INDIANAPOLIS — Tyrese Haliburton closely follows basketball media in part because he’s already apart of it. The Pacers two-time All-Star point guard has a contributing commentator gig this season with NBA on Prime as he works his way through his torn right Achilles tendon. His elite-level basketball IQ makes him everyone’s favorite podcast guest, so there’s every reason to believe that whenever he retires, whatever networks are broadcasting the NBA at that point will line up to have him as a studio analyst.
So Haliburton took a particular interest in watching how national media reported on the Pacers during their NBA Finals run last season and how the coverage focused on narratives surrounding him — particularly the anonymous player poll conducted by The Athletic in which 13 of 90 players who answered called him the NBA’s most overrated player. To him, it afforded commentators a convenient out for a conversation topic, but the Pacers’ continual advancement forced them to talk about what they were actually doing to get as far as they did.
“Us winning was forcing the networks to have to talk about basketball,” Haliburton said in part 2 of his appearance on LeBron James’ Mind The Game podcast, released Tuesday. “And I know that’s hard sometimes for some people to talk about basketball. When we’re winning, you’re not talking about what my legacy is or (Pascal Siakam’s) legacy. You’re not talking about that, so you gotta talk about the game, because you’re talking about us. So they quickly shifted it to, how can we make this conversation, lame-ass conversation be about, ‘Is Tyrese Haliburton a superstar? Is he a superstar?‘ That was just so lazy to me.”
Haliburton suggested that the fact that conversation settled on such narratives means certain media types can’t converse on a high level about the game itself because the Pacers had a fascinating approach to playoff basketball that paid off.
“If y’all wanted to actually talk about hoop, you could talk about what our team is doing,” Haliburton said. “How we’re applying more full-court pressure. We’re proving that you don’t have to slow down in the playoffs to succeed. We’re doing all these things that you feel the need not to talk about because you want to run narratives. … I feel like that was the most fun part about that run because y’all gotta talk about hoop. You’re showing, I don’t know if you can necessarily talk hoop because you have to keep going that route.”
James said he was particularly bothered by the player poll on Haliburton’s behalf, especially because there were players who contributed to it.
“I know you don’t care, I don’t care, we use it as fuel,” James said. “But we have too many watchers of stat sheets. … Everything in the whole narrative of our game is getting a bucket and if he’s not a bucket getter, then he’s not great. He’s overrated, he ain’t a bucket-getter. But how about the fact that we’re 20 games over .500. We’re winning and when I’m on the court we’re in the plus. How about the fact that my teammates, when we’re on the court, they love what we bring to the table. I just think it’s just ridiculous sometimes.”
James complimented Haliburton further, saying that he elevated his profile as an NBA star dramatically even though he tore his Achilles tendon in Game 7 of the NBA Finals and the Pacers ultimately lost. Though Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander won the regular season and NBA Finals MVP awards, Haliburton was arguably the most captivating player in the playoffs as he hit either game-winning or -tying shots in dramatic comebacks in each of the Pacers four playoff series, including Game 1 against the Thunder. Plus, he played through a calf strain in the Finals knowing there was a possible it could lead to serious injury, which it eventually did.
“That was a big time run there,” James said. “You mentioned legacy and all that and changing the narrative of you or whatever the case may be with winning it. I think you did that even with y’all losing, too. The conversation coming out of that was, ‘Man, this guy gave it everything. His whole body. Everything. No matter how he felt coming into Game 6, how he felt coming out of Game 5, what he did for Game 7 putting his body on the line, to go through that moment at that time, bro, everything that you would’ve got with winning it, you got with losing. I hate the fact that it sounds that way, but the only thing you didn’t get was the ring. You didn’t get a ring, y’all didn’t get the trophy, but everything that you think you would’ve been able to capture winning it, you did it as well because of you going out there and putting your body on the line.”
Dustin Dopirak covers the Pacers all season. Get more coverage on IndyStarTV and with the Pacers Insider newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Why LeBron James thinks Tyrese Haliburton was called overrated by players
