Pacers and Indianapolis use 3-year delay to add new wrinkles to 1st NBA All-Star weekend since 1985

[Reggie]

The signs are all around downtown Indianapolis now: NBA All-Star weekend finally has arrived. Yes, nearly seven years after Larry Bird drove a blue-and-gold IndyCar down New York's Fifth Avenue to hand-deliver the city's bid, and three years after Indianapolis' game was moved to Atlanta amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Circle City is about to host another big basketball bash. "We could have done it in 2021 like Atlanta with 1,500 people, but we wanted to do it in Indy style," Indiana Pacers COO and president Rick Fuson said Tuesday. Much has changed since Indianapolis last hosted the league's midseason classic in 1985, when a then-record crowd of 43,146 braved a driving snowstorm to watch Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson and Ralph Sampson lead the West past an East squad featuring Bird, Michael Jordan and Isiah Thomas at the Hoosier Dome.

Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/n ... 602140007/