Indiana Pacers

Published April 18, 2026 · Updated April 23, 2026 · By The Basketball Fans Editors

The Indiana Pacers are a 1967 ABA charter franchise that won three ABA championships (1970, 1972, 1973) under head coach Bob “Slick” Leonard. They joined the NBA in the 1976 ABA-NBA merger. They have not won an NBA championship. They have reached the NBA Finals twice (2000 with Reggie Miller and 2025 with Tyrese Haliburton) and lost both. The franchise has been owned continuously by Herb Simon since 1983 (with his brother Melvin co-owning through 2009), making it one of the longest single-owner tenures in American professional sports. The 2004 “Malice at the Palace” brawl between Pacers players and Detroit fans, and the resulting 146 games of suspensions for Pacers players, is the single most-consequential on-court event in franchise history.

The ABA years and the three championships (1967–1976)

The Indiana Pacers were founded in 1967 as one of eleven ABA charter franchises. The ownership group was led by Indianapolis businessmen Chuck DeVoe and Bill Eason. The team played its ABA years at the Indiana State Fairgrounds Coliseum (1967–74) and Market Square Arena (1974–76). Head coach Bob “Slick” Leonard was hired in 1968 from the Chicago Zephyrs and would coach the Pacers through 1980.

The ABA Pacers won championships in 1970 (over the Los Angeles Stars), 1972 (over the New York Nets), and 1973 (over the Kentucky Colonels). They reached the Finals five times in nine ABA seasons. The core roster featured Roger Brown (a 6’5” wing), Mel Daniels (the 1969 and 1971 ABA MVP), George McGinnis (joined 1971), Bob Netolicky, and Billy Keller. All three championship teams share the distinction of being, by most ABA-era retrospective accounts, among the top five ABA teams ever. The definitive history of the franchise’s ABA roots and NBA merger transition is Mark Montieth’s Reborn: The Pacers and the Return of Pro Basketball to Indiana (Indiana Historical Society Press, 2014).

The 1976 ABA-NBA merger absorbed four ABA franchises (Pacers, Denver Nuggets, San Antonio Spurs, New York Nets). The Pacers were the only one of the four that did not pay a territorial-rights fee (Indiana had no existing NBA presence). The merger-era Pacers kept their color scheme and the original “P” logo through the transition.

The early NBA decline (1976–1986)

The Pacers’ first decade in the NBA was difficult. The franchise finished below .500 in eleven of their first fourteen NBA seasons. The 1983 ownership transition from the DeVoe family to the Simon family (Herb and Melvin Simon, founders of the Simon Property Group) happened at a point when the franchise was widely considered a relocation risk. The Simons’ $11 million purchase price included explicit public commitment to keeping the team in Indianapolis. Market Square Arena was the home from 1974 to 1999.

The Reggie Miller era (1987–2005)

The 1987 NBA Draft produced Reggie Miller with the 11th overall pick, out of UCLA. Full Miller story here. Miller played all eighteen NBA seasons of his career with Indiana. He is the franchise’s all-time leading scorer (25,279 points). He was a five-time All-Star.

The Miller-era Pacers made five consecutive Eastern Conference Finals appearances (1994, 1995, 1998, 1999, 2000). The 1993–94 and 1994–95 losses to the New York Knicks are the signature rivalry moments of the decade; Miller’s eight-points-in-nine-seconds against the Knicks in Game 1 of the 1995 second round, and his 25-point fourth quarter in Game 5 of the 1994 conference finals (the “choke” gesture toward Spike Lee), are two of the most-replayed individual-player moments of the 1990s.

The 1999–2000 Pacers, coached by Larry Bird (his only full head-coaching season), went 56–26. They beat Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and New York in the playoffs to reach the NBA Finals. They lost to the Shaq-Kobe Lakers 4–2 in the Finals. Miller averaged 24.3 points per game across the series. Game 6 at Staples Center ended with Shaquille O’Neal’s 41-point, 12-rebound performance closing the series.

It was the franchise’s first NBA Finals appearance. Bird resigned as head coach after the season as part of a previously-announced retirement from coaching.

