INDIANAPOLIS (AP)

David West is headed north to Indiana, where he will join forces with Danny Granger and former Hornets teammate Darren Collison.

West agreed to a two-year deal with the Pacers on Sunday that his agent, Lance Young, said was worth $20 million.

”Indy was a team that I was really giving a good, hard look at,” West said in a phone interview. ”They’ve got a good balance in terms of a couple good veterans and some really good young players. There are some budding guys and I think that’s a team that I can help in the next couple years.”

The Pacers have not yet announced the free-agent signing, but West said he planned to be in Indianapolis on Monday.

West, a two-time All-Star who was drafted 18th overall by New Orleans in 2003, started 70 games for the Hornets last season, averaging 18.9 points and 7.6 rebounds before tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in a victory at Utah on March 24.

The 31-year-old had reconstructive surgery on April 12 and opted out of a deal 2 1/2 months later that would have paid him $7.5 million with the Hornets this season. West said he has been rehabilitating vigorously and has felt strong enough to play for a number of weeks now.

”I just feel good. Obviously you can’t really simulate what the NBA environment and atmosphere is, but I’m anxious to get back on the floor and play,” West said. ”I’m confident in the rehab that I’ve done and I’ll be eight months out of surgery. So the timing is pretty good and I just feel like once I’m able to get back on the floor and get a rhythm, just getting my basketball flow back, it should be great.”

When West decided to test free agency, he said the main reason was because he wanted to find a place where he could win right away. He did not rule out a return to New Orleans, but said he wanted to explore every opportunity.

West saw the Pacers as a team on the rise. He called Granger ”one of the best small forwards in the league,” and said the Pacers have ”a good young center” in Roy Hibbert.

West also said he was comfortable playing with Collison, who shined as a rookie in New Orleans two seasons ago while Chris Paul was hurt.

”It’s just an opportunity for me to go up there and make my mark and really help them,” West said.

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Indiana Pacers fans waited all last season for point guard Darren Collison(notes) to resurrect the flashes of stardom that he displayed during his rookie campaign with the New Orleans Hornets, but he never really developed a consistency that gave us confidence in his ability to run the team on the floor. While Collison was up and down for the Blue and Gold during his first year in Indiana, he revealed in a recent interview that he has exercised financial restraint and shown good judgement over his first two seasons in the NBA. Having witnessed the downfall of the Pacers during the last five years due in large part to bad judgement on the part of their players, I’m happy to hear that at least one member of the current team is level-headed, and it makes me optimistic about Collison’s future here.

As Collision told the Los Angeles Times during an NCAA exhibition game on November 8, he heeded some sound advice coming out of college and decided to mind his growing bank account closely over the last couple of years. Preparing for the seemingly inevitable lockout which now grips the NBA, Collison eschewed the typical rookie trappings of lavish spending, limiting himself to a condo in L.A. and a splurge for a new Lexus for his mother. Otherwise, Collison says, he has saved most of the income from his young career, and he feels like he could weather an entire lost season without suffering too much.

Of course, for the average American living paycheck-to-paycheck, or for the many unemployed United States workers, it seems nearly unfathomable for an NBA player to fret about his financial future when he’s made a couple of million dollars to this point. But, of course, professional sports is a completely different world than the one in which most of us live, and it’s the rare athlete who plans for the future, particularly at such a young age (Collison is 24).

Darren Collison may not have turned the city of Indianapolis upside down with his play on the court during the 2010-11 NBA season, but he has made some good decisions so far in his life. Basketball is not life, naturally, but wouldn’t you feel more comfortable having your last-second offense run by a young man with good judgement than one who had blown through all his earnings?

Adam Hughes was raised, and still lives, in rural Indiana. He has been a Pacers fan since the early 1980s and has witnessed the rise and fall of a great NBA franchise. He follows the current club closely and is anxious for the lockout to end so the Pacers can begin their next ascent.

Note: This article was written by a Yahoo! contributor. Sign up here to start publishing your own sports content.

Did you catch all of the action when the Indiana Pacers took on the Cleveland Cavalier near Lake Erie in the teams’ final preseason game of 2011? Were you wowed by the sight of hometown hero George Hill(notes) tuning up for his first season with the Blue and Gold? Those are rhetorical questions, of course, because the entire NBA preseason has been wiped out by the ongoing lockout, and our little flicker of hope was extinguished on October 28 when commissioner David Stern announced there would be no regular season games through the end of November. I’m surprised to say it this early, but with the Indianapolis Colts tanking and the baseball season down to its last game, I’m already starting to miss the Pacers.

By now, we should have had about a month of preseason games, and the Pacers should be rounding into form. Thanks to last year’s improbable run to the playoffs after Frank Vogel became the interim head coach, Indiana’s fans were energized, and I think most of us who watched closely could see the beginnings of a team that might be able to compete, for real, in today’s NBA. After more than half a decade of disgraceful behavior and terrible play, we finally had a group of players that tried hard and whom we could embrace. When team president Larry Bird traded for Hill on draft day, the city was fairly brimming with Pacers excitement.

