This Should Be Interesting.

You know what? There are no Indiana Pacers blogs anywhere on these here Internets. Not one. Unbelieveable.

A Google search for "Pacers blog" returns some fan thing from the Pacers team site. Lame. The sweet NBA Preview thing doesn't even have a blogger to preview the Pacers, the Pacers were embarressingly unrepresented on the Worldwide Leader's preview of the L (although J.E. Skeets filled in admirably) and Skeets and Tas over at The Basketball Jones didn't even have a blogger to interview over the phone on their awesome, some would say spectacular, podcast previewing the Central Division.

How is this possible? Is there a more basketball crazy state than Indiana? Isn't that all they do there - grow wheat and shoot on backboards attached to barns? Remember Hoosiers and the kid who wanted a duffle bag full of money in Blue Chips? Was that not an accurate representation of the Hoosier State's love affair with hoops?

Well, this can stand no longer. So the good people who brought you Point 23 and Life in the Post have decided to do something about it. Hey - we see a need, we fill it. That's just what we do. Thank us later. Now is also cool.

We might as well be honest here. The Pacers aren't our favorite teams. When you grow up in central PA, there really isn't a natural team to ally yourself with. Philly, DC...perhaps, but for one reason or another they never stuck, although I will admit to a three-year affair with AI.

And that's the key right there - we are more attached to players than a particular team. I prefer that raw stylings of LeBron, so I became a de facto Cavs fan. If he bolted Cleveland, I don't know whether I'd be able to keep my allegiance to the Cavs on life support.

My esteemed parter over at Life in the Post doesn't claim one squad, either - more of a handful of ballers captained by Agent Zero. Let me tell you something: when LeBron placed his hands on Gil and willed him to miss those two free throws, well...that may have been the transcendent moment in our friendship.

So without a "true" team, and seeing the need in the blogosphere, we made the Pacers are our cause this year. Kind of like an orphan. Sure, we already have our own kids, but we have room for one more. Deep down, we know we don't love him as much, but least he has a roof over his head now, right? I think its a win-win.

To keep the parenting analogy going, all parents have favorites (and it probably wasn't you - just sayin').

My personal hero is Stephen Jackson, the patron saint of this here blog. (Hey, anytime you can make your own team openly root for you to go to prison just so they don't have to deal with you, well, you've accomplished something. Not sure what, but its something.)

My esteemed colleague has fallen for Sausndfns Jaseckkashk (shutup, you can't say it either) and will be living and dying with every three ball he launches this year. Should be a smooth ride.

What are we trying to accomplish this year? Well, we aren't real sure, to be honest. We're hopping on the Pacers bandwagon, and we'll see where it takes us. Should be a hell of a ride; we're just trying not to throw up and/or sustain any gun shot wounds. And as long as we don't run over Stephen Jackson, we should make it through unscathed.