the "promise" of Ron Artest has always outshone the reality. He can be a shutdown defender. He can be a go-to scorer. He can be a leader who rallies players around him to rise to the challenge. But how often does he do all of that consistently? A little like fool's gold in a way.
I tend to agree. It's not so much that Ron is a liability to the team, as that we look at Ron's best and want him to always be like that, so we end up regularly disappointed. Much like good and bad Cisco, but scarier. Worst case for Cisco is an idiotic play. Worst case for Ron would make the front page of most newspapers.
As for Pacers fans, they have been an unhappy bunch for a while now, and I doubt that their agonizing over why their team isn't going anywhere is going to produce useful answers. Ron is, to them, about like "Indian burial ground" is to us. It's kind of a dark and gloomy religion you can turn to when no rational answers will explain the mess you're in. He was a bad thing for them, yes. If they have not recovered in the intervening years, only their managers are to blame.