Oprah just said on her show that the Al deal is ..

[Admin]

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Baby Al will be old when 'imminent' deal is done

My buddy from down the street calls. Says he has a tee time at a fancy-schmancy golf course. The kind that requires collared shirts.

"Want to play?" he asks.

I groan.

"Can't," I say. "The Al Harrington trade is imminent. Could happen at any moment. Got to be vigilant, sit by the phone like a love-struck teenager, got to be ready to spring into action and cover the news conference at Conseco Fieldhouse."

My buddy from down the street has heard this before. He asked me to play golf twice last week. And twice the week before that. Even said he would stop making those odd belching sounds during my backswing.

My responses were as follows: Nope. Can't. Sorry. Rain check. Maybe after the trade.

"Is this something personal?" my buddy from down the street asks.

Yeah, I tell him.

I'm angry at Donnie Walsh, Larry Bird, Al Harrington, John Edwards, Billy Knight, Arn Tellem, both Simon brothers and several current and former Atlanta Hawks, most notably Jon Koncak.

They are ruining what's left of my summer.

All I do now is sit in my office. Waiting. Wondering. Praying to a higher power (no, David Stern, not you). I am held hostage. The Imminent Harrington Trade Watch, Day 106.

It doesn't take this long for Colts radio analyst Ted Marchibroda to make a point.

If I'm not mistaken, the Harrington trade started becoming imminent between the end of Prohibition and Branch McCracken's first day as Indiana University's basketball coach.

When will the phone ring? And when it does, will I see "Pacers Sports & Entertainment" on caller ID? Will this torment ever end?

One day, my wife calls.

"Hi, Honey, just calling from work," my wife says.

"Oh, shoot, it's you," I responded.

Bob, meet the couch.

All for Baby Al. All for a guy who's never been an All-Star. Kobe Bryant, I'll drop-kick my summer. But Al?

Now, don't get me wrong: I like Harrington. I like him enough, I'm getting slightly wobbly about that Pacers-won't-make-the-playoffs prediction. The reason being, the Pacers won't be losing any players in the transaction. (Does anybody know what a $7.5 million trade exception looks like, and does it need to pass a physical?)

I'm not doing cartwheels over it, either. It's another one of those deals that means the Pacers will not be good enough to compete for a championship, and not bad enough to have a real draft lottery shot at Greg Oden. They are hitching their future to Jermaine O'Neal and Harrington, which looks like a true commitment to being above average.

Now the editor calls.

"Just want you to be on your toes," he says. "Oprah just said on her show that the Al deal is imminent."

I scoff. It's what columnists do when editors have the temerity to speak. I scoff because I've seen these imminent stories. Every local station in town has reported, "Channel So-and-So has learned the Harrington trade is imminent."

Ultimately, I guess it's how you define "imminent.'' My dictionary reads, "About to happen, looming.'' Maybe in TV, "imminent'' means, "sometime before global warming results in a giant killer tsunami and wipes the human race off the face of the planet."

Potato, po-tah-toe.

(I can't wait until the deal gets done. The TV guys will need Tommy John surgery after patting themselves on the back. "As we first reported 114 days ago . . .")

The days pass, grow shorter, along with my patience. I want to play golf. No, they could call. I want to go rollerblading on the Monon. No, they could call. I want to mow the grass . . . well, OK, but the grass does need to be cut.

I am in limbo, in Pacers purgatory, shipwrecked on Baby Al Island. Who's on the line? The guy from the 2010 census? Has it been that long?

Now, in the days, weeks, months and decades since this trade became imminent, I've done some reading, and have learned from reading Conrad Brunner's house column on Pacers.com that given Walsh's track record as team CEO, we should withhold all intemperate commentary and simply acknowledge that he knows what he's doing.

The same applies, albeit to a lesser extent, to team president Bird, whom Bruno once commended for his draft-day insight into the selection of Danny Granger -- a top 10 player who somehow slipped to the Pacers, and was such a no-brainer selection, my cat would have chosen him.

Well, the smarter cat of the two.

So I'm going to get on board with the team now, because those bandwagons can get a little bit crowded. Once the Pacers get this Harrington deal done -- and add a body through the mid-level exception -- they will win an NBA title.

I think it's imminent.

[vext]

Good article.

[FrankSlade7]

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Good article.

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That's our Bob Kravitz from the Indy Star for you.

Alot of people don't like him but he always manages to stir the pot, and get his articles talked about.

Although I got a good laugh out of this one.

[vext]

Yeah, I really liked the article. Thought it was funny and yet scarily accurate. Glad to see that fans pain is also felt by the sports writers!