In commemoration of the NBA's 75th Anniversary season, the league announced on Tuesday a list of the 15 greatest coaches in NBA history. The list, which was unveiled on the "Inside the NBA" pregame show on TNT and was selected by a blue ribbon panel including all 30 NBA coaches, features two coaches who have manned the sidelines for the Blue & Gold: Larry Brown and Jack Ramsay.
Brown owns the best win percentage of any coach in franchise history, going 147-67 (.687) in Indiana from 1993-97. Coaching the team at the peak of Reggie Miller's career, Brown helped lead the Pacers to the Eastern Conference Finals in both 1994 and 1995.
The well-traveled Brown coached eight other teams over his NBA career, tallying 1,098 career wins (eighth-most all time). He captured his lone NBA championship in 2004 with Detroit. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2002.
Indiana was the last stop in the coaching career for the legendary "Dr. Jack" Ramsay, who spent a little over two seasons with the Pacers from 1986-88. He tallied the final 79 of his 864 career wins with the Pacers and currently ranks 14th on the all-time wins list, just head of current Pacers head coach Carlisle. He was Reggie Miller's first NBA head coach.
Ramsay began his coaching career with stops in Philadelphia and Portland, but is best known for his decade in Portland, where he led the Trail Blazers to the 1977 NBA title in his first season and coached them back to the playoffs in eight of his next nine seasons. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1992.
Because this list was focused on NBA history it does not include the legendary Slick Leonard. Leonard is the winningest coach in franchise history, leading the Pacers to 529 wins from 1968-80. The majority of those victories came in the ABA, including three championships in 1970, 1972, and 1973. Leonard was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2014.