Indiana Pacers

The Indiana Pacers are a professional basketball team based in Indianapolis, Indiana. They are members of the Central Division in the Eastern Conference of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The Pacers were first established in 1967 as members of the American Basketball Association (ABA) and became members of the NBA in 1976 as a result of the ABA-NBA merger. They play their home games at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. The team is named after Indiana's history with the Indianapolis 500's pace cars and with the harness racing industry.

The Pacers have won three championships, all in the ABA. The Pacers were Eastern Conference champions in 2000. The team has won eight division titles. Five Hall of Fame players – Reggie Miller, Chris Mullin, Alex English, Mel Daniels, and Roger Brown – played with the Pacers for multiple seasons.

Franchise history

1967–76: ABA dynasty

In early 1967, a group of six investors (among them attorney Richard Tinkham, John DeVoe, Chuck DeVoe, entrepreneur Lyn Treece, sports agent Chuck Barnes and Indianapolis Star sports writer Bob Collins) pooled their resources to purchase a franchise in the proposed American Basketball Association.

Indiana

Indiana ⁱ/ɪndiˈænə/ is a U.S. state located in the midwestern and Great Lakes regions of North America. Indiana is the 38th largest by area and the 16th most populous of the 50 United States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th U.S. state on December 11, 1816.

Before becoming a territory, varying cultures of indigenous peoples and historic Native Americans inhabited Indiana for thousands of years. Since its founding as a territory, settlement patterns in Indiana have reflected regional cultural segmentation present in the Eastern United States; the state's northernmost tier was settled primarily by people from New England and New York, Central Indiana by migrants from the Mid-Atlantic states and from adjacent Ohio, and Southern Indiana by settlers from the Southern states, particularly Kentucky and Tennessee.

Indiana has a diverse economy with a gross state product of $298 billion in 2012. Indiana has several metropolitan areas with populations greater than 100,000 and a number of smaller industrial cities and towns. Indiana is home to several major sports teams and athletic events including the NFL's Indianapolis Colts, the NASL's Indy Eleven, the NBA's Indiana Pacers, the WNBA's Indiana Fever, the Indianapolis 500, and Brickyard 400 motorsports races.

NBA Summer League

The NBA Summer League is a series of off-season competitions during which National Basketball Association teams come together to try out different summer rosters instead of their regular season line-ups. Typically consisting of a mix of rookies, second year players, and unsigned free agents, the current summer league consists of three separate leagues: the Las Vegas Summer League, the Utah Jazz Summer League, and the Orlando Pro Summer League.

History

Summer leagues have existed for decades. Historically, there was not an organized structure, with leagues sometimes overlapping and not officially coordinated. In 2004, the league held the Las Vegas Summer League for the first time; it is by far the largest league, with 23 NBA teams plus an NBA Development League all-star team participating as of 2015.

The Orlando Pro Summer League has been held since 2001. The Utah Jazz Summer League began play in 2015, replacing the Rocky Mountain Revue, an event held from 1984–2008 before going on a lengthy hiatus due to declining participation.

National Basketball Association

The National Basketball Association (NBA) is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America, and is widely considered to be the premier men's professional basketball league in the world. It has 30 franchised member clubs (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada), and is an active member of USA Basketball (USAB), which is recognized by FIBA (also known as the International Basketball Federation) as the national governing body for basketball in the United States. The NBA is one of the four major North American professional sports leagues. NBA players are the world's best paid sportsmen, by average annual salary per player.

The league was founded in New York City on June 6, 1946, as the Basketball Association of America (BAA). The league adopted the name National Basketball Association on August 3, 1949, after merging with its rival National Basketball League (NBL). The league's several international as well as individual team offices are directed out of its head offices located in the Olympic Tower at 645 Fifth Avenue in New York City. NBA Entertainment and NBA TV studios are directed out of offices located in Secaucus, New Jersey.

Victor Oladipo

Kehinde Babatunde Victor Oladipo (born May 4, 1992) is an American professional basketball player for the Orlando Magic of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Indiana Hoosiers where he was named the Sporting News Men's College Basketball Player of the Year, the National Co-Defensive Player of the Year, and a first-team All-American by the USBWA and Sporting News. That same year, he was also named the winner of the Adolph Rupp Trophy, given annually to the top player in men's Division I NCAA basketball. Oladipo was drafted with the second overall pick in the 2013 NBA draft by the Magic and went on to be named to the NBA All-Rookie first team.

Early life

Oladipo was born in Silver Spring, Maryland and raised in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. His mother, Joan Amanze Oladipo, is a nurse and Nigerian immigrant, while his father, Christopher Oladipo, a native of Blama, Sierra Leone, is public health executive for Prince George's County, Maryland with a Ph.D in behavioral science from the University of Maryland, College Park. Oladipo's parents married in the United States in 1985. He is their only son; he has sisters Kristine (1986), Kendra (1990), and twin sister Victoria. His sister, Kendra, became deaf in second grade.