Revisiting the Pacers trade for Tyrese Haliburton: One year later

Currently, it’s February 11th, 2023, and the NBA Trade Deadline has just passed. While the Pacers didn’t really make that many moves (we got George Hill back) and fell short to pry OG Anunoby away from Toronto, we have seen a plethora of league-shattering moves, such as Kevin Durant heading to Phoenix, Kyrie Irving going to Dallas, and D’Angelo Russell on his way back to the Lakers. With all these moves being made, I’d like to harken back to last year’s deadline for a bit and revisit perhaps the second biggest move made last year, which was of course the trade that sent Tyrese Haliburton to the Indiana Pacers in exchange for Domantas Sabonis going to the Sacramento Kings. I’d like to talk about this trade for two reasons: one because this trade changed both Indiana’s and Sacramento’s fortunes for the foreseeable future, and two because Indiana didn’t make any notable moves at the deadline and I need to remind people that we can still make moves If need be.

The Trade:

Indiana got: Tyrese Haliburton, Buddy Hield, and Tristan Thompson

Sacramento got: Justin Holiday, Jeremy Lamb, Domantas Sabonis, and a 2023 2nd-round pick

So, the trade was a bit more than Haliburton for Sabonis straight up, Indiana also picked up Buddy Hield, who we’ll get to later, and Tristan Thompson, who played 4 games for Indiana and who you can now see as an analyst on ESPN sometimes!

In exchange for getting Haliburton and Hield, Indiana had to of course give up Sabonis, as well as valuable role players Jeremy Lamb and Justin Holiday, although if you look at the Woj tweet you’d think we had 2 Jeremy Lambs.

At first, the reaction to this trade was pretty strong, as people were praising Indiana and making fun of Sacramento for trading away their young, budding point guard.

However, it’s been a year since that trade, and some opinions have changed, for better or for worse. Let’s do a deep dive into this trade and look at the pros and cons of both teams, and ultimately find out who “won” the trade.

Side note: While Buddy Hield is an important part of this trade, I will mainly be focusing on Tyrese Haliburton’s impact on the team to make the comparison fairer since Sabonis has been the only player on Sacramento’s side that has really made an impact. So without further ado, let’s get started!!