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The Indiana Pacers announced Thursday that head coach Rick Carlisle has signed a multi-year contract extension. Per club policy, terms of the contract were not released.

In addition, Carlisle has been given the title of Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations.

Carlisle will be entering his fourth season as Pacers’ coach. In three seasons, he has compiled a 146-100 record with three trips to the playoffs that included the Pacers reaching the Eastern Conference Finals in 2004. In the 2003-04 season, the Pacers were 61-21, a franchise record for victories and winning percentage (.744).

In Carlisle’s second year, the Pacers compiled a 44-38 record and reached the second round of the NBA Playoffs in what arguably was his best coaching job. That season, the Pacers lost 309 player games due to injury and another 126 from NBA suspensions. That forced Carlisle to use 30 different starting combinations with 17 different players starting at least one game. In the last three months of that season, the Pacers went 24-15 (.615).

Carlisle was the NBA’s Coach of the Year in 2002 and is one of just four men to finish in the NBA’s top five of Coach of the Year balloting four straight years, Red Auerbach, Red Holzman and Jerry Sloan being the others. Carlisle is the only coach in NBA history to be in the top five of that balloting in his first four years as coach.

InsideHoops.com Editor Says: Carlisle always manages to make the most of his roster, even as he constantly loses players to injury. Although Carlisle and Pacer brass don't always see eye to eye on player substitutions and other roster issues, they recognize that Carlisle gets results and is definitely a keeper. And the extra job title and added responsibility is a reward for his efforts.

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