin and patented post-point "Jackson jiggle" complemented Reggie's more demeaning victory rituals. Derrick McKey was the likable forward, the guy who passed the ball to Reggie in that sweet Super Nintendo version of NBA Jam that every male born in the 1980s has up in his attic somewhere. Rounding things out for the starters was Dale Davis, a dedicated rebounder. The other half of D-squared, Antonio Davis, was always pumping to get off the bench and get even more balls off the boards.

They were like a squad always fighting their way through enemy territory, and Reggie was their indomitable sergeant, their Tom Hanks. Sure, he loyally followed the orders of the higher-ups, The Larrys (Brown and Bird), but when somebody needed a word of encouragement or a bit of talking-to, there was no question about who was going to provide it. On television, affronting Spike Lee with a choke sign or needling somebody else's fans, Reggie seemed like a snarky smart-aleck who no right-minded player would go to for advice. But behind the cameras was a very different Reggie: a man who won community service awards, treated everyone off the court with respect, and who wasn't too big to actually live in Indianapolis.

Ending And New Beginning

Things changed a great deal at the start of the new millennium. At last, the Pacers went to the NBA Finals. But something wasn't right, and the team couldn't come through to give Reggie the ring he needed. Once, during the finals, I saw the Lakers bus pulling up to my high school for practice. The movable castle that is Shaq climbed out, and I wanted more than anything for the Pacers to show those arrogant West-coasters, with their limitless payroll and celebrity audiences, a heartland lesson. The series didn't even have the traditional Pacers playoff seven-game run. We lost 4-2.

It was clear that the baton was being passed. The new kids were Jermaine O'Neal and Ron Artest, and while they loved sarge just as much as anybody else, they wanted the ball. Reggie was magnanimous, and he realized that his new job was to lead the transition. He did it well, helping out even the most boyish of rookies, Jonathan Bender, who looked like he'd jumped into his jersey out of diapers, despite his towering height.

At the start of last year, the dramatic rumble in the Piston's home court, the Palace, brought into relief the changes that were reshaping the team. A drunken fan threw a full cup of beer down at the Pacers, and Ron Artest went wild, charging up into the stands and throwing punches left and right. It was a sad episode, and it left Artest banned from the court for the rest of the year. If Reggie had been fully in charge, this never would have happened.

The last time I saw him on the court, in a crucial late-season game against Miami on March 31st, 2005, Reggie was in full form. He had 31 points in the overtime thriller, including a devastating 3-pointer in the third quarter that put the Pacers back in contention. But there was something new happening, too. Stephen Jackson made the critical shots that sent the team into overtime. The new outfit was making itself known.

Reggie's last game was as dramatic and exhilarating as any of his career. Down 3-2 in the quarterfinals against new archrivals Detroit, he led with 27 points and a tremendous effort in the absence of Artest, but it wasn't enough. In a classy move, Larry Brown, recalling the mid-90s glory years, called an unnecessary timeout with six seconds left to let the hometown Fieldhouse crowd roar their love for Reggie. An entire state choked up at once as we watched him walk off the court for the last time. This was the end, and here we were, six million brothers and sisters who just wanted Reggie to get that ring he deserved more than anybody.

After the game, in a daze, I chatted with a longtime fellow fan, a real diehard who named his dog Reggie and who'd seen the end in person. "I don't even know if I was a Reggie Miller fan or a Pacers fan," he said in a moment of introspection. As this season starts, with the team looking mighty strong, people across Indiana are contemplating the same question. It's a hard one to answer, because for the last 18 years Reggie dominated the team's image like Winston Churchill dominated the image of World War II Britain. That doesn't qualify as hyperbole in most of Indiana. He created our identity single-handedly, and it seems impossible to believe in a team without him. But we're here, and now we might finally win a ring.

The championship would be the ultimate tribute. Reggie liked attention from the press and love from the fans, but the team was always his first concern. If the next generation, O'Neal and Artest, can keep things together and find some way to fill in the gap that exists where Reggie's clutch shots once appeared, they have a very good chance. A few days ago Miller raised hackles back in Indiana by saying that the Pistons were the "team to beat" in the East, and that the Pacers had "chemistry" problems. Reggie's no idiot. He was needling his old teammates, particularly Artest. He wants them to do the best they can, and he's doing everything he can to make sure they have every incentive to do it. If they can, they'll ensure that Reggie's love for the game is finally returned. He put in 18 magnificent years, but it seemed like nobody outside of Indiana noticed. Reggie still wants the ring, and this season, he just might get it.

MATTHEW SLEDGE B'08 is heating up...he's on fire.

Back to Top

the college hill independent

http://www.theindy.com