Tyrese Haliburton has turned the Pacers into title contenders

The Pacers made the decision to trade Domantas Sabonis, Jeremy Lamb, and Justin Holiday for Tyrese Haliburton, Buddy Hield, and Tristan Thompson. Only Sabonis and Haliburton remain on each team. Those two were the centerpieces of the trade.

Haliburton has already done some great things for the Pacers in the short time that he's been in Indiana. Not only has he helped them accelerate the rebuild, he has made them title contenders. They just made the Eastern Conference Finals despite not being fully healthy.

Haliburton is a pass-first point guard who loves to get everyone else involved first. Indiana traded for him for that exact reason. He is the player that the Pacers decided to hand the keys to the franchise over to him. He's already been better than Indiana thought he was going to be.

The Pacers are now NBA title contenders thanks to Tyrese Haliburton

Indiana thinks that Haliburton can be the best player on a title team. Because he's a guard who can spread the ball around and make threes, he is the perfect candidate to be the best player on a title-winning team. He does have two things that he needs to work on though.

Haliburton has gotten hurt in both seasons that he's played with the Pacers. Last season, he suffered an ankle injury that de-railed Indiana's season. This season, it was a hamstring injury. He ended up re-aggravating that injury in the Eastern Conference Finals and missed the final two games of that series.

Haliburton needs to be available for the Pacers to be at their best. He has to do something to make sure that he is durable enough to play most of the season without a serious injury. That's one of the things that he needs to work on this offseason.

Defense is the biggest area of improvement he needs to have. Once he's able to become a better on-ball defender, this team will be a lot harder to beat in the playoffs.