Indiana Pacers: 10 best point guards in franchise history

7. Bill Keller

Bill Keller, a Hoosier since high school, stood at just 5-10 but found a way to make an impact on the most successful Pacers teams of all time.

Keller, a point guard during all three of the team’s ABA Championships, averaged 11.8 points, 2.4 rebounds, and 3.6 assists per game, collecting 30.1 win shares over the course of his career.

Though he was drafted by an NBA team, Keller decided to play for his hometown team in Indiana and brought solid shooting to the roster, a skill he needed in order to provide value given his small stature.

Keller would rival the ABA’s most accurate shooters during his time in the league, closing his career with a 33.8 percent 3-point shooting mark and an 87.2 percent mark from the charity stripe. In the 1972-73 season, Keller was the ABA’s most accurate free-throw shooter.

His best season by far came in his last one, where he averaged the most minutes he’d been given over the course of a single season and made the most of the greater opportunity. Keller, in that 1975-76 season, averaged 14.2 points, 2.9 rebounds, and 3.9 assists, hitting 40.6 percent of his field-goal attempts to close out his career.

While it was Keller’s last season, it was also Indiana’s final year in the ABA, as they would merge with the NBA the following year. Keller went on to be an assistant coach at Purdue, his alma mater.

6. Johnny Davis

Johnny Davis’s career started on a hot note with him being a part of a Finals winning team in his rookie season with the Portland Trail Blazers.

Davis was acquired by Indiana through a trade in which the Pacers swapped first-round draft picks with the Blazers and also received Davis.

Though he only played for them for four seasons, he provided a sense of stability in the backcourt as the Pacers moved on from their longtime coach in Slick Leonard to a new era with Jack McKinney in the 80s.

For a decade from 1976-86, the Pacers only made the playoffs in one season (1981) and Davis ranked first in assists per game and third in win shares that season behind Billy Knight and James Edwards.

The Pacers teams Davis played on generally weren’t good, but he was able to stand out with averages of 16.4 points, 2.4 rebounds, and 5.4 assists per game. Statistically, the best years of Davis’s career were spent in Indiana.

In 1982, the Pacers would trade Davis to the Hawks for just a second-round draft pick.