This Team Seems to Be on Pace Toward Something Good

PHILADELPHIA —  The Indiana Pacers once traded the draft rights to Michael Jordan for journeyman Tom Owens, once went two seasons without a home sellout and can count 13 years of NBA playoff victories on one finger.

While a lot of pro basketball teams would be embarrassed by this kind of past, the Pacers seemingly have shrugged, smiled sheepishly and added more footnotes to the history of a franchise that has been long, storied and astoundingly unproductive since joining the NBA in the 1976 merger with the American Basketball Association.

You want a history, these Pacers have a history. They got their name because they wanted to “set the pace” for pro basketball in the Hoosier state, and their history has been nothing if not unique.

They’re the only non-expansion team never to have won a playoff series. They’ve won more games than they’ve lost once and finished higher than fourth twice. They’ve never finished higher than ninth in attendance and last season were 22nd in a 25-team league. Dawn, it seemed, would never break.

So look who has done one of the NBA’s most astounding backflips.

It’s the Indiana Pacers. Three years after a lawyer named Donnie Walsh took over as general manager and a year after a Hemingway buff named Dick Versace became the coach, the Pacers have a chance to go from 54 losses to 50 victories, from being a team almost everyone counted as an easy “W” to one that may be scratching the surface of its potential.

Say hello to guys named Smits and Schrempf, to a former butterball named Person and to someone who’ll show up on your all-star program next month--Reggie Miller.

“This is the beginning of what I think we can be,” Walsh said. “We’re by no means there and if we go very far in the playoffs it’ll be because Dick and the players overachieved. But as this group matures and we add another big man and some guard help, we’ve got a chance.”

While Versace the coach has molded a likely playoff team, Walsh the general manager has signed his best young players to long-term contracts. The message is simple: After 13 years of doing things one way, these Pacers will take care of both their players and fans.

Which has had a ripple effect.

“We play hard and that’s the way you have to play in Indiana,” Walsh said. “For years, fans could go see Bobby Knight’s team play its tail off or they could see the Pacers loaf down the floor. Which would you do?”

Now a lot of Hoosiers apparently do both, and the Pacers have a chance for a sold-out January at Market Square Arena--surely a first.

“We’re not there yet,” Versace said, “but we’re getting there. I’m real proud of what we’ve accomplished in a relatively short period of time. It has been a team effort and there has to be enough credit to go around.”

Here’s how you build an overnight winner after a decade of frustration:

--You use your draft picks wisely. The last three drafts have given the Pacers three starters--center Rik Smits, guard Miller and forward Chuck Person.

--You trade wisely. With Smits in the fold, Walsh sent forward Wayman Tisdale to Sacramento to get rebounding specialist LaSalle Thompson.

Then he got lucky by being able to trade aging big man Herb Williams to Dallas for 6-foot-10 Detlef Schrempf, whom former Maverick Coach Dick Motta once called “the most talented player I’ve ever had.” With Mark Aguirre and Sam Perkins on the floor 40 minutes most nights, Schrempf never got to strut his stuff in Dallas. But in Indiana he has become one of the NBA’s best sixth men, a big, quick forward who can play inside and out.

--You spend free agent dollars sparingly. Walsh used them on forward Mike Sanders, who has moved into the starting lineup.

Having spent last season getting all the pieces, Walsh spent his summer getting players signed to long-term contracts. Meanwhile, Person decided that with Thompson, Smits and Schrempf to play inside, he would be more valuable as a perimeter player.

That meant unloading about 30 pounds, which Person did by giving up fried food and strapping himself to a StairMaster for much of the summer.

Without a true point guard and none on the horizon, the Pacers attempted to improve the one they had by putting veteran Vern Fleming through 30 ball-handling drills. The result is that he has gone from 6.5 to 8.2 assists per game while keeping his turnovers under three.

“I’d had my eye on this job for a long time,” Versace said. “You had to like their young talent, and you especially had to like the fact they were loaded with big people, which everyone wants. That enabled Donnie to trade Tisdale and Williams and get us LaSalle and Detlef.”

Danny Manning was everyone’s No. 1 pick in the 1988 draft, but the Pacers didn’t do badly with the second pick. They used it to take 7-4, 250-pound Smits of Marist, who in his second full season has become one of the NBA’s better centers.

He runs the floor well, has a handful of slippery moves, and despite a sleepy look and friendly smile “will not back down from anyone,” Walsh said. “He won’t start anything, but if you test him, you may be in for a surprise.”

He will be the cornerstone for whatever else is built in Indiana. “He’s 250 pounds now, and he’ll probably end up playing at about 280,” Walsh said. “He’s going to be a force in this league.”

A native of Eindhoven, Holland, Smits averaged 11.7 points and 6.1 rebounds in his rookie season. This season he has returned older and wiser, as well as stronger, and is chipping in 14.7 points, 5.8 rebounds and 2.3 blocked shots a night.

“I didn’t know what to expect at this level,” Smits said. “The big difference was not only the competition, but the number of games and the travel. You have to watch what you eat and get your rest or this league will get you.”

And then there is Miller, who in his third year may be the pure shooting guard by which others are measured. He leads the Pacers with 23.9 points per game and scored 44 a week ago in a victory over the Bulls.

“It’s not just me,” Miller said. “I’m learning, but this is the kind of team where you can’t focus on one or two guys. We’ve got enough weapons to keep defenses honest.”

The Pacers have Fleming and Miller outside, Smits inside and Person and Schrempf here, there and everywhere.

They are young and talented enough to make a coach wonder how he got so lucky. Which sometimes Versace apparently does.

“Donnie and I are a good team,” he said. “He was a star player at North Carolina, a pretty good player in the ABA and was a successful coach (for Denver) in the NBA. Me, I was a grunt in high-school ball for nine years.”

Versace had coached at the high-school and junior-college levels, but it was during eight seasons at Bradley (1978-86) that he made a name for himself. He applied for a couple of NBA openings, and when he was told he needed pro experience, he joined Chuck Daly’s staff at Detroit.

He is atypical. A chatterbox, he quotes Faulkner and Steinbeck and counts Hemingway as the most influential force in his life.

“Communication,” Walsh said. “I interviewed a lot of guys, but that’s what he had. You talk to him and your first reaction may be that he’s a BS artist. That’s not true. He can be tough without being insulting, and he talks when he has something to say.”

Versace said Daly taught him many things, including the art of “compartmentalizing.” That is, no one game is Armageddon.

Yet, he can be tough. During a blowout at Detroit, he called time and blistered ears, screaming that “I’m not going to let you mail in a 41-point loss.”

This night his Pacers don’t mail in a loss, but they do lose to the 76ers by four. It’s his fifth consecutive road loss, and on a night when he could have gotten hot, he said: “This has been a tough stretch and we’ve given good effort. That’s all you can ask for. We’ll be all right.”