Alex Schiffer

of can you make the conference finals after having, you know, making the playoffs two years in a row with the Cavs, and people thought maybe that last team he had should have been the conference finals.

So I'm curious just what this does for him and what this series looks like for his reputation.

Does he go in next season, again, on a hot seat a little bit of you got to find a way to make the conference finals or beyond, or is this team young enough to where they'll give him a long runway on that?

So I think I'm not worried about the Pistons as they're constructed.

I'm worried a little bit about them as their coach.

It was, yeah.

5-9 was the only range that the, or it might have been 5, yeah.

5-9, it went to the Clippers, and then if it was like 10-12 or whatever the floor was for it, it stayed with the Pacers.

Yeah, and obviously it was very, it was more likely to convey to the,

I don't think it should be grounds for termination.

I think the Pacers have honestly got a raw deal this season in that, you know, they got that huge fine from the NBA over the Pascal Siakam whether or not to play him.

The whole reason why the Pacers were bad is because they lost their best player to a torn Achilles in Game 7 of the Finals.

They went all in to try to win the whole thing a year ago.

They've never tanked.

and they got the worst luck imaginable in that their star player tears an Achilles.

So I think that they have been unfairly looped into this.

People talk about the tanking crimes, the Wizards, the Jazz, the Nets were all committing, and I think the Pacers got roped in there very unfairly.

This is their first down year in years, in more than a decade.

Again, they never tanked.

I think that, you know, plenty of other GMs have hedged their bets.