Indiana Pacers: 30 greatest players in franchise history

11. Billy Knight

Billy Knight is a guy that’s been around professional basketball for a long, long time. He’s been a front office executive for both the Pacers and Grizzlies. For several seasons after that, he became the general manager of the Atlanta Hawks during the Josh Smith days.

But before all of that, Knight absolutely dominated the ABA and NBA for a healthy amount of time. 8 seasons of his career were spent playing for the Pacers. He began as a rookie with the team in the ABA. In these 2 years before the ABA/NBA merger, Knight made an All-ABA team, an ABA All-Star team, and an All-Rookie team.

After the merger, Knight made the All-Star team in his first season in the NBA as well. Between these NBA and ABA All-Star seasons, Knight scored between 26.6 and 28.1 points per game. His ABA All-Star season was even more impressive, as he added over 10 rebounds per game to his high scoring output as well. Numbers like these would essentially guarantee Knight an All-Star appearance in the modern NBA as well.

Billy Knight is one of the best scorers in Indiana Pacers history, with his career low with the team being 12.3 points per game in the 1981-1982 season, which is still a healthy mark by most standards.