A month after Karl Malone and Gary Payton made their cut-rate deals with the Lakers, sacrificing cash for the opportunity for an NBA title, Reggie Miller re-upped with the Indiana Pacers, for whom he'd played his entire career. Miller then proclaimed a purity of purpose and organizational devotion.

"I didn't want to be like some other guys," Miller said, "who jump on another team's bandwagon just to get a ring."

Take that, fellas.

"If I was coming in here and playing 10 minutes a night, that's riding a coattail," Malone said. "I'll tell you what, I wasn't pulling against the Lakers, but it made my decision a lot easier when they didn't win. When I heard Reggie make his decision, I like Reggie and I won't elaborate, but I'll say this: He had opportunity to do what I did and take less money. But he chose to make more money and stay where he was at. So, God bless him and God bless me."

Miller, who earned $12 million with the Pacers last season, agreed to a two-year contract for about $5 million per season. It is believed the Lakers offered Miller the same deal they did Malone and Payton: Play for less, earn more.

"At some point, somebody had to make some statement to say it's not all about the money all the time," Malone said. "Now, I don't want to hide the fact it wouldn't have been nice to make $10 million a year. Don't get me wrong. But how is that to the regular fan now?

There has been lots of talk in the past week about Jermaine O'Neal, about what Donnie Walsh knew and when he knew it, about the timing of the Isiah Thomas decision.

The bottom line, though -- on the Thomas firing and the impending Rick Carlisle hiring -- should not be obscured.

The Indiana Pacers are making themselves a better basketball team.

Maybe they won't be markedly better next season -- some of us think Brad Miller will be a big loss -- but they will be vastly improved down the road (assuming, and we are, that O'Neal eventually will make his peace with the organization).

That's what this was all about.

Were there some other tangential issues involved? Sure. At some point, the egos would have clashed. And it would be na?ve to think that there isn't some lingering animosity between Bird and Thomas from their playing days.

But Bird's motivation for making the change was pure, and he owes nobody an explanation or apology for doing the necessary dirty work. He dumped an ordinary coach and replaced him with last year's Eastern Conference Coach of the Year. What's not to understand?

(And please, let's not inject the race issue into this one. There's nothing wrong with asking the question and having the discourse, but this was about winning, and winning is color-blind).

Thomas was, by almost any rational measure, an average coach at best. Not a rank incompetent, by any means, and revisionist attempts to cast him as a complete bust would be overstated and unfair.

Whether or not Isiah Thomas should have been fired Wednesday as coach of the Indiana Pacers is not the issue, community activist Amos Brown said Friday.

But the perception, Brown said, is that Pacers president of basketball operations Larry Bird had no intention of giving Thomas a chance to coach the final season of his four-year contract.

Brown said the buzz in the black community concerning the dismissal is decidedly negative.

"There's disappointment and anger about this," said Brown, the director of strategic research for four local radio stations and a columnist for the Indianapolis Recorder. "Isiah was a symbol because he was the Pacers' first black coach, and until he's no longer the first, there will be some pain and hurt there."

Thomas' teams were successful in the regular season, compiling a 131-115 overall record. But they lost in the first round of the playoffs all three years.

"My concern is that the African-American community will look at the Thomas firing as a signal that blacks are, once again, the last to be hired, and the first to be fired," Pacers fan Mark Madison said.

Said fan Jerri Fleming: "I think everybody should protest, because I knew as soon as Larry Bird came back he was bringing Rick Carlisle back here. This was probably in the works for a long time."

Bird reiterated Friday that the decision to fire Thomas wasn't made until recently and that it wasn't an easy one.

"Hey, everybody's got an opinion and as long as it doesn't get personal, I don't mind," he said. "I've been through all this before.

"You like to have everybody with you and understand what you're trying to do. But my job right now is to prove that I made the right move and that we're going to do good things. And we are going to do good things here."

Rick Carlisle concluded his two-day visit with Indiana Pacers officials Friday, closing in on the job he coveted three years ago but lost to Isiah Thomas.

