What former stars believe Pacers need to do to take the next step

INDIANAPOLIS — For most retired NBA players, there is a sense of pride in their former teams, long after their careers have ended.

Especially if they put roots down in their city.

Former Pacers center Rik Smits lived in Zionsville for nearly two decades, and his daughter, Jasmine, is the team’s player relations coordinator. Fred Jones, drafted by Indiana, spent a decade living in Indianapolis.

Detlef Schrempf lives in Seattle, but he has a soft spot in his heart for the NBA’s small-market teams.

All three are excited by the possibilities opening up for the Pacers right now, sparked by Tyrese Haliburton’s emergence as one of the NBA’s best players.

“It’s great that small market teams have a chance to compete,” Schrempf said. “All you hear is about the big-market teams.”

All three players spent time on great NBA teams — Smits and Jones with the Pacers, Schrempf with the Sonics — and they all have ideas on how the Pacers can finish off their return to prominence.

One of the best parts of NBA All-Star Weekend is the way the league’s legends descend on a city, particularly the players from the host city, allowing a team’s fans a chance to get a glimpse of decades of their favorites in one solitary weekend.

Smits, Schrempf and Jones are only three of a long list of Pacers in Indianapolis this weekend, making their way through the National Basketball Retired Player’s Association’s Legends Lounge, a series of rooms set up as a haven for the game’s former stars.

“We’re able to, not only bring our community back together, but be on the largest basketball stage, where these players were able to make a name for themselves and play at the highest level,” NBRPA CEO Scott Rochelle said. “To continue to be a part of the game, the fabric of the success of what the NBA is, is so important.”

For the former Pacers, they arrive in Indianapolis at a time when the team is finally a playoff contender again, entering the break at 31-25, good for the sixth seed in the Eastern Conference.

For the first time in a while, Indiana feels like a team on the rise.

“If you have a leader that’s coming from a position of handling the ball and distributing it, that’s very important,” Schrempf said. “Tyrese being the point guard … if the other pieces fall into place, I think they’ll be very competitive.”

Adding Pascal Siakam in the blockbuster deal of the deadline cemented Indiana’s status as a rising contender.

But the Pacers are not quite there yet, and the former players all see ways the team can take the next step.

Including something as simple as time.

“I think it’s big for the future more than this year,” Jones, who won the NBA Slam Dunk Contest in 2004, said. “This year, they’re kind of clustered in the middle of the pack. Next year, with a full year of him, what they do in the offseason, they’re on the cusp of getting back in the upper echelon.”

Breaking into the upper echelon is not easy.

Schrempf chased it for years in Dallas and Indiana before finally making it to the NBA Finals with Seattle. When he looks at the Pacers, he sees a team that needs to be deadly on a nightly basis.

“What they’re looking for now, they need to be more consistent,” Schrempf said. “They need to get on a five-game winning streak, and if you start losing, lose two. Don’t lose five. Once you get there, then you get to the next level.”

Of the three, Smits pays the closest attention to the Pacers.

There’s the connection with his daughter, and he still has property in Zionsville. While he no longer lives in Indiana full time, he spends about two weeks in Zionsville each spring and fall, passing through on his way from house to house. Smits lives in New York in the summers and Arizona in the winters, and he makes the trip each year by driving his motor home, a mode of transportation that allows him to stop in Zionsville.

He's been watching the Pacers closely.

And as fun as they’ve been to watch, particularly on the offensive end, Smits would like to see this Indiana team develop some of the defensive intensity that marked the Pacers teams he centered, the best teams in the franchise’s history.

“They can definitely score the ball,” Smits said. “But I still would like to see them work on the defense a little bit at times, because I think, if it comes to the playoffs, seven games, they’re going to have to step it up. … I’m sure that (coach Rick) Carlisle will get them ready.”

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Pacers: What former stars believe team needs to take the next step