Rick Carlisle extends his contract with the Indiana Pacers
Indiana Pacers coach Rick Carlisle has signed a multi-year contract extension with the franchise, the team announced on Tuesday. This renewal comes after leading the team to its first NBA Finals appearance in a quarter of a century. Carlisle, who coached the Pacers for the first time from 2003 to 2007 and was an assistant under Larry Bird when Indiana reached the Finals in 2000, returned to the franchise in 2021 after a successful 13-year stint with the Dallas Mavericks, where he won the NBA title in 2011.Following the retirement of Gregg Popovich as coach of the San Antonio Spurs and the firing of Tom Thibodeau by the New York Knicks, Carlisle, 65 years old, becomes the longest-tenured active head coach in the NBA. Carlisle has a regular season record of 993-860 and will become the eleventh coach in NBA history to reach 1,000 wins at the start of next season. Currently, he is second, behind Milwaukee’s Doc Rivers, in regular season wins among active coaches. Additionally, Carlisle ranks tenth historically with 86 postseason wins, surpassed by Rivers, Miami’s Erik Spoelstra, and Golden State’s Steve Kerr among active coaches. In their first season, Indiana traded Domantas Sabonis to the Sacramento Kings in exchange for Tyrese Haliburton, setting the stage for the Pacers’ return to the playoffs and their subsequent arrival in the Eastern Conference Finals in 2024, something they hadn’t achieved in a decade. The Pacers defeated the Milwaukee Bucks, the Cleveland Cavaliers, and the Knicks this season to reach the league finals against the Oklahoma City Thunder, where Indiana fell in seven games, and lost Haliburton for next season due to a ruptured Achilles tendon. Carlisle, who was a member of the 1986 champion Boston Celtics, as part of a five-year NBA career that included stints with the Knicks and the New Jersey Nets, is also the president of the National Basketball Coaches Association.“Since his return to the Pacers in 2021, Coach Carlisle has been instrumental to our success, including leading us to consecutive appearances in the Eastern Conference Finals and our first appearance in the NBA Finals in 25 years,” said Kevin Pritchard, Pacers President of Basketball Operations.
Kevin Pritchard, Pacers President of Basketball Operations