Pacers CEO Donnie Walsh said Friday that talks with Carlisle's agent were progressing. One point being negotiated is a back-loaded contract -- less money in the first year and more in the other years -- because the team will honor the final year of Thomas' contract at $5 million.

Carlisle could be hired as early as Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the San Antonio Spurs must wait to announce Danny Ferry's hiring as director of basketball operations because the Pacers, who acquired the 36-year-old forward last month, are trying to trade his $4.5 million non-guaranteed contract to a team seeking salary-cap relief. After his contract is traded, he would retire as a player.

Running an NBA team looks a lot easier than it is. Michael Jordan knows this, and Larry Bird is finding it out.

That reality began to play out here late Wednesday night when Jermaine O'Neal, the Indiana Pacers' only All-Star, condemned the Pacers' organization. In doing so, he also implicitly criticized local hero/new general manager Bird for the firing of coach Isiah Thomas.

O'Neal is a member of the USA Basketball team at the Olympic qualifying tournament where he said his concentration will stay on Puerto Rico, Canada and Argentina.

"I'm continuing to play for USA Basketball," O'Neal said, "trying to get to Greece so we can get a gold medal and put the USA back on top of the basketball world."

O'Neal, who played for the losing USA team in the world championships last year, continued that quest here Thursday as the U.S. team defeated Puerto Rico 91-65.

Tim Duncan led the U.S. with 16 points. The U.S. got a boost with the return from injury of Tracy McGrady. The win leaves the U.S. undefeated heading into Saturday's semifinals, again against Puerto Rico. In the other semifinal, Argentina plays Canada. The winners are assured an Olympic berth for 2004 and the losers play off Sunday for the final spot.

While the week was a dizzying roller-coaster ride for O'Neal, who led the U.S. team to an avenging victory over Argentina on Tuesday before learning his mentor Thomas had been fired, it also becomes a major test for Bird's new career in the NBA.

The Indiana state legend has been a brilliant success at everything he has attempted in basketball. Now comes the hard part.

Bird accepted the job of replacing Donnie Walsh as GM in July and seemed to endorse, albeit grudgingly, Thomas. O'Neal, who had been a free agent, said it was perhaps the main reason he re-signed.

"I did not want to play for any other coach," O'Neal said. "If it weren't for Isiah Thomas, I wouldn't be here. He gave me the confidence to be not only the player I am today, but the father I am, the son I am. He really has been a father figure to me. I'm extremely disappointed."

Friday night, and Isiah Thomas was still trying to shake off the cobwebs.

Larry Bird's firing of the former Piston still stung. "I just think he wanted to go in a different direction, and I think he wanted to hire Rick," Thomas said. "He's the boss and he can do that."

Rick is Rick Carlisle, the Pistons' former coach, who'll be named the Pacers' coach sometime early next week, possibly Tuesday.

Bird said he and Thomas had talked just twice since Bird was hired on July 14.

"I think this is about the only time I've ever been accused of not communicating," Thomas said.

It was also the first time he had been fired. He said he didn't believe his prior relationship and heated on-the-court battles with Bird had any effect on his firing.

The courtship of Rick Carlisle will continue for the next few days, but his hiring as the Indiana Pacers' next coach seems inevitable.

Carlisle, the former Pacers assistant, was in town all day Thursday meeting with Pacers officials at Conseco Fieldhouse. He could return to the fieldhouse as early as Tuesday to be introduced as the successor to Isiah Thomas, who was fired Wednesday after three seasons.

Pacers CEO Donnie Walsh said the details of a contract would have to be worked out with Carlisle's agent before any official announcement could be made. The Labor Day weekend is one reason that announcement won't be made before Tuesday.

"Nothing gets done until Tuesday at the earliest," Walsh said. "We're talking to Rick right now. He just got in here today, so we'll see what happens. He's the first guy on our list and I really think he wants to be here, but there's a lot that has to be worked out before anything is final."

Carlisle is the handpicked choice of Pacers president of basketball operations Larry Bird, who categorized Thursday's talks as positive.

"He didn't want to leave here the first time," Bird said when asked about Carlisle's intentions. "I know he didn't want to leave this city. His wife (Donna) cried when they left before."

