Rik Smits

• 1. Introduction

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  Rik Smits was born in Eindhoven on the 23rd of August 1966, and by the time he reached the NBA Finals in 2000, he had spent every professional season of his life in one uniform: the Indiana Pacers. That kind of loyalty to a single franchise is rare in professional basketball. But the story of how a teenager from the Netherlands ended up as one of the most beloved big men in Pacers history is stranger and richer than a simple career arc suggests. How does a boy from Eindhoven end up at a small college in New York, wearing a cast in a Hollywood film, and eventually tipping the balance of an Eastern Conference Finals with a single buzzer-beating shot? And what happens to a 7-foot-4 center when the cheering finally stops and the feet that carried him through a decade of professional play finally say enough?

• 2. From Eindhoven to Poughkeepsie

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  Smits first picked up a basketball at age 14, playing for PSV-Almonte in his hometown of Eindhoven. He was already enormous, and the sport came naturally enough that by 1984 he had left the Netherlands for the United States to play college basketball. He enrolled at Marist College, a small school in Poughkeepsie, New York, and spent four years there. In 1986, he led the Marist Red Foxes to the ECAC Metro Conference tournament championship and helped the program reach the NCAA tournament for the first time in school history. The following year, he guided the team to 20 wins for the first time in its Division I history, another NCAA tournament appearance followed. His influence on that program was profound enough that in 2012, Marist retired his jersey. He remains the only player from Marist ever to appear in either the NBA or the WNBA.

• 3. A Film Appearance and a Draft

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  During a 1987 game at Madison Square Garden against St. John's, cameras from a Hollywood film crew were rolling. That game became a brief scene in the 1988 comedy Coming to America. Smits appears in the film, a detail that most NBA fans never knew and that neatly captures the odd collisions that define a life lived at an unusual scale. The following spring, the Indiana Pacers used the second overall pick in the 1988 NBA draft to select him, making Smits the highest-drafted Marist player in history and still the only one to reach the league. He arrived in Indiana with the nickname that would follow him throughout his career: the Dunking Dutchman.

• 4. The Rookie Season and a Teammate's Injury

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  When Smits arrived in Indiana, he was expected to back up Steve Stipanovich, a veteran center who anchored the Pacers' frontcourt. Stipanovich suffered a career-ending injury early on, and suddenly the rookie from the Netherlands found himself in the starting lineup. Smits started 71 games that first season, averaging 11.7 points and 6.1 rebounds per game, and earned All-Rookie First Team honors. He continued scoring in double digits every single season that followed, a streak he maintained for the rest of his career. It wasn't until the 1993-94 season, though, that teammates and coaches recognized him as a genuine team leader rather than simply a reliable big man.

• 5. Playoff Moments and a Career-High Night

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  On the 10th of December 1995, Smits scored a career-high 44 points during a 111-104 win over the Los Angeles Clippers. His season average that year reached 18.5 points per game, the highest of his career. Throughout the Pacers' playoff runs in the mid and late 1990s, he was considered the number two player on the team behind Reggie Miller. His most memorable postseason moment came in Game 4 of the 1995 Eastern Conference Finals, when a buzzer-beating shot tied the series. In 1998 he was named to the Eastern Conference All-Star Team, and in that game he delivered ten points, seven rebounds, and four assists, including a behind-the-back pass to New Jersey Nets forward Jayson Williams, who immediately converted it into a slam dunk.

• 6. Feet, Pain, and Retirement

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  The source of Smits' persistent foot problems was surprisingly ordinary: tight shoes worn as a teenager caused nerve damage that accumulated over decades. Foot trouble hobbled him for the majority of his career, and he sought relief during off-seasons at a summer retreat in Walton, New York, where he became a regular at The Afton Fair. He played through the pain long enough to reach the NBA Finals in 2000, where Indiana fell to the Los Angeles Lakers 4 games to 2. That loss marked the end of his playing days. After retiring, he required four surgeries to address the nerve damage in his feet, and in November 2009 he underwent intensive back surgery to correct cracks in a joint linking his vertebrae. He also had arthroscopic surgery on his left knee and had bone chips removed from his left ankle. Despite all that, Pacers fans voted him onto the franchise's 40th Anniversary Team, where he placed fourth in total votes, trailing only Reggie Miller, Mel Daniels, and Jermaine O'Neal.

• 7. Life Beyond the Court

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  After basketball, Smits turned to vintage motocross motorcycles with the same focus he had brought to the low post. In 2008 he won the AHRMA Vintage National Premier 500 Intermediate Class riding a BSA 500, a genuine competitive achievement rather than a celebrity hobby. He was featured by Yahoo! Sports in November 2011 for his participation in competitive motocross racing. In 1998, near the end of his playing career, he had purchased a home in Zionsville, Indiana, and he lived there for nearly 20 years. By 2014 he expanded the property to include a regulation-size basketball half-court, and two barns on the 12.5-acre lot housed his motorcycle and car collection. He also built a dedicated motorcycle track at the rear of the property. He and his girlfriend put the house on the market in the summer of 2017, after relocating to Arizona. His son Derrik, listed at 7 feet 1 inch, played college basketball at Valparaiso University from 2016 to 2019 before finishing his eligibility at Butler University in the 2019-20 season.