Here's the story from ESPN.com

The Indiana Pacers have fired Jim O'Brien in his fourth season as coach with the team, Yahoo! Sports and the Indianapolis Star have reported.

O'Brien was told of his dismissal during a Sunday morning meeting with Pacers president Larry Bird, the reports said.

The Pacers were in 10th place Sunday in the Eastern Conference at 17-27.

Hired to reverse course for a team that had plenty of off-the-court troubles before his arrival, the Pacers have continued to flounder on the floor, missing the playoff in each of his three seasons to extend a streak of missed postseasons to four.

O'Brien, who succeeded current Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle, had been out of coaching since he was fired by the 76ers after the 2004-05 season.

He also coached the Celtics from 2001 to 2004.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

Who steps in? Larry Brown is dying to coach again, I hear.

Doubtful, I think Larry is done wiht Indy if not the entire NBA after this season.

The only way I see him coaching again is if ownership gives him one of those "you made your bed,now sleep in it" kind of orders, which I think Larry would follow out of sense of duty, but not desire.

Quote from: Lucky17 on January 30, 2011, 02:06:03 PM

Who steps in? Larry Brown is dying to coach again, I hear.

Indiana still can make a run for the playoffs.

I love Waltah!!!

Forget Waltah - give me some Big V!

Word was that they would have fired O'bie a while ago if they thought anyone on staff would be a reasonable interim HC.  Seems like it'a time for the Legend to prove that all of his hard years at the helm weren't a waste. 

ya reckon this will be O's last head coaching job in the NBA?

Tough to say. My uneducated guess says that he has to go be an assistant somewhere (ala Lawrence Frank) to become a viable head coaching candidate again. Still though, Obie has had an impressive run considering he was Pitino's assistant and kind of fell into head coaching in the NBA. Considering guys like Marc Jackson and Scottie Pippen can't get jobs at all and Thibs had to wait almost two decades before he was given a shot...Obie had a nice run. 8 years or so as a coach with two-three trips to the playoffs, including one run to the ECF.

This from Marc Spears' Twitter feed:

Quote

Lot of SMH reaction around NBA on Frank Vogel getting Pacers gig as interim coach. One person said its like promoting JV coach to Division 1

I don't know anything about him - can anyone shed any light?

I imagine he's cheap, he's gonna get them a good lottery position, and Larry Bird is unemployed at the end of the season.

I wouldn't mind seeing Obie give it a shot at head coach on the college level. 

I think he'd transition well there and be a pretty good coach. 

I agree. From what I remember, one of his biggest strengths was that he was a players' coach and managed relationships well (Chris Webber notwithstanding). That could help in a college game.

I think o brien is a good coach, solid basketball sets, asks for people to do their jobs....Indiana has granger and not really anyone else....didn't o brien bring the C's to the Eastern finals with just PP and Antoine..?