‘Indiana is different': Reggie Miller, LeBron James, Freddie Lewis and a weekend of basketball

INDIANAPOLIS – Damian Lillard dribbled the ball on the hardwood court at Gainbridge Fieldhouse until he reached the middle line right below the freshly painted All-Star Game logo. Then the Bucks star launched a slow-motion shot into the air.

It was one of his signature half-court shots, this time in an All-Star Game built more on theatrics than any tenets of effort or grit. This three-day spectacle needed a finishing act, and so he gathered his joints like a slow-moving spring and launched until the ball came free.

As it soared through the air, the stars on the court and the fans in the stands made eye contact with the ball. It hung for 2.5 seconds, just enough time for the people at a basketball extravaganza in a basketball state to contemplate what the game means to them.

'Indiana is different'

Hundreds of thousands of people descended upon Indiana’s capital city this weekend. It was the first time the city of Indianapolis has hosted an All-Star Game since 1985, which was just a few weeks after LeBron James was born.

Before the on-court events could get started – before the Rising Stars Challenge or the Celebrity Game or the 3-point contest or the dunk contest or the game itself – a sheet of snow joined the show, dousing Indianapolis in six inches of fluff.

The city became like a basketball snow globe.

But inside the different hosting venues of Gainbridge Fieldhouse, Lucas Oil Stadium, the Indiana Convention Center and the Marriott Hotel, stars of past and present shared memories of what brought them here, and what brought them back.

"Come playoff time, what made it so unique playing in a smaller market, each time I would leave my house to come down to (Gainbridge Fieldhouse), everyone in my development, all the kids would be outside with homemade signs in their front yards. Banners in their front yards," Pacers Hall-of-Famer Reggie Miller said on from a live TNT broadcast inside the Indiana Convention Center.

"Everyone was invested in us. Yes, being in L.A., Chicago or New York, there are bigger markets. But we're in this together in a small market. We laughed and cried together. ... That's why Indiana is different when it comes to basketball."

Perhaps nobody could explain this weekend better than a man who spent all 18 seasons of his career in a Pacers jersey.

That became TNT’s business model for the broadcast of a game that would transfuse the past, present and future.

"We want to tap into his ability to tell stories about what this city means -- what it meant to play here and how it's evolved since he's been gone," said Craig Barry, Turner Sports' executive vice president and chief content officer.

"... Covering him coming home is part of the narrative. What does it mean when he walks in the building? What does it mean when the crowd responds to him? What does it mean when he's walking down the street and everybody knows him? It's all part of having a city-wide icon."

Miller was in a sweet spot to be the event’s ambassador, just young enough to have been present in the lives of today’s fans but old enough to have gone to the places Tyrese Haliburton is trying to go now.

Every former player who visited boasted a legacy that fit a certain time and space.

Freddie Lewis came back to experience his. Now 80 years old, he was a star of the best Pacers teams that have ever existed, squads that won championships in 1970, 1972 and 1973 as part of the American Basketball Association.

"We were the only show in town when we came there in 1968. There was no Colts. There was nothing else but the Indiana Pacers," Lewis said. "All we knew was basketball. We knew about the Indiana High School and the Indiana-Kentucky rivalries. But we brought the excitement to the city."

The ABA only lasted nine seasons before merging with the NBA, in a move that George Karl said saved the sport. But the league managed to pass on some of the traditions that built this weekend, from the 3-point line to the dunk contest. It led to the spectacle it is now, with million-dollar shoe contracts and global brands, shine that never came to the ABA players.

Perhaps no former Pacer was more interested to feel out his reception than Jermaine O’Neal. He played with Miller on some of the best Pacers teams since those ABA days. He made six All-Star appearances in his eight years in Indiana. But he also lived through the shadow he created when he punched a fan during the “Malice at the Palace” in 2004.

"I think the brawl itself is one of the most misunderstood and misused things," O'Neal said. "For whatever reason, it was as if I was criminalized for something that I would do again if put in the exact same position.

"What happens when you're actually in a situation where people are trying to hurt you? What do you do then? People don't realize that the person that I ran in and hit was the guy that was on top of Anthony Johnson."

This is how sports legacies work. Men like Miller, Lewis and O’Neal can each play more than 550 games for the Pacers, hoisting thousands of shots, many of them hanging in the air just a second less than Lillard’s moonshot. But memories blur through the generations, and a man can often feel distilled down into his best or worst 10 seconds.

A new face of the league

This was a weekend to look back and to look forward.

No player had a more anticipated arrival, pre-game introduction or press conference than the oldest one in the game. James was in and out of Indianapolis just on Sunday, participating in his 20th consecutive All-Star appearance.

But in those few hours, a sport felt signs of a shift. The four-time MVP spoke candidly about where he is and where he’s going at age 39.