Of course, we all knew a lockout was imminent even during our happiest Pacers moments in years, but it didn’t matter at the time. Even though the work stoppage wiped out normal summer activities, fans (or players, for that matter) weren’t really affected while the temperatures were warm and the NFL lockout was also raging. It’s only now, when several games have been lost, and when so many more are in jeopardy, that I really feel the absence of NBA play.

As Halloween passes us by, so will more opportunities to see Indianapolis’s other major professional sports team. The Pacers have the same record now that they had a month ago, and the same record that they’ll have a month from now. It is supposed to snow on the east coast this weekend, and I think that qualifies as a cosmic sign that it’s time for the NBA to take the court.

Adam Hughes was raised, and still lives, in rural Indiana. He has been a Pacers fan since the early 1980s and has witnessed the rise and fall of a great NBA franchise. He follows the current club closely and is anxious for the lockout to end so the Pacers can begin their next ascent.

Note: This article was written by a Yahoo! contributor. Sign up here to start publishing your own sports content.

It’s difficult to build an NBA arena that stands out from the pack.

In sharp contrast to the sport of baseball — which enables architects to create quirky outfield dimensions and venues that sometimes employ retractable roofs — basketball arenas are inherently similar. Basketball courts always employ the same dimensions, and the arenas themselves always are closed to the elements. Designers also have to squeeze in a lot of functionality into a small land area.

But these arenas are special.

We’re unveiling our picks for the NBA’s top 10 venues.

To arrive at these rankings, we took into account an arena’s location, the atmosphere created by the home team’s fans, the aesthetics of the exterior, the aesthetics of the interior, its fan-friendliness and its place in the game’s history.

This is a wildly subjective list. Hopefully, this will spark some serious debate. Disagree with a ranking? Then chime in with your opinion by writing in the comments field below.

Conseco Fieldhouse

Arena ranking: 2nd

Home of: Indiana Pacers

Location: Indianapolis

Capacity for pro basketball: 18,165

First NBA regular-season game: Nov. 6, 1999

Positives: The architects who designed Conseco Fieldhouse sought to create an NBA arena with modern amenities that nonetheless has a retro vibe. They succeeded. They have created a masterpiece: a building that evokes Indiana’s rich basketball past. . . . Aesthetically, this arena surpasses all the rest in the league. Composed of dark brick and featuring large windows with dark green moldings, the exterior brings to mind old Indiana high-school gyms of the past. The main atrium is sunny and airy. The seating bowl features superb sightlines and, again, has an old-school vibe. . . . But despite that old-time feel, there are plenty of luxury suites and fan amenities. . . . Indianapolis isn’t considered a glamorous NBA city, but the city’s downtown has plenty of restaurants and bars for fans close to the arena.

Negatives: The Pacers basketball team has been mediocre at best the last few seasons, and fans have noticed. Indianapolis averaged only 13,538 fans per home game last season, and the atmosphere in the arena suffers as a result. . . . That nostalgic feel has one significant drawback. The scoreboard’s video display simply is nowhere near as good as the majority of arenas.

Overall: A gorgeous venue in a nice area.

jbrobbins@tribune.com. Read his blog at OrlandoSentinel.com/magicblog. Subscribe to our Orlando Magic newsletter at OrlandoSentinel.com/joinus.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – The Indiana Pacers have hired Brian Shaw as their assistant head coach and retained Dan Burke from the previous staff.

Shaw was an assistant for the Los Angeles Lakers last season. Pacers coach Frank Vogel says Shaw will be like a second head coach, and he wasn’t sure he could get him when he began seeking assistants.

Shaw and Vogel were on Los Angeles’ staff together during the 2005-2006 season. Shaw also played with Pacers president Larry Bird in Boston. 

 ”We really established a special connection back then,” Shaw said. “A good friendship. We stayed in touch over the years.”

Shaw said he isn’t sure exactly what his new title entails, but he appreciates it and considers it confirmation that he’s nearing his goal of becoming a head coach.

“I’m getting close, so I guess it’s a stamp that says I’m just about ready,” he said. “But to me, I’m just another assistant coach.”

Vogel said Shaw is more than that.

“He’s a guy that, quite frankly, I didn’t think I was going to be able to get,” he said. “He’s a guy that’s been in line to be a head coach for a number of years. I view him as having almost like a second head coach with me.”

Vogel said the hiring shows that the Pacers are moving in the right direction.

“There was interest in him around the league and he chose to come to Indiana,” he said. “It’s indicative of what we’re building here. People want to be a part of this team and this city, right now. It’s going to be a special era.”

Shaw said Indiana’s fans are knowledgeable, and he likes the idea of coaching in a place where basketball is the key attraction.

“A lot of time, the fans in L.A., and it’s not a knock against them, but it was a lot of celebrities, and people come to the came to see who they can see and who’s at the game instead of what’s going on in the game,” he said.

Vogel said Shaw’s collection of experiences — he won three NBA titles as a player and two as an assistant coach — help make him an ideal addition.

“There’s guys that are special and guys that are qualified,” Vogel said. “We’ve got a special candidate here.”

The Pacers also retained Dan Burke from the previous staff. Vogel said Burke played a key role in Indiana’s turnaround last season, when the Pacers rallied from a 17-27 start to make the playoffs.

The team also looks to add a third assistant soon.