Indiana Pacers

The Indiana Pacers are a professional basketball team that plays in the National Basketball Association (NBA). The team is based in the state's capital and largest city, Indianapolis, Indiana, located in the center of the state. The Indiana Fever of the WNBA, also owned by Melvin & Herb Simon, are the Pacers' sister team and play at Conseco Fieldhouse as well. The Indiana Pacers also have 2 mascots at every home game, Boomer and Bowser, who also appear often for the NBA

Franchise history

ABA years: Dynasty
In early 1967, a group of six investors (among them attorney Richard D. Tinkham, sports agent Chuck Barnes and Indianapolis Star sports writer Bob Collins) pooled their resources to purchase a franchise in the proposed American Basketball Association.

According to Indianapolis attorney, Richard D. Tinkham, the nickname “Pacers” was decided on through a collective decision of the original investors. Tinkham, one of those investors, recalled that the nickname was a combination of the state’s rich history with the harness racing pacers and the pace car used for the running of the Indianapolis 500. Investor Chuck Barnes was a horse racing enthusiast in addition to being business manager of Mario Andretti, A.J. Foyt and Roger Ward. Barnes' wife, Lois, suggested the name over dinner.

Tinkham said the “Pacers” decision was an easy one, but the real debate was whether the team should be called the Indiana Pacers or the Indianapolis Pacers. Since one of the original ideas for the team was to have it playing throughout the state with its base in Indianapolis, the official team name became the Indiana Pacers.

The Pacers began play in the inaugural 1967-68 season of the American Basketball Association, which was set up as an alternative league to the National Basketball Association.

For their first seven years, they played in the Indiana State Fairgrounds Coliseum, now called the Pepsi Coliseum. In 1974, they moved to the plush new Market Square Arena in downtown Indianapolis, where they stayed for 25 years.

Early in the Pacers' second season, former Indiana Hoosiers standout Bob "Slick" Leonard became the team's head coach, replacing Larry Staverman. Leonard quickly turned the Pacers into a juggernaut. His teams were buoyed by the great play of superstars such as Mel Daniels, George McGinnis, Rick Mount and Roger Brown. The Pacers were the most successful team in ABA history, winning three ABA Championships in four years. In all, they appeared in the ABA Finals five times in the league's nine year history.

Struggling through the early NBA years
The ABA folded in 1976, and the Pacers were one of four ABA teams invited to merge into the NBA beginning in the 1976-77 season (the other three were the New York Nets, Denver Nuggets and San Antonio Spurs). Financially, the Pacers were by far the weakest of the four ABA refugees. Indeed, they were on far weaker financial footing than the team acknowledged to be the last ABA team left out of the expansion, the Kentucky Colonels. Although it has never been confirmed, it appeared the Pacers made the cut because Indianapolis was a far more lucrative television market than Louisville, home of the Colonels.

The Pacers' financial troubles dated back to their waning days in the ABA; they already begun selling off some of their star players in the last ABA season. They were further weakened by the price required to join the NBA. The league charged a $3.2 million dollar entry fee to each former ABA team. Because the NBA would only agree to accept four ABA teams in a merger, the Pacers and the three other surviving ABA teams also had to compensate the two remaining ABA franchises which were not a part of the merger. The new NBA teams also were barred from sharing in national TV revenues for four years.

As a result of the steep price they paid to join the NBA, the Pacers were in a dire financial situation. It took a $100,000 contribution from a group of local businesses to keep the franchise going through June 1977. The team announced that unless season-ticket sales reached 8,000 by the end of July 1977, the club would be sold to someone who might take the franchise elsewhere. WTTV, which was the television flagship for Pacers' games at the time, offered to hold a 16.5 hour telethon to keep the team in Indiana. The telethon began on the night of July 3, 1977, and the next day, 10 minutes before the show was set to go off the air, it was announced that team officials had reached the 8,000-ticket goal. In part because of the telethon, the Pacers' average attendance jumped from 7,615 during the 1976-77 season to 10,982 during the 1977-78 season.

They finished their inaugural NBA season with a record of 36-46, as Billy Knight and Don Buse were invited to represent Indiana in the NBA All-Star Game. This was one of the few highlights of the Pacers' first 13 years in the league--a time in which they had but one winning season and just two playoff appearances. A lack of year-to-year continuity became the norm for most of the next decade, as they traded away Knight and Buse before the 1977-78 season even started. They acquired Adrian Dantley in exchange for Knight, but Dantley (who was averaging nearly 27 points per game at the time) was traded in December, while the Pacers' second-leading scorer, John Williamson, was dealt in January.