"I was asked this question a couple days ago: 'Will you take the farewell tour or will you kind of Tim Duncan it?'" James said. "There's times where I feel like I owe it to my fans that have been on this journey with me for two decades plus, to be able to give them that moment. ... But the other side is that I've never been that great with accepting praise. This is a weird feeling for me.

"... I don't know how it's going to end, but it's coming. It's coming for sure."

Here was a man who arrived as the most heralded draft pick in history and reached the All-Star Game every season after his rookie year. He started in another All-Star Game on Sunday, after more than 1,500 games played in the regular and postseasons.

"I think anybody in any walk of life can pick up on his love and care for the game of basketball and helping to push the game forward," Kevin Durant said.

GREGG DOYEL: The NBA All-Star Game died Sunday night in Indy. Cause of death: Players don't care.

MORE: 'He was incredible tonight': Tyrese Haliburton scores 32 and just misses All-Star MVP

But James can feel the effects of time, those grains of sand moving inside his 6-foot-9 frame. A time is coming, like it did for Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan, where someone else will have to emerge with the play and the voice and the style to be the face of the league.

Will it be Victor Wembanyana, the most heralded No. 1 pick since James? Or does it need to be Luka Doncic, a young star already in his prime at the age of 24, now hunting down his first scoring title?

"I think you have to let it happen organically and then see what happens," James said. "We have some great, great players that can carry anything if they put their minds where they want it."

This is where the appeal of All-Star Weekend manifests in ways other than the effort players put into the actual game. This is a check on their mortality. It’s also a window into the future of the game they love.

A future to be shared

The future of basketball must stretch beyond just the NBA and the men’s game and to a place where dimensions and gender and bloodlines aren’t the wristbands to playing it on a stage as big as this.

That was the motivation behind the new event this year. It was a spin-off on the traditional 3-point contest, this time featuring the best shooter in the men’s game, Steph Curry of the Golden State Warriors; against the best in the women’s, Sabrina Ionescu of the New York Liberty.

On a glass LED screen turned into a basketball court in a football stadium at Lucas Oil Stadium, the two stars played one round of the 3-point contest and each poured in as many points as anyone in the actual 3-point contest this year, which Lillard won.

Curry edged Ionescu 29-26 to win a wrestling-style championship belt, which he carried with a smile through the tunnel back into the locker room. But as they shared a press conference table in a football locker room after a friendly competition on top of a TV screen, the two stars could only talk about how they got here and who they hoped could hoist the shots of the future.

MORE: 'If they can shoot, they can shoot': Steph Curry beats Sabrina Ionescu in 3-point battle

"We just want to change the conversation on the little boys and girls who are watching us play," Curry said. "It doesn't matter which game you show up to. Don't discount who is to your left and to your right. If they can shoot, they can shoot."

Thoughts of the boys and girls of this country seemed to permeate through everything surrounding this year’s All-Star Weekend. They made up many of the people in the stands at Gainbridge Fieldhouse and Lucas Oil Stadium. They were the ones hoisting shots in the Bicentennial Plaza and the Crossover setup at the Convention Center and in the alleyways off of Georgia Street.

One of them got to dunk a ball through a hoop on the All-Star Game floor right before it started. That was one of Giannis Antetokounmpo’s sons, whom the 6-11 Bucks superstar raised only slightly above his head in pre-game warmups so he could slam the orange basketball through the hoop, much like James would on a fast break an hour later.

"Mostly in the past, I think I tend to keep my kids out of the spotlight to be able to choose this life for themselves and not have this life choose them," Antetokounmpo said. "Whenever they can understand and want to jump into this spotlight, great, but I wanted that to be their decision. But I feel like that kind of created a disconnect between me and my kids when I was on the basketball court."

Antetokounmpo has spent this weekend reflecting on his place in this sport and in this life. His documentary, “Giannis: The Marvelous Journey” screened in Indianapolis over the weekend and was released on Monday on Amazon Prime. It chronicles the trek he took from Nigeria to Greece to America, through poverty and racist threats to becoming an NBA MVP and champion and now the owner of a five-year, $228 million contract.

He is a father of three now, with two sons and a daughter all under the age of 5. Basketball has become his life, and it will create a life for them, too.

"Now, I cannot keep them away from the basketball court," he said. "Whenever they see a basketball court, they want to run and play."

Whether they’re 80 years old like Lewis or 39 like James or 20 like Wembanyana, all of the current and former players are speaking to an adolescent version of themselves. They all connected with the sight of a ball soaring through a hoop. As they grew, they added distance to those shots, backing up in driveways or YMCA lots or college gyms or NBA arenas and testing their limits.

They have all been Lillard in their minds, rising up from the logo and letting the ball fly.

His shot stayed in the air for 2.5 seconds, but to everyone watching, it felt much longer than that.

Contact Nate Atkins at natkins@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter @NateAtkins_.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: NBA All-Star Game: Reggie Miller, LeBron James & a weekend of basketball