As Cleveland Cavaliers fans showered Indiana Pacers point guard Tyrese Haliburton with “overrated” chants at the free-throw line midway through Game 2 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series, Cavs star Donovan Mitchell attempted to quiet the crowd, as if he knew what the consequences could be.
This tells us all we need to know about how the NBA feels about Haliburton. Though he was voted as “the league’s most overrated player” by an anonymous panel of his peers, according to The Athletic, there is — and should be — real fear about what he is capable of doing to opponents, even the East’s No. 1 seed.
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True to form, Haliburton scored seven points in the final 84 seconds of Game 2, including a last-second, game-winning 3-pointer, to complete an improbable comeback and give his team a 2-0 lead in the series.
“Now that that label’s there, it’s going to be every time we play somebody,” Haliburton said in the aftermath of the chants. “Every time on the road it’ll probably follow me until the next poll comes out, and we’ll see if I’m No. 1 again, but for me I just control what I can, man, and, yeah, overrate that.”
It is important to note that only 13 respondents to The Athletic’s player poll actually voted Haliburton “overrated.” It could have been the entirety of the Milwaukee Bucks. As Indiana defeated the Bucks on its way to the inaugural NBA Cup championship game in 2023, Haliburton mocked Damian Lillard’s “Dame Time” celebration. He piled on as the Pacers eliminated Milwaukee in the first round of the 2024 playoffs.
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Lillard was a made man, a future Hall of Famer; Haliburton was not … yet.
Maybe the New York Knicks or Brooklyn Nets voted for Haliburton. They have also engaged in wars of words with Haliburton in recent seasons. While nobody has publicly explained exactly why a contingent of NBA players feels so negatively about Haliburton, Hall of Fame point guard Tim Hardaway Sr., whose son plays for the Detroit Pistons, may have offered the best explanation on the “Gil’s Arena” podcast.
“If I go back and put on my s*** and suit up, I wanna go f*** up Haliburton,” he said. “I wanna go f*** him up. He talks so much s***. I wanna go back and bust his motherf***ing a**. … He thinks he all that.”
Newsflash for Hardaway and his fellow haters: Haliburton might be all that. Quietly, at least in comparison to his personality, he is going about the business of scripting his own Hall of Fame legacy.
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Through five seasons, Haliburton has averaged 17.5 points (on 48/39/86 shooting splits), 9.2 assists, 3.5 rebounds and 2.1 combined steals and blocks in 33 minutes a game. The list of players who have averaged an 18-4-9 over the course of their careers: Oscar Robertson, Magic Johnson, Isiah Thomas, John Wall and Trae Young. And, believe it or not, Haliburton has been by far the most effective shooter of that bunch.
Should the Pacers make a second straight surprise run to the conference finals, Haliburton would join Robertson, Johnson and Thomas (three of our Point Gods) as the only ones among them to make it that far in the playoffs on multiple occasions. Only Robertson and Johnson did it in their first five seasons.
Haliburton has raised his game in the postseason, averaging an 18-6-11 — playoff numbers matched only by Magic. Granted, Haliburton is not on Magic’s level, but there also is no comparing their supporting casts. Pascal Siakam is Haliburton’s co-star. Everyone from Myles Turner to T.J. McConnell is a quality role player for the Pacers, but they are hardly Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Worthy and the Showtime Lakers.
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We have to start wondering what Haliburton would be capable of on a more dynamic team. The Pacers might be one piece away from more serious contention. As is, they are on the verge of upsetting a 64-win team in the second round. The team they beat in last year’s second round could be waiting for them in the conference finals, and from there? Who knows, especially given the injuries that are mounting.
When Haliburton has been on the floor in these playoffs, the Pacers have scored 121.4 points per 100 possessions — better than the league’s best offense this season and among the greatest offenses ever. They are even better in the clutch, scoring a ridiculous 1.58 points per possession in these playoffs. They were also among the most efficient crunch-time offenses in the regular season. Haliburton is the reason.
He sees the floor as well as anyone not named Nikola Jokić. His scoring efficiency forces defenses to make a choice: defend him 1-on-1, where he can beat anyone off the dribble, or help, allowing his playmaking to flourish. The ability to excel at both is often what unlocks the final stage of stardom.
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Haliburton has been targeted as a defender, and maybe that is another reason why some NBA players feel he is “overrated.” He has also struggled for extended stretches of the past two regular seasons. After looking like an MVP candidate for the first few months of last season, his averages dipped significantly following a hamstring strain. Same goes for the start of this season, as he faced mental health struggles.
It is probably no coincidence that those stretches sandwiched a disappointing individual effort at the Olympics and coincided with the vote for “the league’s most overrated player.” His performance ever since has taught us a different lesson: Tyrese Haliburton may be the NBA’s most underrated superstar.
This news was originally published on this post .
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