Inside the Rise of Tyrese Haliburton and His Mission to Lead the Pacers Back on Track

What’s got Tyrese Haliburton smiling like that? The Indiana Pacers guard is trying really, really hard not to do it as he poses for his first SLAM cover, but he can’t help it. At first it seems like he’s just in a good mood: he spent a week vacationing in the Bahamas with teammate Buddy Hield, then hit Tulum before jetting off to Los Angeles, where he’s been working out with trainer Drew Hanlen.

Then there’s the obvious: he’s into the moment and what we have in store for him at the shoot. A duffle bag full of mystery items to film an episode of “Bag Talk,” an oversized Pacers throwback jersey with a pair of Timberlands and more. Inside the gym, music is blasting through the speakers—it’s a mix of old school Drake and Disney Channel throwbacks like High School Musical (Tyrese, a huge HSM fan, can sing every word). His longtime girlfriend, Jade, and agency rep are here with us, too, and encourage him to just be himself while the camera snaps away.

Once he sits down to talk about his All-Star performance this season, that smile appears again. Actually, it’s more of a smirk now. Maybe he knows something that we don’t?

A few days from now, the news will drop that Haliburton is signing a five-year max extension worth $260 million, making him the face of the franchise.

“I’ve battled and clawed and fought my way to get to where I’m at,” he says. “Now criticism and all that stuff means nothing to me because when I was a kid, nobody would have cared enough to even give me criticism. So the fact that I get it now is pretty cool. I just love proving people wrong. I don’t know, I love negativity. I love seeing negativity on Twitter. I love hearing people say negative comments about my game. It always interests me. It could be somebody with, like, no followers, I just want to prove them wrong.”

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This is the same Tyrese Haliburton who was a three-star prospect in high school and, in his words, was expected to redshirt as a freshman at Iowa State. He went from there to becoming a lottery pick in the 2020 NBA Draft. After a mid-season trade last year sent him from Sacramento to Indiana, he’s now an All-Star and was the team’s leading scorer this past season.

While other people might not have seen the vision, Haliburton has always been in his own lane. It stems from his childhood. In elementary school, his guidance counselors would tell him to pick a career path that seemed more “realistic” when he would mention that he wanted to be in the NBA. For the sake of moving things forward, Haliburton would pick something else, but really, he was always thinking a step ahead about how to make it to the League. There’s even a video of a young Tyrese on the internet, rapping to Drake’s “The Motto.” In it, he sings, “How ya feel, how ya feel? 25, sitting on 25 mill.” Even little Tyrese knew what was up.

And like the flow Drake and Weezy carry in that song, Haliburton’s rise happened pretty quickly. In college, he thought he’d have a “good four-year career” at Iowa State but ended playing two seasons. There’s always been doubters, too, even when it comes to his shot-making ability, which he says has been critiqued since he was young. “It’s always just kind of been that way, but I’m just gonna be who I am at the end of the day. It’s helped me get here, so I must be doing something right.”

Now, in the city of Indianapolis, home to the Indy 500, Haliburton is bringing that same energy and speed to the Pacers’ offense. That’s just how he was taught to play the game—pushing the tempo, getting up and down at a rapid rate. “I feel like it’s contagious as well—good energy, and pace and all that stuff,” he says. “When we’re playing fast-paced like we do, I think everybody just falls in line.”

While the team showed flashes of promise this season, collectively and individually—Haliburton averaged 20.7 points and 10.4 points (both career highs), and big man Myles Turner hit new career marks with 18 points and 7.5 boards—there’s still room for improvement. Winning is Haliburton’s main priority right now.

“I haven’t had a winning season in, like, four years dating back to college, so that’s just where I want to get to,” he says, later adding: “There’s obviously a lot more for me to accomplish personally, but I want to win. I want to be playing on the biggest stage, and that’s the playoffs.”

Haliburton doesn’t hesitate to keep it real about how last season went. The Pacers finished with a 35-47 record, ranked 11th in the East, and he found it “frustrating” to have to deal with injuries knowing that his team needed him.

“I felt like if I’m healthy, the situation for us changes a little bit last year,” he says. “But you can’t control everything. You can only put so much energy into what you can’t control. I think the best advice I’ve ever received is just control what you can.”

He’s constantly thinking about what’s next, too, and what he can do better individually and as a leader on the team. “I’m obviously already thinking [about] next year,” he says. “Like, what do I have to do for us to get to where we want to be?”

This summer is all about getting stronger so that he can protect himself from injuries and be able to last throughout the season. He’s been lifting 4-5 times a week and sharpening his skills on the court with Hanlen, who noticed a major shift in his mindset over the years. “I would say mentality, just being more aggressive and more confident, and feeling like he is that guy that can lead a franchise.”

Then there’s his approach to the game. Hanlen first got connected to Haliburton, who was playing on the Kings at the time, through his agent, Dave Spahn. Back in January of 2022, the team was set to play Philadelphia, and Hanlen happened to be already be in town to work with Sixers’ superstar Joel Embiid when he agreed to meet Haliburton for dinner the night before at Del Friscos. The conversation quickly turned into Hanlen “pressing” his potential client on what he wanted to achieve. He’d ask him, How many times are you going to be an All-Star? How many times will you make All-NBA First Team?