Carlisle lost out to Thomas in July 2000 when they were the finalists to replace Bird, who stepped down after three seasons coaching the Pacers.

Carlisle was an assistant to Bird then, his main responsibility being the coordination of the team's offense.

Bird said Carlisle had every intention of remaining with the Pacers then, with his sights set on the head coaching job.

"I can tell you that the negotiations are ongoing," Bird said. "We'll go from here and see what we can get done."

Jermaine O'Neal isn't upset today. He is outraged, hurt beyond words. He feels duped and betrayed, like the target of a cynical bait-and-switch scheme by people he now justifiably feels he cannot trust.

Can you blame him?

That's why he's talking now by phone from San Juan, Puerto Rico, telling me he no longer feels he can trust Pacers management and cannot commit to playing here past this coming season.

"I'm going to come back, be a professional and play for the Pacers this year, and I'm going to approach this season the same way I approach every season," O'Neal said before leaving for the U.S. game against Puerto Rico. "But outside of this year, I don't know where my future stands with the Indiana Pacers. I don't know where the trust is. I don't know if I can believe anything they tell me anymore."

Asked if he will demand a trade, O'Neal softened a bit, saying he wanted to sit down after next season and discuss his future. But he's lost confidence and faith in Pacers management. And he's not yet sure there's anything that can be done to rebuild that shattered relationship.

"Right now I'm a Pacer and I'm not going to shortcut the fans, my teammates, anybody," O'Neal said. "I'm not going to show up with a chip on my shoulder. And this has nothing at all to do with Rick Carlisle. I'm not going to take any of this out on him. But my word is all I've got in this world, and hopefully everybody else feels that way and acts that way. I've been deceived, and that's a hard thing to swallow."

These are not the words of some petulant, over-reaching superstar who is sticking his nose into management's business. These are the words of a young man who made the most important decision of his professional life, "in large part, because he (former Pacers coach Isiah Thomas) was coming back. Ten, 15 times, they told me. It was etched in stone."

He feels like he was lured back under false pretenses, that he was willfully misled by management. His anger, surely, is justified.

The Indiana Pacers could have saved several million dollars this summer simply by making no major changes in their front office structure.

Instead, the decisions to hire Larry Bird as president of basketball operations and fire Isiah Thomas earlier this week as head coach will bloat a company payroll in a belt-tightening era in which few teams in the National Basketball Association appear to be turning a profit.

Pacers co-owner Herb Simon considers it worth the added cost.

"My first consideration is what's best for the team and what we put on the floor," Simon said Thursday. "Money is important, but it takes second place to what the basketball people think is best for the team and the fans."

Simon and his brother, Mel, have generally been free spenders with the team. Donnie Walsh, who ran the basketball operations from 1986 until this summer, when he hired Bird, says he has rarely, if ever, been turned down when proposing a personnel move, although he believes he has taken a fiscally responsible approach.

The Pacers, however, have drawn the line at the luxury tax threshold on players' salaries. Teams that exceed it have to pay a dollar-for-dollar penalty. The threshold might not come into play next summer because it's determined by league revenues, but if so the league-set threshold is expected to be about $57 million.

Danny Ferry, admired for his work ethic and leadership during his three seasons with the Spurs, will rejoin the franchise as director of basketball operations.

Ferry will assist with scouting and other day-to-day operations as he learns the NBA's collective bargaining agreement. Ferry's father, Bob, served as general manager of the Washington Bullets from 1973-90.

The Spurs are waiting to announce Ferry's hiring because Indiana, which acquired Ferry last month in the trade for Hedo Turkoglu and Ron Mercer, is trying to deal his non-guaranteed contract to a team seeking salary-cap relief.

Ferry's hiring is part of a reorganization of the Spurs front-office staff that began earlier this summer with the departure of former vice president and director of player personnel Sam Schuler.

Sam Presti, the team's assistant director of scouting, has been promoted to director of player personnel. Presti, 26, joined the Spurs as an intern three years ago and has quickly earned praise for his talent evaluation and knowledge of the league's CBA.