When Donnie Walsh picked Reggie Miller over Steve Alford, he became Indiana's villain

INDIANAPOLIS -- Donnie Walsh knew he wasn't going to take Steve Alford. There was never an inkling of a thought. Not even those red-blooded IU fans, shouting that the Pacers needed to pick the hometown star who had just won the 1987 NCAA championship, would change his mind.

Walsh knew what he knew.

Alford wasn't destined for the pros, certainly not destined for the Pacers.

A gangly, tough-as-nails, clutch shooter from California was. His name was Reggie Miller.

As the 1987 NBA draft approached, Walsh knew what was coming. He'd been booed off the stage the year before when he took Chuck Person fourth overall as the Pacers' pick. The mediacrucified him.

If Person caused such an outrage in Indiana, Walsh surely would never be forgiven for passing on the state's beloved Alford for a guy few had heard of who was coming from more than 2,100 miles away.

Walsh, then 46, hunkered down as the days ticked off the calendar in June 1987 and he prepared for the backlash.

But even he couldn't have imagined just how intense the backlash would be.

'A lot of pressure to pick Alford'

Pacers' team representatives were in New York June 22, 1987, talking to Walsh, who was back at Market Square Arena in a boardroom embedded with research, charts, stats and nerves of steel.

As the draft progressed that night, the player Walsh really wanted to fill his point guard need, Kevin Johnson, went 7th. The Pacers had the 11th pick. Walsh had prepared for that, for not getting Johnson.

He turned to his crew of scouts in the boardroom and conferred. Were they going to do it? Were they definitely taking Miller?

"There is a lot of pressure from fans to get the All-American from Indiana, Steve Alford," the draft analyst on TV said minutes before the Pacers made their pick. "The Pacers have indicated he probably won't be, certainly, their first pick."

The broadcast then went on to talk about Miller. There had been a lot of buzz about the 6-7, 190-pound, 21-year-old who had averaged 22.3 points his senior season at UCLA.

"One of the very talented youngsters remaining in the draft right now," the analyst said, "a lot of people project as a potential star in the NBA, is Reggie Miller."

The station went live to Miller's home in Riverside, Calif. He sat in a ballcap and UCLA T-shirt on a flowered couch. His mom, Carrie, and dad, Saul, were on one side of him. His sister, Tammy, sat on the floor at his feet and sister, Cheryl, sat on the other side of him.

"Your name should be coming up shortly," the analyst said to Miller.

"We'll see," Miller said, smiling. "The first picks seem pretty solid, so I'm just waiting."

And then with the 11th pick in the NBA draft, commissioner David Stern said, "the Indiana Pacers select Reggie Miller of UCLA."

Inside his home, Miller started clapping, then he gave Cheryl a high five. "Whew, that caught me by surprise," Carrie said.

Miller talked of how happy he was to be picked by the Pacers, to play for coach Jack Ramsay, to play alongside Rookie of the Year Person.

Then the broadcast turned to focus on Alford. Should the Pacers have taken him? Is he a potential first round player?

"Well, in my opinion, I don't think so. I know (we've gotten) a lot of letters from Hoosierland," said analyst Larry Conley. "But I can tell you, I don't think he's ready for first round and the reason is this: He's an excellent shooter, he's very, very good at spotting up, taking the basketball, squaring up, looking at the basket and knocking it down. But he has to have a screen to get a shot off."

The words were music to Walsh's ears. Conley was saying everything Walsh had been thinking about Alford all these months, the past four years, really.

That was why he had taken Miller. Now, all Walsh had left to do was announce his pick to Indiana fans.

Inside Market Square Arena that draft night, Walsh plotted his escape.

'I ran right off the stage'

In the 1980s, the team made a big production of draft picks with fans welcomed to the arena for the general manager to announce the newest Pacers players.

This time, Walsh wouldn't be caught by surprise as he had been in 1986, as he revealed his Person pick.

"Nobody knew Chuck Person. They booed me right off the stage," Walsh said from his Indianapolis home this month. "All the writers and all the press, because they didn't really know him, they were all blasting me."

Then Person became NBA Rookie of the Year.

"So, I said, 'Well, OK, that should make it a little easier for me the next time and, to a degree, it did," Walsh said. "I was prepared for the boos."

And this time, he wasn't going to stand there and take them.

"So I ran up and I just went 'Reggie Miller' and ran right off the stage," Walsh says, laughing. "I go to the microphone and I take off. I'm not going to stand here while they boo me."

As Walsh came down the stairs off the stage to those predicted boos, he saw his marketing guy Ray Compton and he looked him in the eye. "I said, 'That is the last time we're going to do this. From now on, no more of this."

No more of these big productions where Walsh had to announce his pick in person to Pacers' fans.

But those jeers that night would just be the beginning of the criticism in 1987. Indiana wasn't happy with Walsh, not one bit.

