Jermaine O’Neal is already talking glowingly about potential replacements for Ron Artest. Since this all went down, O’Neal’s done everything but offer to pack Artest’s bags for him and drive him to the airport. And I guess it’s hard to blame him. I don’t think he ever really disliked Ron Artest the person, but he clearly feels like the Pacers are better off without him. When the trade goes down, you may hear Jermaine actually burst into song.

The two guys he has in mind are Al Harrington and Bonzi Wells. Even more telling, however, is someone he specifically does not have in mind. Peja Stojakovic.

“If Peja was brought to this team, we’d do what we can do to help him get into our style of play,” says O’Neal. “Western Conference basketball is much different than Eastern Conference basketball. It’s more of a slowdown pace. We don’t run around, we don’t do the fancy passes, we don’t do any of that stuff. We don’t have the space, especially with me being on the team. It gets real crowded, and guys help a lot against our team.

“He’s a big time shooter, but I think there would have to be an adjustment period for him defensively with our style of play.”

I’m sure that Larry Bird and Donnie Walsh appreciate the help, but I don’t know if Jermaine O’Neal is yet in the stratosphere of players who can have a say on roster moves. He may be exactly right, I don’t know, but it’s not his place to say so. And even if he does really feel the need to say something, he shouldn’t be doing it in public. Because if Larry Bird goes out now and does trade for Peja, it creates some friction. If they trade for anyone other than Bonzi Wells or Al Harrington now, it creates at least the perception of friction. It will look like Bird has gone against the wishes of his star player, and they’ll both be answering questions about it for a month.