As a result of their poor performance, the Pacers needed to resort to publicity stunts to attract fans' attention. Before the 1979 season started, they offered women's basketball star Ann Meyers a tryout contract and invited her to the team's training camp. She became the first and, to this date, only woman to try out for an NBA team, but did not make the final squad.

During this time, the Pacers came out on the short end of two of the most one-sided trades in NBA history. In 1980, they traded Alex English to the Nuggets in order to reacquire former ABA star George McGinnis. McGinnis was long past his prime, and contributed very little during his two-year return. English, in contrast, went on to become one of the greatest scorers in NBA history. The next year, they traded a 1984 draft pick to the Portland Trail Blazers for center Tom Owens. Owens only played one year for the Pacers with little impact. This trade looked even more horrendous three years later. In 1983-84, the Pacers finished with the worst record in the Eastern Conference, which would have given the Pacers the second overall pick in the draft. As a result of the Owens trade, they were left as bystanders in the midst of one of the deepest drafts in NBA history--including such future stars as Hakeem Olajuwon, Michael Jordan, Sam Perkins, Charles Barkley, and John Stockton.

The Pacers made their first appearance in the NBA Playoffs in 1980-81, falling in the opening round to the Philadelphia 76ers in two straight games. It was the team's only playoff appearance from 1977 to 1986.

Clark Kellogg was drafted by the Pacers in the 1982 and showed tremendous promise, finishing second in the Rookie of the Year voting, but the Pacers finished the 1982-83 season with their all-time worst record of 20-62, and won only 26 games the following season. After winning 22 games in 1984-85 and 26 games in 1985-86, Jack Ramsay replaced George Irvine as coach and led the Pacers to a 41-41 record in 1986-87 and only their second playoff appearance as an NBA team. Chuck Person, nicknamed "The Rifleman" for his renowned long-range shooting, led the team in scoring as a rookie and won NBA Rookie of the Year honors. Their first playoff win in NBA franchise history was earned in Game 3 of their first-round, best-of-five series against the Atlanta Hawks, but it was their only victory in that series, as the Hawks defeated them in four games.

Reggie's arrival

1987-1989
Reggie Miller was drafted by the Pacers in 1987, beginning his career as a backup to John Long. Many fans at the time disagreed with Miller's selection over Indiana Hoosiers' standout Steve Alford. The Pacers missed the playoffs in 1987-88, drafted Rik Smits in the 1988 NBA Draft, and suffered through a disastrous 1988-89 season in which coach Jack Ramsay stepped down following an 0-7 start. Mel Daniels and George Irvine filled in on an interim basis before Dick Versace took over the 6-23 team on the way to a 28-54 finish. In February of 1989, the team did manage to make a trade that would eventually pay off, as they traded veteran center Herb Williams to the Dallas Mavericks for future NBA 6th Man-of-the Year Detlef Schrempf.


1989-90
Pacers parlayed a fast start into the team's third NBA Playoffs appearance. But the Pacers lost all three games in their 1990 NBA Playoffs experience, falling to the Detroit Pistons, who would go on to win their second consecutive NBA Championship. Reggie Miller became the first Pacer to play on the All-Star team since 1976 on the strength of his 24.6 points-per-game average.


In 1990-91, the Pacers returned to the playoffs with a 41-41 record, and Schrempf was named the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year. Bob Hill was head coach at this time. The Pacers had a memorable series against the highly favored Boston Celtics that they managed to extend to five games before losing Game 5, 124-121, with Larry Bird hosting one of the greatest comebacks in sports history. The Pacers returned to the playoffs in 1991-92 and met the Celtics again, but this time the Celtics left no doubt who was better as they swept the Pacers in three straight games.


