Tyrese Haliburton
Tyrese Haliburton is the Indiana Pacers' All-Star point guard who led the NBA in assists and starred in the 2025 Finals before a torn Achilles.
Tyrese Haliburton is the Indiana Pacers point guard who turned a mid-lottery draft slot and a midseason trade into one of the NBA’s defining playmaking careers of the 2020s. A pass-first lead guard with a flat, quick-release jumper, he led the league in assists in 2023-24 and authored a run of clutch shotmaking that carried Indiana to the 2025 NBA Finals — a run that ended on the floor of Game 7 with a torn right Achilles tendon. Across five seasons he has averaged 17.5 points, 8.8 assists and 3.7 rebounds on 47.7% shooting, numbers that place him among the most efficient high-volume creators of his era.
| Vitals | |
|---|---|
| Born | February 29, 2000, Oshkosh, Wisconsin |
| Position | Point guard |
| Teams | Sacramento Kings (2020–2022), Indiana Pacers (2022–present) |
| Draft | 2020, Round 1, No. 12 overall (Sacramento Kings) |
| Contract | Signed through 2028-29 on a five-year rookie-max extension; listed out for 2025-26 (torn right Achilles) as of October 8, 2026 |
| Number | 0 |
Oshkosh to Ames
The slow burn. Haliburton arrived at Iowa State as a lightly recruited guard and spent two seasons proving the recruiting services wrong. As a freshman in 2018-19 he averaged 6.8 points and 3.6 assists on 51.5% shooting across 35 games, a role player whose feel outran his scoring. The sophomore leap in 2019-20 — 15.2 points, 6.5 assists and 5.9 rebounds on 50.4% from the field and 41.9% from three — reframed him as a lottery prospect. A wrist fracture in February 2020 ended his college career 22 games into that second season, but the efficiency and the unselfishness had already made their case.
Sacramento Kings
The arrival. Sacramento took Haliburton 12th in the 2020 NBA Draft, and he outplayed the slot immediately. He was named to the NBA All-Rookie First Team for 2020-21 after averaging 13.0 points and 5.3 assists, shooting 40.9% from three as a rookie. The following season he pushed his production to 14.3 points and 7.4 assists before the trade deadline, establishing himself as a starting-caliber lead guard.
The departure. On February 8, 2022, the Kings dealt Haliburton, Buddy Hield and Tristan Thompson to Indiana for Domantas Sabonis, Justin Holiday, Jeremy Lamb and a 2023 second-round pick. The move was framed in Sacramento as a bet on a proven big man; in Indiana it became the foundation of a franchise rebuild.
Indiana Pacers
The leap. Freed as the undisputed engine of Indiana’s offense, Haliburton’s assist numbers climbed every step of the way — 9.6 per game over his first 26 games as a Pacer in 2021-22, then 10.4 in 2022-23 and a league-best 10.9 in 2023-24. He made the NBA All-Star team in 2023 and 2024, earned All-NBA Third Team honors in both 2024 and 2025, and in July 2023 signed the richest contract in Pacers history: a five-year rookie-max extension with a base value of roughly $206 million that could rise up to $260 million through All-NBA escalators. His 2024 All-NBA selection triggered that escalator, lifting the deal’s reported value to roughly $245 million.
The playmaking identity. What set Haliburton apart was not raw volume but the ratio behind it — he paired his league-leading assist totals with low turnover counts, running a high-tempo offense that converted pace into open looks. In 2022-23 he averaged 20.7 points and 10.4 assists; a hamstring injury that season and nagging issues the following winter cost him games, but across 2023-24 he still finished first in the NBA in both assists per game (10.9) and total assists (752). In the summer of 2024 he was part of the United States team that won gold at the Paris Olympics.
The 2025 run
The ascent. Indiana entered the 2025 playoffs as a lower seed and left as Eastern Conference champions, with Haliburton supplying the signature moments. In the conference finals against New York, his Game 4 line of 32 points, 12 rebounds and 15 assists with zero turnovers was, per the box score, the first such playoff game in NBA history. In Game 1 of the Finals against Oklahoma City, he hit a go-ahead jumper with 0.3 seconds left to cap a furious rally and win 111-110.
The injury. The run ended in Game 7. Haliburton, who had played through a calf strain suffered in Game 5, went down with 4:55 remaining in the first quarter with what was confirmed as a torn right Achilles tendon; Oklahoma City won 103-91 and the title. He underwent surgery on June 23, 2025, at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. The Pacers confirmed he would miss the entire 2025-26 season to rehabilitate.
By the numbers
| Season | Team | GP | PTS | AST | REB | STL | FG% | 3P% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-21 | SAC | 58 | 13.0 | 5.3 | 3.0 | 1.3 | .472 | .409 |
| 2021-22 | SAC | 51 | 14.3 | 7.4 | 3.9 | 1.7 | .457 | .413 |
| 2021-22 | IND | 26 | 17.5 | 9.6 | 4.3 | 1.8 | .502 | .416 |
| 2022-23 | IND | 56 | 20.7 | 10.4 | 3.7 | 1.6 | .490 | .400 |
| 2023-24 | IND | 69 | 20.1 | 10.9 | 3.9 | 1.2 | .477 | .364 |
| 2024-25 | IND | 73 | 18.6 | 9.2 | 3.5 | 1.4 | .473 | .388 |
Per Basketball-Reference; Haliburton did not play in 2025-26.
Career totals
Ranks
- 1st Assists per game, NBA 2023-24 (10.9)
- 1st Total assists, NBA 2023-24 (752)
- 8th Player efficiency rating, NBA 2023-24
- 14th Win shares, NBA 2023-24
Honors
- 2× NBA All-Star (2023, 2024)
- 2024 Olympic gold medalist (Paris)
- 2024 NBA assists leader
- 2× All-NBA Third Team (2024, 2025)
- 2025 Eastern Conference champion
- 2021 NBA All-Rookie First Team
- 2019 FIBA U19 World Cup gold
Per Basketball-Reference and the 2023-24 NBA leaders, through the 2024-25 season.
The arguments
Elite engine, or product of pace? For much of his career Haliburton has been the subject of a valuation debate. Supporters point to the assist titles, the efficiency and the 2025 playoff run as proof of a top-tier offensive hub. Skeptics counter that his counting numbers are inflated by Indiana’s league-leading tempo and that his scoring dipped in several high-leverage stretches — a view that surfaced publicly in April 2025, when an anonymous NBA player poll published by The Athletic named Haliburton the league’s most overrated player with 14.4% of the vote, up from 3.4% in the prior year’s edition. His conference finals and Finals performances across May and June 2025 were widely read as a rebuttal, though the poll remains part of the record.
The max deal and availability. The second debate concerns durability against the backdrop of a contract worth up to $260 million. Haliburton missed roughly a quarter of the 2022-23 schedule and stretches of 2023-24 with leg injuries, and the torn Achilles suffered in Game 7 of the 2025 Finals ruled him out for all of 2025-26. One side frames the extension as fair value for a two-time All-Star and assists leader entering his prime; the other questions how a pass-and-pace guard recovers his explosiveness after a major Achilles surgery. Both readings rest on reporting; neither outcome was settled as of October 8, 2026.
Why it matters
Haliburton’s career is a study in how modern value is built — not on isolation scoring but on tempo, ball security and the willingness to make the simple pass thousands of times. He dragged a rebuilding Pacers roster to within a game of a championship and rewrote their record book on the way, and he did it while quietly leading the league in the game’s least glamorous counting stat. The torn Achilles turned his story into an open question about what comes next, but the body of work through the 2024-25 season already reads as one of the most productive playmaking stretches of his generation.