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.