Turning the page

Based on improvements that only they can see, the Indiana Pacers are betting that Ron Artest's return to the NBA will be a success. "The biggest thing now is eye contact," says Pacers GM Larry Bird. "Ronnie, now, you talk to him and he'll look at you."

Artest looked to be in typically excellent condition last weekend at the Minnesota Summer League, where the former Defensive Player of the Year made his return to NBA competition after serving an 86-game suspension last season for inciting the riot in Detroit last Nov. 19. But Artest's intimidating physique is not the issue; at 25, he still remains emotionally unreliable. "The best predictor of a person's behavior is his history," warned a rival team executive as he watched Artest in Minneapolis

Artest went out of his way in Minneapolis to demonstrate leadership and be a good teammate. On the court and off, he tried to help his minor-league teammates prove themselves to NBA and European scouts. "The first thing he did was put his [phone] number on the board if anybody needs anything," said shooting guard Maurice Carter, one of nine non-NBA players invited to the Pacers' summer-league squad. "He's a great guy."

But not only must Artest keep his head on straight, he must also win back the trust of his teammates, especially All-Star forward Jermaine O'Neal. "I think Jermaine was frustrated like all the other players at times by some of the stuff Ronnie was doing, and over a period of years that bothers you," says Bird, who predicts that the Pacers' championship run will be defined by the players' relationships. "We've got a lot of talent here. I just think these guys need to put all their differences behind them and see what they can do. If they can't, then we [management] have got to make the decision, well, what are we going to do?"

The Pacers experimented with shifting Artest to power forward last week -- a move that could bump O'Neal to playing center part-time next season. "One thing I worry about is our chemistry," says Bird, referring to the entire Pacers squad. "I'm not saying they've got to be best friends, but they've got an opportunity to do something special."

That isn't merely talk, or else the Pacers wouldn't have endured Artest's suspension while turning down numerous trade offers from teams hoping to steal Artest for lesser talent.

So long as Artest stays out of trouble, Bird wants his teammates to welcome him back -- especially if Artest emerges as the top star on the Pacers. Could questions over who is "The Man" lead to new friction with Artest and O'Neal? Answers Bird, "Not with Ronnie."

The assumption that the Detroit Pistons divorced coach Larry Brown in no small part because he let former No. 2 overall draft pick Darko Milicic rot on the bench couldn't be more off-base. "Darko and his situation was never a factor here with Larry Brown," Pistons president Joe Dumars said Wednesday as he prepared to hire Flip Saunders as Brown's replacement. "I make it very clear to every player that steps in this building that they have to earn minutes and no coach is obligated to play them."

After joining the Pistons via the 2003 draft -- going ahead of No. 3 pick Carmelo Anthony and No. 5 Dwyane Wade -- the 7-foot, 245-pound Milicic has played just 413 minutes over the last two years, averaging 1.6 points in 71 games. Dumars essentially predicted in the '04-05 preseason that Milicic would have trouble earning time because a championship team must devote minutes to its best players. "If he shows he's ready to get minutes this year then we'll put him out there; if he shows he needs more time, then he'll sit and watch," Dumars said in October. "A player gets better when he plays, but we're not going to play him at the expense of winning games just so he can get 10 or 15 minutes because you do a disservice to your team."

Nor will you hear agent Marc Cornstein complaining that Brown should have given more playing time to his client. But Cornstein hopes that Saunders does more than Brown to elevate Milicic's confidence. "It's as if Darko has come off a major injury -- in his case it's a psychological injury, which is sometimes more powerful than a torn knee or a broken ankle," Cornstein says. "When you batter someone's confidence, it takes a long time to repair. When you knock someone down and take away their confidence, and there's no question that is what happened the last two years, it takes some time to build it back up.