The 2004 Malice at the Palace, and the rebuild

On November 19, 2004, in a regular-season game at the Palace of Auburn Hills, a fan threw a cup of beer at Pacers forward Ron Artest during a post-game scrum. Artest went into the stands and attacked the fan. A bench-clearing brawl followed that involved multiple Pacers players, multiple Pistons players, and multiple fans. The event is known as the “Malice at the Palace.”

NBA Commissioner David Stern suspended five Pacers players for a combined 146 games, the largest single-game disciplinary action in league history. Artest was suspended for the rest of the regular season (seventy-three games). Stephen Jackson was suspended for thirty games. Jermaine O’Neal was suspended for twenty-five games (later reduced to fifteen on appeal). The 2004–05 Pacers, pre-suspension the East’s best record, finished 44–38 and lost in the second round. The Malice reshaped the franchise for a decade.

The Pacers missed the playoffs for five consecutive seasons (2005–2010), the franchise’s longest post-merger playoff drought.

The Paul George era (2010–2017)

The 2010 NBA Draft produced Paul George with the 10th overall pick out of Fresno State. By 2012–13 he was an All-Star. The 2013–14 Pacers, coached by Frank Vogel with George, David West, Roy Hibbert, and George Hill, went 56–26, the best regular-season record in the Eastern Conference. They reached the Eastern Conference Finals, losing to LeBron James’s Heat in six games.

George broke his right tibia and fibula in a 2014 Team USA scrimmage in Las Vegas, an injury that initially threatened his career. He returned for the 2014–15 stretch run. The 2015–16 and 2016–17 Pacers made the first round of the playoffs but could not advance. In June 2017 George informed the Pacers he would not re-sign. On July 1, 2017, Indiana traded him to Oklahoma City for Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis. The trade return has aged well; Sabonis was an All-Star in Indiana before his 2022 trade to Sacramento.

The Tyrese Haliburton era and the 2025 Finals

The 2021 NBA Draft produced Tyrese Haliburton with the 12th overall pick by Sacramento; Indiana acquired him in February 2022 for Sabonis. Haliburton was an All-NBA Third Team selection in 2022–23 and an All-NBA Second Team selection in 2023–24.

Head coach Rick Carlisle (the 2002–03 Coach of the Year with Detroit) was hired in 2021. The 2023–24 Pacers reached the Eastern Conference Finals, losing to the Celtics 4–0. The 2024–25 Pacers went 50–32. They beat Milwaukee (the series that ended with Damian Lillard’s Game 4 Achilles rupture), Cleveland, and New York in the playoffs, and reached the 2025 NBA Finals against Oklahoma City. The Finals went seven games. Oklahoma City won 103–91 on June 22, 2025. Haliburton’s right Achilles rupture in Game 7 is the other memorable injury of the series. It was the Pacers’ second NBA Finals appearance and the first since 2000. Reggie Miller called the series for NBC Sports.

Ownership

Herb Simon is the continuous owner of the Indiana Pacers. He and his brother Melvin Simon purchased the franchise in April 1983 for $11 million. Melvin died in 2009; his estate retains a minority share. Herb is the chairman of Simon Property Group, the largest real-estate investment trust in the United States. He is 91 in 2026. The Pacers’ 2025 Forbes valuation was approximately $2.5 billion. Herb has stated in multiple interviews that the franchise will remain in the Simon family after his death.

Retired numbers

Nine jersey numbers have been retired:

• Roger Brown (35): ABA era
• Mel Daniels (34): ABA era
• George McGinnis (30): ABA/NBA
• Bob Netolicky (11): ABA era
• Billy Keller (10): ABA era
• Slick Leonard (529, career coaching wins banner)
• Reggie Miller (31): NBA career
• Jermaine O’Neal (7)
• Detlef Schrempf (32)

Paul George’s 13 is a presumed future retirement candidate, though the post-2017 trade-request fallout has made it a less-certain honor.

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Sources

• Basketball-Reference, Indiana Pacers franchise page
• The Indianapolis Star, Pacers beat coverage
• Mark Montieth, Reborn: The Pacers and the Return of Pro Basketball to Indiana (Indiana Historical Society Press, 2014)
• 2004 Malice at the Palace NBA disciplinary records (November 19–24, 2004 suspensions)
• 2000 and 2025 NBA Finals box scores (Basketball-Reference)
• Simon family ownership records, April 1983 purchase ($11 million)
• Forbes NBA Team Valuations, 2025