1987–88 Indiana Pacers season
NBA professional basketball team season
The 1987–88 Indiana Pacers season was the 12th season for the Indiana Pacers in the National Basketball Association, and their 21st season as a franchise.
Season summary
Off-season
This season was most memorable as the Pacers had the eleventh overall pick in the 1987 NBA draft, and selected shooting guard Reggie Miller from the University of California, Los Angeles. During the off-season, the team acquired second-year guard Scott Skiles from the Milwaukee Bucks.
Regular season
With the addition of Miller, the Pacers got off to an 11–7 start to the regular season, and played around .500 in winning percentage, holding a 22–22 record at the All-Star break. The team posted a seven-game winning streak in February, but then lost ten of their next twelve games, finishing in last place in the Central Division, and ninth place in the Eastern Conference with a 38–44 record. The Pacers lost a tie-breaker for the final NBA playoff spot to the 7th–seeded Washington Bullets, and the 8th–seeded New York Knicks, who both finished with the same record. In their final game of the regular season on April 23, 1988, the Pacers lost to the Knicks at home, 88–86 at the Market Square Arena.
Second-year star Chuck Person averaged 17.0 points, 6.8 rebounds and 3.9 assists per game, while Wayman Tisdale averaged 16.1 points and 6.2 rebounds per game, and Vern Fleming provided the team with 13.9 points, 7.1 assists and 1.4 steals per game. In addition, Steve Stipanovich provided with 13.5 points and 8.3 rebounds per game, while John Long contributed 12.8 points per game. Off the bench, Miller averaged 10.0 points per game, while Herb Williams averaged 10.0 points, 6.3 rebounds and 1.9 blocks per game, Ron Anderson contributed 7.3 points per game, Skiles provided with 4.4 points and 3.5 assists per game, but only played 51 games due to a right knee injury, and Stuart Gray averaged 3.0 points and 3.4 rebounds per game.
“1987–88 Indiana Pacers season” enters the record as nBA professional basketball team season. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Indiana, Pacers and season can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“1987–88 Indiana Pacers season” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Indiana, Pacers and season provides the most credible route into that argument.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3798051. The first chronological checks are 1987 and 1988.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “1987–88 Indiana Pacers season”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow 1987–88 Indiana Pacers season primary sources, 1987–88 Indiana Pacers season archive and Indiana research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “1987–88 Indiana Pacers season”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “1987–88 Indiana Pacers season” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.