“I’m just giving [Haliburton] a bunch of these gut-punching questions,” Hanlen recalls now. “Then I said, you know what? The biggest thing is you’re not gonna be able to do any of this stuff if you keep attempting—I think he was attempting like 11 shots a game at the time or something like that. I was like, it’s just not possible. The math ain’t math-ing.”

Then Hanlen offered Haliburton a challenge: “You wore number 14 in high school, so that’s the number. If you wanna work with me this summer, you have to shoot 14 field goal attempts tomorrow night against the Sixers. Otherwise, I’m not working with you.”

The next night, on January 29, Haliburton went out and scored a career-high 38 points on 11-19 field goal attempts. Not only had he accepted Hanlen’s challenge, but he had dominated. The two have worked together ever since and talk after every game. From Hanlen’s perspective, Haliburton has grown in every aspect of the word: from improving his footwork to his shot creation and being a more “dynamic scorer.” Last summer, Haliburton gained 12 pounds, he says, and has become stronger and able to play through more contact. But in terms of Haliburton’s unconventional playing style, Hanlen also just lets him rock.

“You don’t break things that aren’t broken,” he says, later adding: “We always try to just strengthen his strengths and we try to attack his weaknesses. There’s nothing that can hold him back from reaching the heights that we think he can get to [and] there’s no reason to take away the uniqueness and the creativity that allows him to be unconventional, but also so dynamic as a player.”

The 23-year-old doesn’t take himself too seriously, either. Basketball, he says, is a “child’s game,” and brings him back to memories of having a ball in his crib and playing video games. That’s the joy behind Haliburton’s ever-apparent smile when he’s out there on the hardwood. “When I’m playing basketball, it’s just fun,” he says. “It’s like I’m a kid again, you know? And that’s what I love about it. This isn’t a job for me. This is a passion of mine and something I really love to do.”

Playing against All-Stars like Darius Garland, who was drafted a year before him in 2019, is his idea of fun. “We’re good friends,” he says. “I think that’s important. We just really enjoy competing against each other. I see that being a thing for both of us moving forward.”

He’s also a fan of the WNBA and tunes in to as many games as he can, including a recent match-up between the Las Vegas Aces and the Indiana Fever. Haliburton, who live-tweeted his reaction to Chelsea Gray’s elite behind-the-back pass, was taking notes, too. “I wouldn’t even think to try something like that. I mean, maybe I would in the moment, but just on TV it looked crazy. I couldn’t believe that she did that.”

“I’m trying everything [she did],” he admits later. “CC [Gray] in the caption.”

It’s that energy that’s got Pacers fans excited. Even Indiana’s own Caitlin Cooper, who runs the Basketball, She Wrote blog on Patreon and once wrote about the team for Indy Cornrows, has noticed it around the city. The team had its first two sell-out games since February 8, 2020, according to the Indy Star. “I can tell you that you’re starting to sense a shift,” says Cooper. “I’ve talked to people who would have never talked to me about the Pacers before and they’re like, I gotta get on the ground floor of this. They’re building something special and that Tyrese Haliburton is a really entertaining guy to watch.”

The way Haliburton has shown love to Indiana is a sign of a promising future ahead. He’s invested in the city, hosting youth basketball camps and even going as far as to promote Cooper’s work and wear her t-shirt, “JUMP PASSES ARE GOOD NOW,” in the tunnel this year.

“I think that the best thing about Tyrese Haliburton—having him as your franchise player—was just, from the Pacers’ perspective, they’ve talked about the fact that there are murals painted on buildings of Reggie Miller and that they think that Tyrese can get to that level at some point,” says Cooper. “And the way that he’s embraced the city and what he means as a franchise star, you can believe that [they’re] going to get there.”

According to Hanlen, even his other clients have noticed that something is brewing in Indiana, with Tyrese at the forefront of it. “I work with a lot of other NBA players. Anytime somebody signs with the Pacers, the first thing that all my clients say is, Oh, Ty’s gonna get ’em paid. Ty’s gonna get ’em paid. He’s gonna make ’em look so much better than that player really is just because Ty makes the game so much easier for everybody around him. When you ask, what is his ceiling? I mean, he’s a guy that I think will be one of, if not the best point guards for the next, next decade and a guy that I think can be a floor general for a championship caliber team.”

Spahn, says they set goals before every season—last year, it was for Haliburton to average 20 and 10 and be an All-Star, which he did. Going into next season, they’re ready for him to amp it up and be All-NBA. “I don’t think there is a limit right now, I think he’s gonna be the best point guard in the League one day,” Spahn says. “And I think he’s gonna be the best point guard in the League for a long time. I think he’s that level of player and person.”

What’s most important is that Haliburton sees it within himself, too. While the accolades and accomplishments continue to pile up—the week after our shoot, it was announced that he’ll join the 2023 USA men’s national team for the FIBA World Cup this summer—Haliburton knows that in order to get the Pacers where they want to be, they’re going to have to work for it. Proving people wrong ain’t nothing new for him, but right now, Pacers fans are expecting bigger and better things. He’s on a mission to prove ’em right.

“I always say, There’s no secret to success. All the most successful people in the world, they just usually work harder than everybody else,” Haliburton says. “I just want to be the best that I can and squeeze every bit of God given ability that I have [out]. Squeeze it all out before I’m done playing.”