1992-93
Chuck Person and point guard Micheal Williams were traded to the Minnesota Timberwolves in the offseason, and the Pacers got Pooh Richardson and Sam Mitchell in return. For the 1992-93 season, Detlef Schrempf moved from sixth man to the starter at small forward and was elected to his first All-Star game. Miller, meanwhile, became the Pacers' all-time NBA era leading scorer during this season (4th overall). The Pacers returned to the playoffs with a 41-41 record, but lost to the New York Knicks in the first round, three games to one

1993-94
Larry Brown was brought on as Pacers' coach for the 1993-94 season, and Pacers' general manager Donnie Walsh completed a highly-criticized (at the time) trade as he sent Schrempf to the Seattle SuperSonics in exchange for Derrick McKey and little known Gerald Paddio. But the Pacers, who began the season in typically average fashion, kicked it up a notch in April, winning their last eight games of the season to finish with a franchise-high 47 wins. They stormed past Shaquille O'Neal and the Orlando Magic in a first-round sweep to earn their first NBA playoff series win, and pulled off a tremendous upset by defeating the top-seeded Atlanta Hawks in the Conference Semifinals.

It was during the 1994 Eastern Conference Finals that the Pacers - particularly Reggie Miller - finally became a household name. With the series tied 2-2 going into game 5 in New York, Miller had the first of many legendary playoff performances. With the Pacers trailing the Knicks by 15 points early in the 4th quarter, Miller scored 25 points in the 4th quarter, including 5 3-point field goals. Miller also famously flashed the choke sign to Knick fans while leading the Pacers to the improbable come from behind victory. The Knicks ultimately came back to win the next two games and the series, but Reggie became an NBA superstar overnight. Miller was a tri-captain and leading scorer of the USA Basketball team that won the gold medal at the 1994 World Championship of Basketball.

1994-95
Mark Jackson joined the team in an offseason trade with the Los Angeles Clippers, giving the team the steady hand at the point guard position that had been lacking in recent years. The Pacers enjoyed a 52-30 campaign in 1994-95, giving them their first Central Division title and their first 50+ win season since the ABA days. The team swept the Hawks in the first round, before another meeting with the rival Knicks in the conference semi-finals. Once again, it was up to Reggie Miller to provide some fireworks. This time, with the Pacers down six points with 16.4 seconds remaining in game one, Miller scored eight points in 8.9 seconds to help secure the two point victory. The Pacers ultimately dispatched the Knicks in seven games and pushed the Magic to seven games before falling in the Eastern Conference Finals.


The Pacers duplicated their 52-30 record in 1995-96, but were hurt severely by an injury to Reggie Miller's eye socket in April, from which he was not able to return until Game 5 of their first-round series against the Hawks. Reggie scored 29 points in that game, but the Hawks came away with a two-point victory to put an early end to Indiana's season. This 1995-96 team did manage to go down in history as the only team to defeat the Chicago Bulls twice that year, a Bulls team which made history with an all-time best 72-10 record.

The Pacers could not withstand several key injuries in 1996-97, nor could they handle the absence of Mark Jackson, who had been traded to the Denver Nuggets before the season (though they did re-acquire Jackson at the trading deadline). The Pacers finished 39-43 and missed the playoffs for the first time in seven years, after which coach Larry Brown stepped down.

Return to glory
1997-98
The Pacers selected Larry Bird to coach the team in 1997-98 and they posted a new franchise record, finishing 58-24--a dramatic 19-game improvement from the previous season. Chris Mullin joined the team in the offseason and immediately became a valuable part of the Pacers lineup-- and their starting small forward. Assistant coaches Rick Carlisle, in charge of the offense, and Dick Harter, who coached the defense, were key in getting the most out of the Pacers' role players such as Dale Davis, Antonio Davis and Derrick McKey. Reggie Miller and Rik Smits both made the All-Star team that year, and in the playoffs, the Pacers breezed past the Cleveland Cavaliers and New York Knicks before falling to the Chicago Bulls in an epic seven-game Eastern Conference Final.


1998-2000
In the lockout-shortened 1998-99 season, the Pacers won the Central Division with a 33-17 record and swept the Milwaukee Bucks and Philadelphia 76ers before falling to the New York Knicks in a six-game Eastern Conference Finals series. The Pacers traded popular forward Antonio Davis to the Toronto Raptors in exchange for first-round draft choice Jonathan Bender, which remains to this day a subject of controversy among Pacers fans. But in the Playoffs, after a 56-26 regular season, the Pacers survived the upset-minded Bucks in round one, handled the 76ers in the second round and finally broke through to the NBA Finals by virtue of a six-game East Finals victory over the New York Knicks.

Their first NBA Finals appearance was against the Los Angeles Lakers, who proved too much for them to handle as they ended Indiana's championship hopes in six games. However, the Pacers dealt Los Angeles their worst playoff defeat up to that time by a margin of 33 points in Game Five.

**WIKIPEDIA.ORG