Indiana Pacers: Rik Smits has done enough to have jersey retired

The Indiana Pacers should retire 45, the number Rik Smits wore

The Indiana Pacers have quite the high bar for retiring jersey numbers. They should lower it, at least temporarily, to recognize Rik Smits.

As an NBA player, one of the greatest post-career recognitions you can receive short of being inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame is having your number retired by the team(s) you played for throughout your career.

Rik Smits, retired for 20 years now, is still waiting on the Pacers, his only team, to retire his number.

There’s room for debate on Smits and whether or not they should retire the 45 that he wore for the majority of his career. A large contingent of Pacers fans would like to see his number retired. A petition has even been started to lobby for the team to recognize his impact.

Some of it simply comes down to what your bar is for having your number retired.

Do you need to be in legend status in order to get your number retired? Or can a second-best player or even a role player qualify for having their number retired?

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The bar for number retirement can change team-to-team. The Miami Heat retired Chris Bosh’s 1 even though he was never the best player on any Miami Heat teams. Being an expansion team, their history is short and sweet, though sprinkled with bright moments and hard-working talent.

Miami has opted to recognize that talent by establishing it in the rafters whenever possible, wasting no time to retire numbers after players end their playing careers.

It helps, too, that Bosh was a part of two title-winning teams in Miami.

The Pacers are a bit different. One of the most historic teams in the NBA, most of their success came as an ABA team. No championship banners have risen to the rafters since they joined the NBA, and just one NBA-only player has had his number retired by the team — Reggie Miller.

Miller absolutely deserved this honor. His teams went to the playoffs 16 times in 17 years, including five Eastern Conference Finals visits and one loss in the NBA Finals.

Miller far and away is the most deserving player from that era to have his number retired. He leads the franchise in win shares and amazingly doubles the point total of the person that comes second to him in the team’s points leaderboard (who happens to be Smits).

Miller was the player that pushed the machine forward for many years and is almost inarguably the greatest player in franchise history.

Not one man makes up a team though. At least five players need to be on the floor at any given time, and it takes a team of at least 8 or 9 very good players to compete at this level for years.

The Pacers had a rotating cast of players throughout this nearly two-decade run of success in Indiana, but second to Miller, Rik Smits is player you think of as a consistently impactful Pacers player.

Smits, throughout the course of his career, averaged 14.8 points, 6.1 rebounds, and 1.4 assists, compiling 56.5 win shares (.118 per 48 minutes). On franchise leaderboards, Smits sits at fourth all-time in total win shares, he is second in franchise history in blocks and points and third and rebounds.

Smits was never the star player of the Pacers teams he was on, but that was in large part due to the presence of Reggie Miller on each and every team that Smits played on. He never needed to be the star.

But without Smits, Miller’s legacy looks a bit different. Miller would have willed his way to success no matter the circumstances, but the rebounding and defensive prowess of Smits made things easier for Miller.

Smits was never the star player of the Pacers teams he was on, but that was in large part due to the presence of Reggie Miller on each and every team that Smits played on.

Here is where Smits ranked in scoring, rebounding, and win shares on the roster every year that the Pacers went to the Conference Finals or deeper (points/rebounds/win shares):

• 1993-94: 2nd/2nd/2nd (Lost Conf. Finals)
• 1994-95: 2nd/2nd/3rd (Lost Conf. Finals)
• 1997-98: 2nd/2nd/6th (Lost Conf. Finals)
• 1998-99: 2nd/3rd/6th (Lost Conf. Finals)
• 1999-00: 3rd/3rd/7th (Lost NBA Finals)

His playoff impact in these years was important, too. Here’s where he ranked in playoff win shares in each of those seasons:

• 1993-94: 5th
• 1994-95: 2nd
• 1997-98: 2nd
• 1998-99: 9th
• 1999-00: 7th

Yes, Smits did fade into the background a bit toward the end of his career, as most players do as they age. The Pacers also were much more well-rounded teams in those years with players like Jalen Rose and Mark Jackson joining the fold.

Smits’s legacy has somehow been boiled to that of a role player by some.

While, yes, he was a role-playing piece at the peak of NBA success for the Miller-era Pacers, he played a much more prominent role in the team’s history in the years before that.

And if you think that’s all he was in 2000, a role player, then why did one of the Los Angeles Lakers best players prepare as if he was the one thing he needed to stop?

Speaking to Sports Illustrated, here’s what Hall of Fame center Shaquille O’Neal had to say about Smits:

"Rik destroyed me every time… Oh, my God. Pick-and-pop, jump hook in the post, I couldn’t stop that kid. If it wasn’t for his foot problems, I probably [never would] have been able to stop him. When we played them in the [2000] Finals, I had to go back to some old tape."

The Pacers have, to this point, reserved number retirements for players of the utmost importance in not just the team’s history, but also the game at-large. Players with numbers retired are in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

Smits may never be an inductee in Springfield. The Pacers shouldn’t wait for the widespread, league-wide appreciation of Smits to retire his number. He spent his entire career in Indiana. While he wasn’t a perennial All-Star, he is intertwined prominently at the top of some of the most important Pacers teams since joining the NBA in the mid-70s.

It’s time to recognize his impact. Put 45 in the rafters.