Indiana Pacers: 15 best scorers in franchise history

The history of the Indiana Pacers cannot be told without some tremendous scorers. From Roger Brown to Reggie Miller to Victor Oladipo, the Indiana Pacers have had their fair share. But who are the best? We took a stab at it, here’s 15.

Who is the best scorer in Indiana Pacers history? Depends on how you define a scorer.

A scorer, what’s a scorer?

On the surface that’s a simple question: someone who deposits the basketball through the net a lot, duh. But, it’s not that simple is it?

Is a center who shoots 60 percent from the field while stationed two feet from the basket better at scoring that the one who shoots in the 30s from deep?

Maybe go by who scored the most points overall, that makes sense, but then again, are all high scorers created equally? If player A averages 24 points per game as the leading scorer on a dreadful team, that shouldn’t matter as much as a player who averages 19 points while leading a contending team, right?

Or are points just points? And how about this extra kicker, what is better: a player who was amazing for a single season then disappeared or a player who played a decade plus but never put up the same numbers as the one-hit wonder?

All those questions bounced through my head while preparing this article.

“Best” can be ambiguous, but I did my best to weigh everything. To be clear I did not value low post players more or less than perimeter guys. I valued players whose scoring “mattered” more than players whose scoring didn’t, meaning wins factor in.

If your scoring doesn’t result in team success then that matters less to me than if it does.

Then youth, I preferred players who delivered time-and-time again over players who lacked staying power, unless the brief performance was so illuminating that it was impossible to ignore.

What lies below is my best approximation of who the best 15 scorers are in the history of the Indiana Pacers.

Honorable mentions

These were the toughest cuts.

Freddie Lewis was a great shooter and leader of the ABA Pacers, but he was frequently outscored by the teammates that he set up. That is admirable, but it makes it hard to put him on this list.

Adrian Dantley averaged 26.5 points per game during his one season in Indiana, the Pacers were 31-51 during that season.

Billy Keller is very high on any shooter’s list worth reading, but he was too one dimensional for this list which implies more versatility.

Detlef Schrempf was awesome and a fan favorite during his time with the Pacers, but he was never more than third on his team in scoring, and he never accounted for more than 15 percent of his team’s points over a full season.

The Pacer with the highest point total that didn’t make the list was Vern Fleming who was more accumulator than scorer.

It’s a similar case for Herb Williams although Herb actually led the team one year (1985-86), issue was the team was sub-par that year (26-56).

19 players have led the Pacers in scoring average over the course of a full season, 14 made this list.