The Indiana Pacers find themselves on the doorstep of the NBA Finals for the first time in 25 years. On Dec. 8, the Pacers were 10-15 and regularly allowing more than 120 points per game to teams like Toronto, Miami, and Memphis.
How did we get here?
I would pinpoint April 22, 2025 – the date the annual anonymous NBA player survey hit the internet. Tyrese Haliburton was voted the most overrated player in the league by his peers. I can’t imagine a more embarrassing, humiliating, and frankly insulting designation. Fans and TV blowhards can say whatever nonsense and it shouldn’t stick. But when it’s other players talking this recklessly? Oof.
What drives this disrespect? Why are so many people – fans, pundits, and players – so reluctant to accept Haliburton as one of the league’s elite players?
He dropped to No. 12 in the eternally strange 2020 draft, when the COVID-19 pandemic prevented teams from conducting their normal scouting/interview/evaluation processes. All they had to go on was Haliburton’s dominant play at Iowa State and his funky, hitchy jumper that worked remarkably well. There is no point in relitigating this draft – several teams wish they had made different decisions – but it’s clear that not every team believed Haliburton’s game would translate to the NBA.
The Sacramento Kings, often victims of their own draft blunders, took a swing on him late in the lottery and it was clear right away that Haliburton’s game would, in fact, translate. If anything, his game fit in better alongside NBA spacing and athleticism than it did in college. Haliburton and De’Aaron Fox quickly established themselves as a funky, exciting, unorthodox young backcourt that could grow into a championship—
Hold on. Kings are about to Kangz.
Haliburton for Sabonis – a fascinating trade in the moment that led to the brief-but-thrilling “Light The Beam” Kings and brought some much-needed excitement to a perennially moribund Sacramento franchise. But there is a reason most teams are reluctant to trade an up-and-coming star for an expensive veteran with a hard ceiling. The Kings opted for short-term gains for long-term pain, and they’re feeling it now as they attempt to recreate the 2021 Chicago Bulls.
Meanwhile, Haliburton has quietly – or not-so-quietly, if you spend two seconds on his social media – turned himself into the evolutionary Steve Nash. People have been slow to make this comparison, given Nash’s beloved standing and his back-to-back MVPs, but this is how Haliburton plays. He combines Nash’s style/efficiency with Shawn Marion’s jumper mechanics and serves as the fulcrum for Rick Carlisle’s “controlled chaos” approach. The Pacers are relentless. Without Haliburton’s unselfishness and allergy to turnovers, it wouldn’t work.
What’s the secret ingredient here? Most pundits and prognosticators (myself included) did not see this coming. Haliburton generally doesn’t hear his name called when people talk about “championship centerpieces.” Clearly, he is, but he still isn’t seen that way. What are we missing?
Simple. It’s spite. Pure, unadulterated spite. Haliburton plays with an edge that can only be developed after years of slights and insults. He’s done nothing but produce at an elite level when healthy for the entire time he has been a prominent basketball talent. But between the draft slide, the unexpected trade, the reluctance to take the Pacers seriously, and that anonymous player survey, no other All-Star has been doubted this consistently.
Can you win a title out of spite? Michael Jordan won six of them. I’m not calling Haliburton MJ – not even close – but never underestimate the power of “I told you so.”
And 1’s:
• Basketball evolves. The game is constantly changing. The rules are different. NBA analysis needs to catch up. Oklahoma City defenders swarm and sell out against a team’s best player and are uniquely positioned to rotate to spot-up shooters and disrupt passing lanes.
There are legitimate basketball reasons why Nikola Jokic and Anthony Edwards don’t have the same space to maneuver like they do against other teams. Yet those legitimate basketball reasons don’t make for good social media content or talking-head soundbites. “Michael Jordan wouldn’t be held to–” just shut up. This is bad, boring, tired analysis. Minnesota didn’t drop Game 4 because Anthony Edwards “didn’t show up.” The Timberwolves scored 126 points. Oklahoma City had two (sometimes three) defenders in Edwards’ eyeline the entire game. Would the pundits have been happier to see Edwards shoot 6-24 and lose by 12 instead of 5-13 and lose by 2? What are we even talking about here?
There is almost no relationship between how the game is played in 2025 and how it was played in 1995 or 2005. The internet is full of beautiful, brilliant basketball analysis, but it is often drowned out in a sea of AI-generated slop, hot-take idiocy, and the loudest, most prominent voices in the basketball media landscape having truly no idea what they’re talking about.
• We are less than one month away from draft day. I’m sorry – that’s just too soon. If the NBA Finals goes seven games, it will end on June 22, three days prior to the draft. The league could own the summer if the draft took place in the middle of July and gave everyone a minute to breathe and celebrate the champs. What’s the point of cramming this all together?
