A return to the magic – Tyrese Haliburton and the Pacers
THE SWEAT FROM Tyrese Haliburton‘s Indiana Pacers jersey virtually instantly started to seep into his blue warmup shirt.
For 16 months, the two-time All-Star guard had been patiently — and then not so patiently — and then virtually champing at the bit to depart his seat on the sideline and play minutes in an NBA sport.
On Oct. 7, he lastly did. The Pacers have been taking part in in Ames, Iowa, at Iowa State University, Haliburton’s alma mater, the place it was a two-half homecoming.
It was his first sport at his school enviornment in six years. Students started lining up the evening earlier than the sport to get into the scholar part and grab a yellow shirt with Haliburton’s face on it over the moniker “Cyclone Hali.” And it was additionally Haliburton’s first seven minutes in a sport since tearing his proper Achilles throughout Game 7 of the 2025 NBA Finals.
With 4:27 remaining in the first quarter of the Pacers’ preseason opener towards the Minnesota Timberwolves on Oct. 7, Haliburton relished a special second: his first break.
“I was tired as hell,” Haliburton stated with amusing after the sport. “But even through that, I just kept feeling like, ‘Man, I’m playing again.'”
On Indiana’s first possession of the sport, an antsy Haliburton fired a no-look cross, supposed for Andrew Nembhard, out of bounds. But with that out of the method, on the subsequent possession, Haliburton ran a 2-on-1 with Pascal Siakam that Haliburton completed with a crossover right into a 15-foot jumper for his first basket in additional than a yr.
The adrenaline of the evening carried him by 16 minutes of action. Haliburton completed with seven factors and six assists in the Pacers’ 123-112 win.
“I have my own internal expectations,” Haliburton advised ESPN. “But our goal is to win a championship. That has never wavered.”
The Pacers’ season — and Indiana’s street again to rivalry — depends upon these expectations.
The final time Haliburton was wholesome, he electrified the NBA with considered one of the best clutch postseason runs in NBA historical past, with a sport-tying or successful shot in every of the 4 rounds of the 2025 playoffs.
Indiana led in the first quarter of Game 7 in Oklahoma City earlier than Haliburton tore his Achilles, and the Thunder marched their method to the file books.
While Haliburton spent the 2025-26 season recovering, the Pacers gained 19 video games.
It makes Indiana considered one of the most perplexing groups coming into the 2026-27 NBA season. Despite making the convention finals in 2024 and the convention finals in 2025, the Pacers are projected to win a modest 42 video games and ranked tenth in the Eastern Conference, in accordance to ESPN’s Basketball Power Index.
“I don’t look too much into it,” Haliburton advised ESPN. “Our whole team can relate to that. We’ve all felt that way one way or another.”
The Pacers are the final crew to beat the champion New York Knicks in a playoff collection. But in a extra aggressive East than the final one he left, Haliburton is out to show that the Pacers can reclaim their spot at the prime.
“Finding that magic again, that’s no guarantee,” Pacers normal supervisor Chad Buchanan advised ESPN. “But our core guys believe in each other. They feel like people have written them off already. That’s what’s happened those two years we made runs — people just kind of discarded us. That’s what fuels them.”
THE ZERO IN the center of the jersey was orange, matching the trim on a jersey that had been shaded with blue in the center. As Haliburton picked up the sheet of paper, he scoffed.
“Who drew this one?” he requested. “Orange and blue on a Pacers jersey?”
“Knicks colors,” his spouse, Jade, stated with a realizing smile.
With coaching camp nonetheless a number of weeks away, the Haliburtons visited youngsters at the Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis.
Haliburton was there as a spokesperson for the Indiana Donor Network to increase consciousness for organ donation. The 5 children in attendance are recipients of kidney transplants.
Sitting round a desk, Haliburton and the youngsters, some as younger as 6, gathered sheets of paper to coloration. A raucous debate instantly ensued.
