With just six games remaining on their regular season slate, it’s just a matter of time for the Indiana Pacers to officially miss the postseason for the third straight season. After all, the team remains 3.5 games away from a secured berth in the play-in tournament.
Barring a drastic turn of events, the Pacers will be headed to an early summer. However, before their campaign reaches its conclusion, the team should address a subtle, yet important motif that could have long-lasting effects if done wrong: Tyrese Haliburton’s nagging injuries.
Should the Indiana Pacers shut down Tyrese Haliburton for the rest of the season?
At this point, the Pacers are just playing to finish out a losing, yet solid campaign. As stated multiple times before, the franchise has to be future-oriented in all the steps they take as they start to crawl out of the stage of nesting in their rebuild.
That, of course, includes the safety of their players. For all the pizzazz that All-Star guard Tyrese Haliburton has injected into the franchise as their inarguable centerpiece, it makes a ton more sense to just give him a break with the team safely out of playoff contention.
Haliburton’s production since returning from elbow and ankle injuries that caused him to miss more than two weeks in January hasn’t really taken a hit, but he has missed eight of the last 13 games due to a right ankle sprain and soreness in his left elbow. Obviously, he hasn’t fully recovered from his injuries early in the year.
Hence, the wise move to make is for the Indiana Pacers to simply shut him down for the rest of the season. Not only will this give the team a lot more reason to just lose as much as possible for better draft positioning, but it will also give them a picture of how other players can rise to the plate. This can help the front office on ascertaining the status of their players as long-term pieces moving forward.