"Those who have seen Alford at New Castle High, at Indiana University, in the Olympics and in the NCAA tournament know he can play," wrote sports columnist Wayne Fuson in the Indianapolis News, two days after Miller was drafted. "Unfortunately, the NBA movers and shakers apparently don't know that."

In the days and weeks that followed the draft, Walsh heard loud and clear what Indiana fans felt.

Letters and phone calls flooded in for Walsh at Market Square Arena and to his home. Police officers sat outside his house in Indianapolis after threats against Walsh were made.

Walsh sat in his living room and watched the news.

"All of a sudden, you'd have these little white-haired ladies from around Indiana going, 'Well I'm not going down there to watch the Pacers anymore. They didn't take Steve,'" Walsh said. "I'm going, 'Oh god.' I'm hoping like hell that Reggie would be good."

'We didn't realize how great he'd be'

Walsh had studied Miller in college, scrutinized his every move. He watched him in Hawaii before the draft, where the best college players in the United States battled it out in a tournament.

"I knew the guy could shoot the ball," Walsh said. His scouts had looked at tape and they liked Miller, too.

Going into the 1987 draft, the Pacers needed a point guard, Walsh said.

"And the draft, it's tricky because you can't just go for a position," he said. "In other words, you might need a point guard but there may be some other great player there that you should take if you didn't need a point guard."

Walsh always went for the great player.

Point guard Kevin Johnson, whom Walsh liked, wouldn't be there for the 11th pick. Walsh was sure of that, so before the draft he went to Ramsay with tape of Miller.

"I said, 'Jack, I want you to look at this because I don't know if we're going to get the kid (Kevin Johnson) we were looking for,'" Walsh said. "And so he watched it that night and he came back in and said, 'Yeah, I'd take him.'"

Walsh had no idea whether Miller would still be there at the 11th pick before the draft.

"You didn't hear Reggie's name. He didn't have the great body," Walsh said. "He was just a great shot, but I don't think we realized how great."

Of course, the greatness of Miller's career is now in the history books. He was a loyal Indiana fixture who played all 18 years of his NBA career with the Pacers. He was a five-time All-Star selection, led the league in free throw percentage five times and won a gold medal in the 1996 Summer Olympics.

Miller is widely regarded as the Pacers' greatest player of all time.

He could score 30 points and take 14 shots, Walsh said. He rarely missed a foul shot.

"I started realizing, that's unusual," Walsh said. "When I go through his career, there were so many times when the game was (close) and everybody in the arena would know the ball's going to go to Reggie. And it would go to Reggie and he would make the shot. It was just...it freaked me out."

Through the years, it freaked some other people out, too, Walsh said.

When Isiah Thomas coached the Pacers, he came up to Walsh and told him he'd never seen a guy make last minute shots like Miller.

"And I said, 'Well you did,'" Walsh said. "And Isiah said, 'Well not like this.'"

When Larry Bird was coaching the Pacers, he came to Walsh and said he'd never seen a guy hit threes in a clutch like Miller.

"And I said, 'Well you did,'" Walsh said. "And Larry said, 'Well not like this.'"

That confirmed what Walsh had wanted to believe all along. He had made the right choice in 1987, picking Miller as Alford sat in the wings.

Alford: 'Zero hard feelings here'

Alford remembers that draft. He remembers his name swirling among Indiana fans and wondering if it might happen. If he might become a Pacer.

"Obviously, there was lots of pressure to take the home state kid," Alford said this month, "after we won it in 87."

Walsh felt the pressure but he was adamant Alford wasn't the right fit for his team.

"I thought Steve Alford was a great college player. He won a championship. At his size to be the integral part of winning a championship is really impressive," Walsh said. "But when you have to transfer that into the pros?"

In college, Alford was a shooting guard, a 2 guard, and in the pros at 6-2, he had to be a point guard.

"And that wasn't his strength," Walsh said, "so that's why I really didn't think he'd be a fit for what we needed."

Alford was picked 26th by the Dallas Mavericks in 1987 and played four years in the NBA, including a season with Golden State. He went on to coach at Manchester then Southwest Missouri State, Iowa, New Mexico, UCLA and now at Nevada.

"The one thing I thought about Steve Alford, I thought it would be tough for Steve to be an NBA player," Walsh said. "But I thought he'd be a great coach and it turned out that way. I guess I was right about that."

Thirty-five years after that 1987 draft, Alford has no resentment toward anyone with the Pacers.

"Things worked out great for Reggie, the Pacers and myself," Alford said. "Zero hard feelings here as I’ve been very blessed since then and I’ve followed the Pacers throughout my coaching career and am very happy for all of Reggie's accomplishments."

Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on Twitter: @DanaBenbow. Reach her via email: dbenbow@indystar.com.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Donnie Walsh drafted Reggie Miller over Steve Alford in 1987 NBA draft