“What’s your favorite color?” Haliburton requested his tablemates, launching an animated dialogue.
“Red!” one child stated. “Blue!” stated one other. “Yellow!”
“Rainbow!” one other stated, inciting one other debate as to whether or not all the colours will be thought-about one coloration. He insisted it might.
“But is there a rainbow marker?” Haliburton prods, presenting the query as a coloration-type of checkmate. When Haliburton suggests his favourite coloration is gray, the children recoil. “You never hear that, huh?” he says with a smile.
Haliburton spent a lot of the previous yr in Indianapolis launching himself into initiatives comparable to these.
He helped the Pacers revitalize their charity softball sport earlier this summer season, that includes gamers from the Indianapolis Colts and Indiana Fever. Fans packed Victory Field, a 12,000-seat Triple-A baseball stadium in downtown Indianapolis.
Haliburton’s connection to the Midwest is deep. He was born in Wisconsin and met and ultimately proposed to his spouse in Ames. His bond to the area has solely deepened since he was traded to Indiana in 2022.
It’s why he has poured a lot into the group.
“It’s a different perspective on life now,” Haliburton advised ESPN. “I’m just thankful to be playing basketball again and to be doing all the different things that I can do in the community because when something like that happens, it’s like your life flashes before your eyes.”
During his first trip a number of months after surgical procedure, he might barely stroll down the stairs at a home they’d rented and wanted help getting round after they left. His surgeon had warned him, however the actuality had set in. He wept in the bathe.
“Just having to come to terms with going from being on top of the world to the complete opposite of that in an instance,” Haliburton advised ESPN.
“It’s such a crazy thing to say because it’s a basketball injury that no matter what … there’s a time put on it. You know you’re going to be good in that amount of time. We have the best doctors in the world, the best therapists, all those things. You know you’re going to be good, but it’s a scary thing.”
He spent most of his restoration in Indianapolis, discovering a spot on the bench for sport nights, house and street, at the same time as the season went south. But in the center of his rehab, he handled a bad case of the shingles, too, gaining 30 kilos and affected by extreme face swelling as a aspect impact of the heavy remedy. The sickness, which is extremely contagious, saved him away from his teammates on the sidelines. It was one other blow in a protracted season.
“In the league, especially when a star player like that is injured, what that means for the next year, sometimes they’re on their own little schedule, ‘Hey, I just got to do what’s right for me,'” Buchanan stated. “That’s not how Ty’s wired. Ty is wired to know what does the team need from me, rather than what I need to do for the team.”
During his lonely, arduous restoration, he would often fireplace up a few of his outdated highlights.
“Just to feel something,” he stated. “I once could do that. I miss that feeling.”
At one level, he even rewatched the 2025 Finals, he stated. His focus remained on Game 4. The Pacers have been main 2-1, however the Thunder rallied from down double-digits in the second half as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 15 of his 35 factors in the ultimate 4:38 of the sport.
“Game 4 will forever live in my brain,” Haliburton stated. “You win that game, the whole series changes.”
The thought sat with him as he watched his crew undergo its worst season in franchise historical past, realizing a lot of the dialog round the Pacers’ struggles centered on him, his harm, his restoration and his eventual return.
“Everybody always feels the summer is really long,” Haliburton stated. “Well, I’ve had that for double, triple the amount of time everybody else.”
HALIBURTON DOESN’T WANT the Pacers to neglect final season.
Indiana completed with its fewest wins in franchise historical past. The crew was decimated by accidents early, and began to place itself for a greater draft decide by the second half. By the finish of the season, the crew seemed like a shell of the one which went to the Finals.
“You can take [our preseason rankings] as disrespect, but at the same time, you got to understand we put ourselves in that position by the way we played last year,” Haliburton stated. “There’s standards that we didn’t meet that we got to get back to. And there’s no secret that there was a drop-off last year.”
Training camp has been centered on rebuilding these habits.
