Larry Bird had a chance to go out and buy a new car. Maybe a mid-life crisis car, something splashy and sporty, something that made heads turn.

Larry Bird had a chance to go out and buy a new car. Maybe a mid-life crisis car, something splashy and sporty, something that made heads turn.

Then he bought a family van, or at least he’s on the verge of buying the family van, according to several media reports.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with a family van, just as there’s nothing terribly wrong with Nate McMillan, who Yahoo.com and others are reporting will become the Pacers next head coach. (Wait, didn’t Bird just say the other day he hadn’t yet begun looking for head coaches? Or maybe he didn’t really look, per se, just glanced down the hallway at Bankers Life Fieldhouse and found his man).

But back to the family van. It will get you from Point A to Point B. It will be solid. It will handle inclement weather. It will do all those things.

What it won’t do is excite anybody.

Nobody around the league is saying, "Wow, did you see who the Pacers hired?"

Nobody around town is saying, "Woo-hoo! It’s about time they gave that job to Nate McMillan."

We all understand, all that matters is winning, and if McMillan adds to the foundation established by Frank Vogel, he will be the toast of the town. But looking at this hire today, and maybe tomorrow and for the next few months until the season starts, the visceral reaction goes something like this:

Meh.

Mark Jackson, he would have raised eyebrows. Mike D’Antoni, he would have made people notice. Spurs assistant Ettore Messina, he would have created a stir.

The thing with McMillan is, we pretty much know McMillan. He’s an established entity. He’s coached 930 regular-season games in the NBA, both with the old Seattle SuperSonics (2000-05) and the Portland TrailBlazers (2005-2012). He’s won 478 regular-season games and lost 452. His teams reached the playoffs five times in 12 years, although they never got past the second round.

As a player, he has the well-earned reputation as a superior defender, team leader and glue guy, and he brought that style of basketball to the Sonics and Blazers. Neither team was an offensive juggernaut, but both played staunch defense and played hard.

And that’s what’s weird. Bird talked about needing a new voice. McMillan, an assistant here for the last three years, is not a new voice. He’s in a new, more powerful and all-encompassing position now, but he’s not a new voice. Which confirms what I’ve suspected all along: Vogel was never really Bird’s guy. Bird is the one who says that players tend to tune out coaches after three years. Well, McMillan has been here in Indianapolis for three years. Color me confused.

Again:

Meh.

When Bird gets around to introducing McMillan, likely on Monday, it will be interesting to get a sense of the new head coach’s relationship with Paul George. Bird said a week ago he would touch base with George when he closed in on a final candidate or two, so we have to assume that George gave his blessing. McMillan was known as Mr. Sonic, and the goal is to make George a forever Pacer, just like Reggie Miller. George becomes a free agent in two years, so it’s going to be imperative that the Pacers develop into a championship-contending team and give George a reason to stay here.

The other question will be, how will McMillan get the Pacers to play the kind of free-wheeling basketball Bird wants them to play? There is no true point guard. There is no stretch-four. This is a team that figures to feature two bigs, notably Myles Turner and Ian Mahinmi, although both run reasonably well. But given McMillan’s history, what makes anybody believe the Pacers will play with so much more offensive efficiency? Reasonable questions, in my view.

The McMillan hire might not have a major impact here in Indianapolis, but it does carry a larger and wider significance: Over the last couple of years, the number of black head coaches has diminished dramatically. According to NBA reporter Howard Beck, when the season began in 2012, half the league’s coaches were black. From 2001-14, the NBA averaged 11 black head coaches per season. By the time this past season began, the number was seven, the lowest number since 1999.

One black coach after another has been fired in the last two, three years, including McMillan. Brian Shaw. Jacque Vaughn. Larry Drew. Mike Brown. Mark Jackson. Tyrone Corbin. Mike Woodson. Maurice Cheeks.

Shall I continue? Lionel Hollins. Keith Smart. Alvin Gentry. Avery Johnson. Paul Silas. And we mentioned McMillan.

That, however, is a larger issue the sport has to acknowledge and address. For you, the Pacers fan, it doesn’t matter, not in the least. All you want to know is, will McMillan win? Will he build on what Vogel established? Will he demand a higher level of accountability, something Bird wanted Vogel to do? Will the Pacers play with more tempo next season and in the coming seasons? And will McMillan survive beyond the magical three years, when Bird seems to believe coaches get tuned out?

It’s not a bad hiring, not at all.

It’s just not an exciting hiring.

A family-van hiring.