They are men, rich men by just about anyone's standards, and that makes them immune from many people's sympathy. But they are also sons. And as the child is the father of the man, these manchildren are balancing astride two worlds. Because of their wealth and fame, they call a lot of the shots in their homes. Their families look to them for wise counsel. But to whom do they turn when it's their pain, their grief?

"It's been a tough month and a half," Jermaine O'Neal said. "I think everything that could go wrong has gone wrong with this team, not just basketball-wise, but off the court. We've had a tough situation as far as our families, and we're just trying to hold on, trying to get our rhythm back, trying to get our spirit back, trying to raise our emotions a little bit more."

	There's still hope that the stepfather of Jermaine O'Neal, right, will recover from a gunshot wound to the head.

Over the last month, the Indiana Pacers have slumped on the floor. They'd lost 13 of 15 games before righting themselves against Boston on Wednesday night. They'd lost the sharpness and ball movement at the offensive end that made them less dependent on Reggie Miller the first half of the season. They'd lost the cohesiveness on defense that had brought fear to opponents and rekindled memories of the old Bad Boys Pistons. They'd lost first place in the Central Division.

And then, this month, they started losing much greater things.

On March 1, O'Neal's stepfather, Abraham Kennedy, shot himself in the head in Indianapolis. Days later, Austin Croshere's father-in-law, Herman Briggerman, died. Both events occurred while Jamaal Tinsley continued to commute back and forth between Indiana and Maryland to be with his gravely ill mother, Letris Smith, who is battling cancer.

Real life. As real as you can get.

"The type of stuff that we're going through, it wasn't in the manual," coach Isiah Thomas said.

Thomas has tried to be there for his players, but what is there for him to say? When his teammate Joe Dumars's father died during the 1990 Finals, there were 11 other Pistons there for him. But how does Thomas respond when a quarter of his team is grieving? What pearl of wisdom can he unearth to console O'Neal, or Tinsley, or Croshere's wife?

O'Neal's stepfather was a security guard at Conseco Fieldhouse who was quite close to his stepson. Three days after the shooting, the Pacers left for a West Coast trip. O'Neal went with them. It was the hardest thing he's ever had to do. Oftentimes during the first couple of games, he'd find himself tearing up on the floor and he had to stop and compose himself. Now imagine that happening while you're trying to box out Chris Webber or Rasheed Wallace.

Happily, there is guarded hope that Kennedy may recover. But going from practice to the hospital every day has been a burden for O'Neal.

"I didn't want my teammates to see me down," O'Neal said. "It's hard to come to the arena every day and act like you're happy when you're hurting so bad inside. We just try to be there for each other. Basketball is really the only thing that's been keeping us together, even though we've been losing."

Tinsley, understandably, has kept most of his emotions to himself. Everyone's trying to give him space. He's basically allowed to come and go from Indiana as he pleases, and Thomas lets him stay on the floor as long, or as little, as he likes.

"A lot of the guys have been quiet with it," forward Al Harrington said. "They try not to bring that to the workplace. I'm sure at the end of the day it's in the back of some of their minds, but for the most part, they've handled it well ... we all go out and we talk about it when they want to talk about it. A lot of guys don't want to. A lot of times I won't bring it up because I don't want to bring that kind of thing to their mind at any moment. That's their way of getting away from it, by us hanging out."

In the midst of all this is the neverending saga of Ron Artest, who was suspended two more games after committing his eighth flagrant foul of the season Wednesday. The bottom line is this: Artest's teammates love him, but they're not sure they can trust him.

"You've got to let him know that you believe in him; however, you don't condone a lot of the actions that are taking place," Thomas said. "Ron's dealing with some issues that we're sensitive to and we're trying to help him with. And to his credit, he's trying to help himself. He's trying to get better. He's trying to do the right thing."

On Wednesday, Artest did display some maturity. After the flagrant foul, Antoine Walker tried to get a rise out of Artest by putting a 'bow in Artest's grill. But Artest walked away and let the refs call the offensive foul on Walker. Artest believes it's not the first time that opponents have tried to goad him into a high-strung reaction.

ALDRIDGE'S RANKINGS

THE TOP 10 1. Dallas 2. San Antonio 3. Sacramento 4. Detroit 5. Minnesota 6. Philadelphia 7. Portland 8. New Jersey 9. L.A. Lakers 10. New Orleans THE BOTTOM FIVE 25. Atlanta 26. Chicago 27. Miami 28. Denver 29. Cleveland THE MIDDLE FOURTEEN 11. Utah 12. Indiana 13. Boston 14. Orlando 15. Houston 16. Phoenix 17. Milwaukee 18. Golden State 19. Washington 20. New York 21. Seattle 22. Memphis 23. Toronto 24. L.A. Clippers

"Wally Szczerbiak gave me stitches," Artest said. "Bonzi Wells gave me an elbow to the face. None of them was called, but I'm glad this one was called. This was the first one that was called this year when I got an elbow to the face. And it's happened more than once."

Artest swears he won't rise to the bait.

"They can't do it," he says. "It's impossible. They can punch me in my face so hard, bleeding like Mike Tyson's eye, and I will not retaliate. They can't do nothing to make me retaliate. We got a straight focus. This team is focused, and I'm 100 percent behind the team. Everybody's 100 percent behind each other. They can do anything. I'm not going to get suspended for fighting."

Artest hasn't gotten any fighting technicals this season. But that doesn't mean his issues aren't of great concern to the Pacers. Privately, they're not sure what to do with Artest, who can't be more pleasant most of the time. But there are nights when they know a minute or so into the game that he just isn't there mentally, or literally can't remember his moments of highest stress. And those are the nights that give them pause.

"We can't wonder, every day, what's going to go on with him," O'Neal said. "We talk to him a lot and we really believe he's going to get over the hump and he's going to be there for us every single night. But until he really wants to do it, there's not really much we can do about it ... it's up to him now. He needs to go out and he has to be smart. We told him that he's kind of spoiled us to the point where we expect him to play a certain way every single game. And it's tough to have that kind of pressure on your shoulders, but he has to do it."

With all of the suspensions and absences and injuries (Brad Miller's been out for 10 days after Shaquille O'Neal came down on his ankle in L.A., and Reggie Miller's ankle still isn't right from the World Championships last August), the Pacers haven't had all their players available for practice in more than a month. But there will be little sympathy around the league or in the stands. Everybody's got problems, right? The Pacers will have to grieve in private and pick up their play in public. After Wednesday's win, they put some room between themselves and fifth-place Boston and, for the moment, kept home-court advantage for a first-round series. This is really just the second year this group has been together. But expectations are still high. Even while they feel so low.

"Individually, the people that are going through these changes, they're developing and they're becoming more of men to their families, to their friends, and also, they're becoming better teammates," Thomas says. "If you build the man, you'll get the player. That's what I learned in grade school, high school, college. Every coach that I played under was about building the man ... and right now, what we're developing and what we're trying to grow are men and people who are of strong character, so at the end of the day, when the pressure's there, they can operate and function under that pressure."

David Aldridge, who covers the NBA for ESPN, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.