The evening earlier than the first day of observe, the crew gathered at Buchanan’s home on the ground at his indoor basketball court docket. It has change into an annual custom for the previous 4 years, a second when the Pacers can iron out their priorities heading into the season.
Coach Rick Carlisle lamented how lengthy the summer season had been. It had been 5½ months since their final sport in April, and even longer since their final sport with something on the line.
“Reclaim” ended up being the key phrase throughout the assembly.
Carlisle acknowledged how essential it was to have Haliburton again, however cautioned towards Haliburton as a savior.
“We’re a team that’s very reliant on one another,” Carlisle stated earlier than the sport in Ames final week. “One of the things that when we had a really, really good two-year run, it made us a special team, our connectivity, our ecosystem, dependence on one another.
“We’re at all times going to be higher as the sum of all the elements.”
Most of the Pacers’ core is the identical — Haliburton, Siakam, Nembhard and Aaron Nesmith — however Ivica Zubac was introduced in to change the departed Myles Turner in a trade deadline deal that ended up costing Indiana the No. 5 pick in the draft.
Team sources say the Pacers are confident that the deal will help reopen their championship window. They also acknowledge Zubac, who plays closer to the basket, will provide different strengths than Turner, a center who stretches the floor from 3-point range.
“We have an excellent coach who figures issues out,” Buchanan told ESPN. “That’s a power of his. If issues aren’t going effectively, and we aren’t taking part in effectively — or [Zubac’s] not becoming effectively, he adapts.”
The fit with Zubac could take time. His individual fit with Haliburton could, too. They’ve struggled with their timing in pick-and-rolls early in the preseason, with Haliburton often rounding the corner before his new center has an opportunity to roll.
“He’s so anxious to show to individuals. He hates that folks say he’ll have to be affected person. He hates that,” Buchanan told ESPN. “He’s like, ‘I’ve been out 16 effing months. I’m prepared to play.’ He’s clearly very assured, however I nonetheless assume there’s going to be a ramp-up for him as simply getting his toes, groove and rhythm again.”
HALIBURTON MOVED LIKE his former self at times, but the growing pains were evident in his first game back.
He compared himself to a rookie, playing too fast and needing to slow down to let the offense find its rhythm. He tweaked his right ankle during the game, and sat out the next preseason game, but an MRI confirmed his Achilles was unaffected.
“I used to be hyped to be on the market, excited, however I simply bought to decelerate somewhat bit,” he said. “There’s a ton of enchancment to be made on my finish and on our crew’s finish. But I’m simply excited to be again on the ground.”
Multiple moments in the gym this summer gave him reason for the confidence.
One afternoon in late July, 13 months after his surgery, he took one dribble and tossed the ball into the air toward the basket. As he raced after it, the ball bounced just short of the basket inside the Pacers’ practice facility, its upward trajectory almost carrying him higher toward the rim than he has been in years. Midair, he crossed the ball between his legs, and rose toward the hoop, dunking the ball with his right hand as various members of the Pacers’ staff let out a collective scream.
But it was Haliburton who screamed the loudest, releasing more than a year of pent-up angst.
He had a running bet with Justin Tallard, one of Indiana’s physical therapists, that if he completed the dunk, named an Eastbay, Haliburton could skip his post-practice workout.
It’s a dunk Haliburton hadn’t regularly made since he was a 20-year-old rookie.
Later, Haliburton posted a video of the dunk to his social media accounts, and the message to the rest of the league was obvious.
I’m back.
The dunk signified Haliburton’s flashy arrival, but it was a quieter moment a month later that sent an even louder signal.
Before the start of the season, Pacers players held a minicamp in Los Angeles.
At one point during a scrimmage, Haliburton fell to the floor. A few months before, everyone in the gym would have gone hush, waiting for him to get back to his feet, similar to what happened that night in Oklahoma City.
But this time, nothing happened. He got up. The game continued.
“That,” he said, “makes me really feel regular once more.”